INTRODUCTION ki 



treaty a declaration or modus vivendi, employed tlie term "liberty," 

 and the rights as recognized by the Treaty of Versailles were confirmed 

 by the treaties of 1814 and 1815, which put an end to the Napoleonic 

 Wars and restored the status of 1792 as respects French fishing within 

 Newfoundland and its waters. It will be remembered that the definitive 

 treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States was signed 

 at Paris on September 3, 1783, the exact date of the treaty between 

 France and Great Britain, terminating the war between these two coun? 

 tries, and the fishing article of the American Treaty described the right of 

 the people of the United States to participate in the Newfoundland fish- 

 eries in identical terms with the wholly contemporaneous and related 

 Treaty of Versailles of 1783 between Great Britain and France. It would 

 seem, therefore, that whatever the origin of the right or hberty, the right 

 actually granted or secured was identical, because the language was the 

 same and the interpretation of identical legal terms should be identical. 

 If France possessed the right to catch, dry, and cure fish within cer- 

 tain portions of Newfoundland jurisdiction without local regulation, it 

 would seem that the United States should likewise possess and should 

 have enjoyed the right to take, dry, and cure fish within the specified 

 portions of British jurisdiction in North America without local regula- 

 tion. If the right actually secured to France was difierent, or of a dif- 

 ferent nature, a difference of terms would be justified. It is, therefore, 

 necessary to consider whether such is the case. France maintained with 

 great persistency that the right granted to it was exclusive. If so, the 

 fishery became, as far as France was concerned, a French fishery, and its 

 regulations devolved upon France, not upon Great Britain. The Brit- 

 ish Government, on the other hand, always maintained that the French 

 right was not exclusive, but concurrent, and that even if the French 

 right was or was not exclusive during the summer season (approximately 

 five months of the year), British subjects undoubtedly possessed the 

 exclusive right to fish during the winter season (approximately seven 

 months). Great Britain may well have claimed the right to regulate 

 the French fishery during the summer season in order to preserve 

 undoubted British rights during the winter. There is, however, no evi- 

 dence of the successful assertion of this claim to be found in the records 

 dealing with the subject. 



The Declaration of 1783 is often quoted as recognizing the exclusive 

 nature of the French right, but its very name indicates that it is not a 

 creation, but a declaration of an existent right, and the nature^and meas- 

 ure of that right are specifically stated to be the fishing clause in the Treaty 

 of Utrecht. France, somewhat victorious in the war concluded by the 



