XXIX 



INTRODUCTION 



'ested the 



final adjustment of French fishing rights within Newfoundland terr'I "^^"^ 



ofors 

 and Newfoundland waters, and noted their exact similarity with t. 



provisions of the American Treaty of 1783 and the Convention of 1818, 



it is necessary to examine American fishing rights within British and 



Newfoundland waters, in order to understand the nature and extent of 



those rights and the origin of the controversies submitted to arbitration 



in 1910. 



American Fishing Rights under the Treaty of 1783 



The fisheries question as an international controversy was acute 

 between Great Britain and the United States before the recognition of 

 the revolted colonies by the mother country. It was adjusted for the 

 moment, as it turned out, by the insistence of the United States that no 

 treaty of peace would be acceptable to the American negotiators which 

 did not recognize in the inhabitants of the United States a right to par- 

 ticipate in the fisheries upon substantially equal terms. The views of 

 the two countries were diametrically opposed, for the American Com- 

 missioners regarded the former colonies as entitled to share in the fish- 

 eries because colonial troops had participated in the conquest of Canada 

 and the definite acquisition by Great Britain of the French possessions 

 to the north of the United States, in which the fishery in question was 

 carried on. Great Britain, on the contrary, regarded the conquest of 

 the territorial waters in which fishing was carried on and the coasts or 

 portions of land, upon which the fish taken from the waters were dried 

 and cured, as a British conquest in which the colonists were permitted 

 to share by reason of the fact that they were British subjects. The 

 American claim was a claim of right based upon joint acquisition. The 

 British contention regarded the acquisition as a British conquest, and 

 the right to fish in the conquered regions as a privilege to be conceded 

 to or to be withheld from the Americans according to the pleasure of 

 the British Government. 



There can be no doubt that the part played by the colonies in the 

 conquest of Canada and its adjacent territory suppHed John Adams, as 

 representative of New England, with a strong moral argument for a 

 recognition of the right to fish within British territorial waters, but the 

 contention was, it would seem, historical and moral rather than legal in 

 its nature. 



It is equally clear that the knowledge of the part which the colo- 

 nists had taken in the conquest might lead the British negotiators to 

 consider a claim which in strict law they might beUeve to be unfounded. 

 The recognition of the claim, however, would depend upon the belief 



