XXVI INTRODUCTION 



provjg British negotiators that its acceptance was either a prerequisite 

 su'the conclusion of peace or that the friendliness of the future rela- 

 tions of the two countries would be enhanced by a concession as a matter 

 of negotiation or compromise. The desire of the United States was to 

 secure the recognition of its independence by the mother country 

 and the most favorable concessions obtainable. The desire of Great 

 Britain was to conclude peace with the colonies by the least possible 

 sacrifice of imperial interests. The international situation, however, 

 was such as to force the hands of the British negotiators, for Great 

 Britain was not only at war with the United States, but with France, 

 Holland, and Spain, and the armed neutrality of 1780, generated by 

 the conduct of Great Britain toward neutral nations, complicated a 

 situation already difficult and rendered concession not merely necessary 

 but the part of wise statesmanship. The result was that Great Britain 

 consented to an article in the preliminary and in the definitive treaty of 

 peace of September 3, 1783 (Article III), which largely, if not wholly, 

 satisfied the American negotiators: 



"It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmo- 

 lested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank, and on all other banks 

 of Newfoundland; also in the Gulph of Saint Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea, 

 where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish. And also 

 that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind 

 on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use (but not to 

 dry and cure the same on that island) and also on the coasts, bays and creeks of aU 

 other of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America; and that the American fisher- 

 men shall have the liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbours 

 and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador, so long as the same shall 

 remain unsettled; but so soon as the same or either of them shall be settled, it shall 

 not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement, without a 

 previous agreement for that purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors or possessors 

 of the ground." ' (Article III.) 



An analysis of this article shows that the historical argument ad- 

 vanced by the American negotiators was not without effect upon the 

 British negotiators, for the first sentence is a specific and solemn recog- 

 nition of the fact that the colonists had in times past exercised the rights 

 of fishing and that notwithstanding the "partition of the empire" the 

 colonists, now become people of the United States, shall continue to 

 enjoy the right of fishery in the future. That is to say: 



i. "That the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the 

 right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank, and on all other banks of New- 

 foundland." 



' Appendix, U. S. Case, Vol. I, p. 24. Appendix, British Case, p. 12. j 



