Its Imperial Importance. 7 



" the liberty" of taking and curing fish on the coasts and in the 

 bays and creeks of all British possessions in North America as 

 long as the same remained unsettled. Their right " to enjoy 

 unmolested the fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland and at 

 all other places on the deep sea where the inhabitants of both 

 countries used at any time previously to fii^h," was explicitly 

 acknowledged in the third article of the same treat3% which was 

 signed at Paris on September 3, 1788. During the years which 

 elapsed between the signing of this treaty and the breaking 

 out of the war of 1S12, the British population increased along 

 the shores of the bays and creeks of Nova Scotia and New 

 Brunswick, and their interest in the fisheries, enjoyed in com- 

 mon with the Americans, became very much greater. When 

 the war came to a close the question of the fisheries was revived, 

 and Great Britain at once, in accordance with the rules of inter- 

 national law, considered that any " liberty " formerly extended 

 to the United States had naturally terminated, and refused, in 

 obedience to the demands of the British population now largely 

 engaged in the fisheries, to grant to the Americans "gratui- 

 tously" the privileges they formerly enjoyed "of fishing within 

 the limits of British territory or of using the shores of the 

 British territories for purposes connected with the fisheries/' 

 At the same time they very properly refused to consider the 

 remarkable claim set tfp by the United States Government, of 

 "an immemorial and prescriptive right to the fisheries." It is 

 hardly necessary to observe that any rights enjoyed by the 

 people of the old colonies in common with other British subjects 

 ceased in those countries or waters which were still British pos- 

 sessions when the former became independent. When no under- 

 standinoj could be reached durino^ the negotiations which ended 

 with the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, on account of the untenable 

 claims set up by the American Commissioner, Great Britain 

 instructed the officers of her fleet stationed in British American 

 waters not to interfere with American vessels on the Newfound- 

 land banks, or in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or on the high seas, 

 but to exclude them from the harbours, bays, and creeks of all 

 His Majesty's possessions. Several American vessels were sub- 

 sequently captured for trespassing in British waters, and the 

 Government of the United States was at last forced to come to 

 an amicable arrangement on a question which might at any 

 moment lead to a serious international difficulty. The issue was 

 the Convention signed by England and the United States on 

 October 20, 1818, in which the rights of these two nations were 

 clearly defined. By the first article of that treaty it was agreed 

 that the inhabitants of the United States should have for ever, 

 in common with British subjects, the liberty to take and euro 



