cxxvi INTRODUCTION 



clause was proposed and insisted upon by the American negotiators in 

 order 



"that it might expressly appear, that our renunciation was limited to three miles 

 from the coasts. This last point we deemed of the more consequence from our 

 fishermen having informed us, that the whole fishing ground on the coast of Nova 

 Scotia, extended to a greater distance than three miles from land; whereas, along 

 the coasts of Labrador it was almost universally close in with the shore." ^ 



It will be observed that the right to fish within the territorial waters 

 of Labrador was obtained by the American negotiators as a part of the 

 treaty coast. Consulted in 1853 by Mr. Marcy, then Secretary of 

 State, Mr. Rush stated in positive and unequivocal terms that the renun- 

 ciation clause did not exclude American fishermen from the larger bodies 

 of water of His Britannic Majesty's dominions and that the British 

 understanding at the time of the negotiation of the Convention of 1818 

 was the same as the American. In this very important document Mr. 

 Rush quotes from the letters which he had received from his countrymen 

 in the early part of the year 1818 regarding the fishery and states that 

 he was fully aware of the circumstances and negotiations leading up to 

 the conclusion of the convention. 



'Forewarned by information of this nature and much more not now in my 

 possession," Mr. Rush writes in 1853 to Secretary Marcy, " it ought not to be 

 lightly supposed that the negotiators of the Convention would sign away the right 

 of entering the fishing grounds in any of the large outer bays or gulfs. It would 

 have been a blow upon all the fishermen of New England. It would have been to 

 forget the whole spirit and object of our instructions; to disregard the information 

 which in part dictated them; and to yield up or endanger great public interests, 

 naval and national. The Senate of the United States could never have ratified 

 such a convention." 2 



In another passage he says: 



"The negotiators of that convention had before them therefore, supposing they 

 could have been negligent themselves, the prospect of rebuke from their government 

 if, by the use of incautious words, or omission of apt ones, they became the means of 

 depriving American fishermen of the right to resort to any bay off that coast and take 

 fish at pleasure. There was, in fact, but the single exception you mention : they were 

 not to go within three miles from the shore, which would barely imply of course a 

 width of over six miles at the entrance of such bays. You will gather from this 

 remark that, as the surviving negotiator of the convention, I coincide in the con- 

 struction of its first article which our government puts upon it." ' 



Again: 



"In signing it, we believed that we retained the right of fishing in the sea, whether 



• Appendix, U. S. Case, Vol. I, p. 323. « Appendix, U. S. Case, Vol. I, p. 552. 



' Appendix, U. S. Case, Vol. I, p. 550. 



