70 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



pretension whatever to share in them.'* In vain the United States urged 

 that the colonies, almost exclusively, had improved the coast-fisheries, 

 and considered that immemorial and sole improvement was practical 

 acquisition. In vain they insisted that New England men, and New 

 England money, and New England brains had effected the first con- 

 qnest of Cape Breton, and were powerful aids to the subsequent con- 

 quest of Nova Scotia and Canada, and hence they had acquired at least 

 a perpetual joint propriety. To their arguments Vergennes replied that 

 the conquests were made not for the colonies but for the crown, and 

 when New England dissolved its allegiance to that crown she renounced 

 her right to the coast-fisheries. In the end the United States were 

 obliged to succumb ; they had asked aid from foreign powers, and they 

 must yield so far as was practicable to the demands those powers made. 

 These concessions were a portion of the price of independence. 



A committee t was appointed by Congress to definitely arrange upon 

 what terms the future treaty of peace with England should be finally 

 consummated, and in February, 1779, they reported that Spain mani- 

 fested a disposition to form an alliance with the United States, hence 

 independence was an eventual certainty. On the question of fishing 

 they reported that the right should belong properly to the United States, 

 France, and Great Britain in common. This portion of the report was 

 long under discussion in Congress, and it was finally voted that the 

 common right of the United States to fish "on the coasts, bays, and 

 banks of Newfoundland and Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Straits of 

 Labrador, and Belleisle should in no case be given up." $ Under a vote 

 to reconsider this subject on the 24th of March, Bichard Henry Lee 

 proposed that the United States should have the same rights which they 

 enjoyed when subject to Great Britain, which proposition was carried 

 by the votes of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the four New England 

 States, New York and the Southern States opposing. New York, under 

 the leadership of Jay and Morris, peremptorily declined to insist on this 

 right by treaty, and Morris moved that independence should be the sole 

 condition of peace. This was declared out of order by the votes of the 

 New England States, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, against the unani- 

 mous vote of New York, Maryland, and North Carolina; Delaware, 

 Virginia, and South Carolina being equally divided. 



But France had a vital interest in this matter, and the French minis- 

 ter interposed his influence, and on the 27th of May Congress returned 

 to its original resolve, " that in no case, by any treaty of peace, should 

 the common right of fishing be given up." 



On the 19th of June the equanimity of the French minister was sud- 

 denly and rudely disturbed by Elbridge Gerry, who, being from Marble- 



* Bancroft's U. S., x, pp. 210-11. 



tGouverueur Morris, of New York ; Burke, of North Carolina; Witberspooo, of New- 

 Jersey ; Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts ; and Smith, of Virginia. (Bancroft's U. S., 

 x, p. 213.) 



t Bancroft's U. S., x, p. 213. 



