26 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



statement of the pleadings of the parties in the controversy which 

 came to settlement in the treaty. And this letter was in the hands 

 of the negotiators on each side in the making of the treaty of 1818. 



So that there was a formal statement on the American side of 

 the view as to the relation of the parties under the treaty of 1818 

 as being the holders of the fishery "in common," and that was not 

 dissented from, but was the general view. 



If we turn to the British Counter-Case Appendix, at p. 71 we 

 find Mr. Oswald, the chief negotiator of the treaty of 1783 and the 

 preHminary treaty of 1782, writing to Mr. Townshend, his chief 

 in the Foreign Office of Great Britain, under date of the 2nd October, 

 1783, adding a postscript: 



"Drying fish in Newfoundland, I find, is to be claimed as a privilege in 

 common, we being allowed the same on their shores." 



And on p. 78 there is a note in a letter from Mr. Jay to Mr. 

 Livingston. Mr. Jay, you will remember, was one of the negotiators 

 on the American side in the Treaty of Peace of 1783, and he writes 

 home to Washington, under date of the 24th October, 1782, speak- 

 ing of a conversation with M. Rayneval, the French negotiator: 



"He inquired" (that is, M. Rayneval) "what we demanded as to the 

 fisheries. We answered that we insisted on enjoying a right in common to 

 them yrith Great Britain." 



That was Mr. Jay's conception of what was demanded and what 

 was received by the Americans in the treaty of 1783, corresponding 

 precisely to Mr. Adams' statement of it in his letter in 1816 to 

 Lord Bathurst. 



In the same British Counter-Case Appendix at p. no there is 

 a letter dated the 4th December, 1782, from Count de Vergennes 

 to M. de Rayneval. At the beginning of the very last line on 

 p. no, and running on to the top of p. in, it says: 



"The perusals of the preliminaries of the Americans will make you feel 

 how important it is that their concessions should be free from ambiguity in 

 respect to the exclusive exercise of our rights of fishing " — 



•the French right of fishing. He proceeds: 



"The Americans acquiring the right to fish in common with the English 

 fishermen, they should have no occasion or pretext for troubling us." 



