THE FISHERIES. 239 
eight sovereign States, namely, Italy, Switzerland, 
Brazil, Sweden and Norway, Spain, Austria and 
Hungary, Great Britain, and the United States. 
PROBABLE AMOUNT OF INDEMNITY. 
The peculiarity of the arrangement, we see, is that 
the United States are to make compensation to Great 
Britain for any excess in value of the privileges of 
fishery accorded to the United States above those 
accorded to Great Britain. One party asserts, the 
other denies, such excess of value. 
This question involves examination of facts, but it 
also suggests inquiry of right. 
What are*the privileges which the United States 
acquire under Article XVIII. of the Treaty of Wash- 
ington? Certainly not any which they possessed al- 
ready. | 
Now, in virtue of subsisting stipulations of the 
Treaty of 1818, we possessed the recognized right of 
fishery along the coasts, and in the bays, harbors, and 
creeks of British North America, subject, in so far as 
regards the present question, only to the renunciation 
which we made in that treaty of the liberty previ- 
ously enjoyed or claimed, to take, dry, or cure fish on 
or within three marine miles of the coasts, bays, 
creeks, or harbors of certain defined parts of the 
shores of British America. The Treaty of Washing- 
ton removes this limitation. Hereafter we are to 
fish on the sea-coasts and shores, and in the bays, 
harbors, and creeks, previously subject to limitation 
of three marine miles, “without being restricted to 
