cxxiv INTRODUCTION 



belong to them, they should enjoy the privilege of having an adequate accommodation 

 both in point of harbours and drying ground on the unsettled coasts within the British 

 Sovereignty. It has been the endeavour of His Majesty's Government to assign this 

 accommodation with sufi&cient liberality, without abandoning that control within the 

 entire of their own harbours and coasts, which the essential interests and the principles 

 of their Colonial system require."' 



Lord Castlereagh then authorizes Mr. Bagot to propose what he 

 believed to be an adequate fishing ground upon 



"their distinctly agreeing to confine themselves to the unsettled parts of the coast 

 so assigned, abandoning all pretensions to fish or dry within our maritime jimits 

 on any other of the coasts of British North America."' 



Mr. Bagot's proposal was declined by Mr. Monroe. In a letter 

 dated May 7, 1817, from Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Adams, His Lordship, 

 expressing regret at the failure of the negotiations, refers to Mr. Bagot 

 as having been authorized to arrange "the manner in which American 

 citizens might be permitted to carry on the fisheries within the British 

 limits." 3 



It would thus appear that in the instructions dealing with the fisheries 

 addressed to the British commissioners at Ghent, in the various notes 

 exchanged between Lord Bathurst and Mr. Adams, in the Baker letter, 

 in Lord Castlereagh's instructions to Mr. Bagot, and in Mr. Bagot's 

 official ofier to Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, the right of Ameri- 

 can fishermen to take and dry fish within the exclusive jurisdiction of 

 Great Britain was elaborately and exhaustively discussed and that the 

 limit of the exclusive British jurisdiction, until it should be changed by 

 mutual agreement, was invariably laid down as a maritime league or 

 three miles. 



When it is recalled that these various communications were deliv- 

 ered to both the American and British commissioners in negotiating 

 the Convention of 1818, the conclusion would seem to be that the Ameri- 

 can commissioners were animated by the desire to obtain a recognition 

 of the liberty to fish within the exclusive jurisdiction of Great Britain, 

 which liberty they obtained in part, and that the British negotiators 

 were animated by the desire to exclude the American fishermen from the 

 waters close upon the shores; that is to say, three miles from waters 

 under British sovereignty — a purpose which they achieved in part by 

 the renunciatory clause. 



It is important to bear in mind in this connection the rejection of the 

 American proposal made in 1806 and repeated in a modified form m 1818, 

 to extend the jurisdiction of the contracting parties within the "chambers 



• Appendix, British Counter Case, p. 176. ' Appendix, British Counter Case, p. 176. 



' Appendix, U. S. Case, Vol. I, p. 295. 



