INTRODUCTION cxix 



Passing from the unratified Treaty of 1806 and the ineffectual attempt 

 of the United States to extend the maritime jurisdiction of Great Britain 

 as well as of the United States to bodies of water beyond the ordinary 

 three mile limit, the statements of British statesmen, made between 1814 

 and 1818, are quoted as showing their opinion that as between Great 

 Britain and the United States the maritime jurisdiction of Great Britain 

 did not extend beyond a marine league from the shores. 



In an interview between John Quincy Adams and Lord Bathurst, as 

 recorded by the former, in an official dispatch to Mr. Monroe, then Secre- 

 tary of State, Lord Bathurst is reported as saying that 



"as, on the one hand, Great Britain could not permit the vessels of the United 

 States to fish within the creeks and close upon the shores of the British territories, 

 so, on the other hand, it was by no means her intention to interrupt them in fish- 

 ing anywhere in the open sea, or withaui the territorial jurisdiction, a marine league 

 from the shore." ^ 



Mr. Adams properly deemed the matter of very great importance 

 and in a note dated September 25, 1815, addressed to Lord Bathurst, 

 he referred to the interview and Lord Bathurst's statement in the follow- 

 ing passage: 



"Your lordship did also express it as the intention of the British Government to 

 exclude the fishing vessels of the United States, hereafter, from the liberty of fishing 

 within one marine league of the shores of all the British territories in North America, 

 and from that of drying and curing their fish on the unsettled parts of those territories." ' 



It is important to know that Lord Bathurst, in his reply dated 

 October 30, 1815, took no exception to this language and, while offering 

 to make a modified grant of the liberty, stated that 



" It was not of fair competition that His Majesty's Government had reason to 

 complain, but of the preoccupation of British harbors and creeks, in North America, 

 by the fishing vessels of the United States, and the forcible exclusion of British 

 vessels from places where the fishery might be most advantageously conducted."' 



Lord Bathurst, it would appear, had in mind the competition and 

 inconvenience occasioned by the presence of American vessels within 

 coastal waters close on shore. In the interview stated as taking place 

 between Mr. Adams and Lord Bathurst, and which was reported in 

 Mr. Adams' dispatch to Mr. Monroe, Lord Bathurst said that he 

 had recently sent instructions to Mr. Baker, at that time in charge of 

 the British Legation at Washington, and in reply to Mr. Adams' request 



' Mr. Adams to Mr. Monroe, September 19, 1815. {Appendix, p. 396; Appendix, U. S. 

 Case, pp. 264-265; Appendix, British Case, pp. 64-66.) 



^Mr. Adams to Lord Bathurst, September 25, 1815. (Appendix, U. S. Case, p. 268; 

 Appendix, British Case, p. 66.) 



' Lord Bathurst to Mr. Adams, October 30, 1815. {Appendix, sgg; Appendix, British 

 Case, pp. 69-72; Appendix, U. S. Case, p. 273-) 



