cxvi INTRODUCTION 



The North Atlantic fisheries are regulated by Article III of the 

 Treaty of 1783, and it is important to note that the article consists of 

 two sentences, the first confirming the right of American citizens to con- 

 tinue to fish upon the high seas adjoining the British possessions, whereas 

 the second sentence of the article deals with those portions of the British 

 dominions in America in which American fishermen would not have the 

 right to take, dry, or cure fish without an express grant or a confirmation 

 of a right previously enjoyed as British subjects. 



In the first sentence Great Britain agreed 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 the other Banks of New- 

 foundland, also in the Gulph of St. Lawrence, and at all other places in 

 the sea where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time hereto- 

 fore to fish." That is to say. Great Britain formally recognized the right 

 of Americans to fish in the high seas. It cannot be said that the United 

 States needed an acknowledgment of this right, because, as an independ- 

 ent member of the family of nations, it possessed it independently of 

 grant or recognition, but as France and Spain had by treaty contracted 

 away certain of their rights in the specified waters the formal recognition 

 of the right was a matter of some consequence. The right as recognized 

 exists at the present day and Great Britain has always admitted that 

 this clause of the treaty article of 1783 has been unaffected by subse- 

 quent war between the two countries. 



The second sentence is a grant in the technical sense of the word, 

 additional to the right recognized as continuous in the first sentence. 

 Repeating the introduction, it is also agreed 



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

 every kind on such Part of the Coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall 

 use (but not to dry or cure the same on that Island), and also on the Coasts, Bays 

 and Creeks of all other of His Britannic Majesty's Dominions in America, and that 

 the American Fishermen shall have liberty to dry and cure Fish in any of the 

 unsettled Bays, Harbours and Creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Island, and Labra- 

 dor, 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." 



It is important to note that in the first sentence the word "right" is used 

 and that the continuance of the right is recognized. There is no grant, 

 whereas the second sentence is a grant; namely, the grant of a Uberty 

 to take, dry, and cure fish. The difference in language between these 

 two sections was not accidental. The negotiations of the Treaty of 

 1783 show that the expression "liberty" was used in the second sentence 



