xxxvm INTRODUCTION 



without injury to British interests. The United States expected a modi- 

 fication of the limits and was prepared to accept it, but insisted that the 

 liberty granted, whatever its extent, should be perpetual. The basis 

 for a compromise was thus laid. In consideration of a lesser extent of 

 British jurisdiction within which the fishing might be prosecuted. Great 

 Britain was willing to make the Hberty perpetual, and in consideration 

 of the fact that the liberty secured by the convention was to be perpetual, 

 the United States was willing to consent to a modification of the terri- 

 torial limits within which its inhabitants could take, dry, and cure fish. 



Lord Bathurst's note to Mr. Adams laid particular stress upon "the 

 forcible exclusion of the British vessels from places where the fishery 

 might be most advantageously conducted," and it is safe to assume that 

 Great Britain would not consent to any treaty stipulations which did not 

 remove the possibility of exclusion of the British vessels from the fish- 

 ing grounds. Lord Bathurst intimates that British subjects had been 

 injured not merely by the "preoccupation" of British harbors and 

 creeks, which was, in his opinion, unfair competition, but that they had 

 actually been excluded therefrom. Great Britain had had a long and 

 disagreeable experience with France, which claimed an exclusive right in 

 fact as well as in law to fish upon the French shore, and it would seem 

 that Great Britain, wishing to prevent like disputes with American fish- 

 ermen, regarded the insertion of a clause negativing any such conten- 

 tion as of very considerable importance. Its commissioners, therefore, 

 proposed that the liberty to be enjoyed by the United States forever 

 should be "in common with the subjects of His Britannic Majesty." 

 This would seem to be the natural explanation of the phrase "in 

 common," and it is the interpretation which the American Govern- 

 ment has placed upon it. It should be said, however, that Great 

 Britain has uniformly regarded the words "in common" as implying 

 subjection of American fishermen to general regulation with British 

 subjects; that is, as defining the nature and extent of the liberty, not 

 merely as negativing exclusion. 



After having ascertained the understanding of the contracting 

 parties — namely, that the hberty secured should be perpetual and that 

 it should be in common with the subjects of His Britannic Majesty — the 

 article next defines the regions in which American fishermen might take 

 fish. In the first place the Hberty was to take fish of every kind just 

 as in the Treaty of 1783, but the limits within which the liberty was to 

 be exercised were much less extensive than in the Treaty of 1783. In 

 that treaty the inhabitants of the United States were confined to "such 

 part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use," — 



