INTRODUCTION xxxv 



Britannic Majesty's dominions in America not included within the 

 specified limits; 



5. American fishermen are granted permission to enter bays or har- 

 bors of the non- treaty coast for certain definite purposes; namely, for 

 shelter, for repairing damage, for purchasing wood, or for obtaining water; 



6. The permission to enter bays or harbors on the non-treaty coasts 

 for the purposes last specified are to be subject to restrictions to prevent 

 the taking, drying, or curing of fish therein or the abuse in any way of 

 the specified privileges. 



Each division into which the article of the convention naturally falls 

 will be examined in order and somewhat in detail. The preamble states 

 in general that differences had arisen respecting the liberty claimed by the 

 United States for its inhabitants to take, dry, and cure fish, but does not 

 specify in detail the origin of the differences, their nature or their serious- 

 ness. The underlying cause of the differences lay in the effect of the 

 War of 181 2 upon the liberties secured to the United States by the third 

 article of the Treaty of 1783, the United States maintaining that the 

 treaty in question was merely suspended during the continuance of the 

 war, but that it revived ex propria vigor e at its termination; Great Britain 

 insisting as strenuously that the War of 181 2 annulled the liberty, so that 

 the conclusion of the war, while it restored the peaceful relations of the 

 two countries, did not reinstate the commercial privileges of the treaty. 

 The commissioners for the negotiation of the Treaty of Ghent were un- 

 able to reach an agreement regarding the fisheries, and the question was 

 adjourned to a more auspicious occasion. This difference of opinion was 

 fundamental and irreconcilable, because of the American contention 

 that the War of 181 2 had no effect upon the liberty of fishing secured 

 by the Treaty of 1783, and that any interference was therefore illegal 

 on the part of Great Britain. If, on the other hand, the British con- 

 tention was correct, American fishermen as such would have had no right 

 after the war to take, dry, or cure fish within British possessions, and in 

 the absence of a general or special permission could be treated as 

 trespassers. The difference therefore went to the existence of the liberty, 

 not merely to the method or the place of its exercise. 



In the next place the British Government objected to the competition 

 of American fishermen. In the note of Lord Bathurst, dated October 30, 

 1815, to Mr. John Quincy Adams, then Minister of the United States to 

 Great Britain, His Lordship pointed out that: 



"... although they were compelled to resist the claim of the 

 United States, when thus brought forward as a question of right, they 

 feel every disposition to afford to the citizens of those States, all the 



