194 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



of State for Foreign Affairs of Great Britain, writes to Mr. Cramp- 

 ton, the British Minister in Washington, in regard to the circular 

 or proclamation or public notice which the Tribimal will remember 

 came from Mr. Webster at the time that the controversy about 

 bays was at its height. Lord Mahnesbury states for Mr. Cramp- 

 ton's benefit the views of the British Goverrm^ent regarding the 

 rights laid down in the treaty of 1818. Beginning at the middle 

 of p. 519, I read: 



"The rights are laid down in the treaty of 1818, as quoted by Mr. Webster; 

 that is, undoubted and unlimited privileges of fishing in certain places were 

 thereby given by Great Britain to the inhabitants of the United States; and the 

 government of the United States, on their part, renounced forever any liberty 

 previously enjoyed or claimed by its citizens to fish within three marine miles 

 of any other of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of the British dominions." 



The Tribrmal will perceive that it is quite plain that the Foreign 

 Office of Great Britain at that time took the same view regarding 

 the American right that I am taking here. He says: 



"That is, undoubted and unUmited privileges of fishing . . . were given." 



That is in contrast to what he goes on to say about the bays, 

 and seems to leave no doubt as to what the view of Great Britain 

 then was. 



The following year, on the 28th September, 1853, t^^ Governor 

 of Newfoundland wrote to Lord Newcastle a letter, which appears 

 in the United States Counter-Case Appendix at p. 247. This letter 

 is discussing the history of the fishery with reference both to French 

 and American rights, and it appears that the making of a treaty 

 which ultimately resulted in the Convention of 1854 was mooted; 

 and he says to the Colonial Office: 



"In any new convention that may be made," — 

 that is, with France — 



"it should be a sine qua non, if the Sale of Bait is made a stipulation, that 

 the right of purchase must be subject to such regulations as may be made 

 by the Local Legislature for the protection of the breeding and the preserva- 

 tion of the bait; regulations that are now imperatively demanded, and with- 

 out which the Bait in our Southern Bays will in time be exterminated. As 

 regards the effect upon this part of the question of embracing Newfoundland 

 in any Treaty of Reciprocity between the North American Colonies and the 



