3o8 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



a new grant, and of placing the permanence of the rights secured and of those 

 renounced precisely on the same footing. 2d. Of its being expressly stated 

 that our renimciation extended only to the distance of three miles from the 

 coasts." 



And the Tribunal will perceive that they had been taking the 

 British Government at its word. They had there this letter of 

 Lord Bathurst to Mr. Baker; both sides had it. And the Tribunal 

 has here the evidence that the American Commissioners under- 

 stood it as I have been presenting it to the Tribunal, of its being 

 expressly stated that our renunciation extended only to the distance 

 of 3 miles from the coast: 



"This last point was the more important, as, with the exception of the 

 fishery in open boats within certain harbors; it appeared, from the communi- 

 cations above mentioned, that the fishing-ground, on the whole coast of Nova 

 Scotia, is more than three miles from the shores; whilst, on the contrary, 

 it is almost imiversally close to the shore on the coasts of Labrador." 



There the Tribunal will see they use the word "coasts" 

 and "shores" convertibly, and they understand the declaration 

 of the government of Great Britain to Mr. Baker, which 

 draws the Hne between the first and the second parts of the 

 treaty of 1783, the line between the rights that continued and 

 the rights that ended, to be drawing the hne at 3 marine miles 

 from the coast, using that as eqtiivalent to 3 marine miles from 

 the shore. 



We are now in a position to understand that there was no incon- 

 sistency at all in what Lord Bathurst told Mr. Adams about the 

 Baker letter. The first interpretation of the Baker letter that we 

 have is in Mr. Adams' report of his conversation with Lord Bathurst 

 immediately after the letter was written. It is to be found in the 

 United States Appendix, at p. 265. Mr. Adams is writing to his 

 chief, Mr. Monroe, the Secretary of State, under date of the 19th 

 September, 181 5. Of course Mr. Adams had made the complaint 

 about the "Jaseur" incident, and he was anxious to know what 

 the British Goverrmient had done about it, and he went to Lord 

 Bathurst to learn, and was told that Lord Bathurst had sent an 

 instruction to the British representative in Washington, Mr. Baker, 



and he asked him what it was. I read from about two-thirds down 



I 

 the p. 265: 



