CORRESPONDENCE 



I. Correspondence Relating to Convention of i8i8 



EXTRACT FROM INSTRUCTION, SECRETARY OF STATE MONROE TO MR. 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, UNITED STATES MINISTER AT 



LONDON, JULY 21, 1815 '■ 



Among the acts which we have to complain of with greatest earnestness is a late 

 warning given by the commander of a British sloop of war to our fishermen near the 

 coast of the British northern colonies to retire thence to the distance of twenty 

 leagues. This, it is presiuued, has been done under a construction of the late treaty 

 of peace, which, by being silent on the subject, left that important interest to rest 

 on the ground on which it was placed by the treaty of 1783. The right to the fisheries 

 required no new stipulation to support it. It was suf&ciently secured by the treaty 

 of 1783. This important subject will claim your early attention. The measure thus 

 promptly taken by the British Government, without any communication with this 

 Government, notwithstanding the declaration of oiu: Ministers at Ghent that our 

 right would not be affected by the silence of the treaty, indicates a spirit which excites 

 equal surprise and regret — one which by no means corresponds with the amicable 

 relations established between the two countries by that treaty, or with the spirit 

 with which it has been executed by the United States. 



As you are well acquainted with the solidity of our right to the fisheries in ques- 

 tion, as well as to those on the Grand Bank, and elsewhere on the main ocean, to the 

 limit of a marine league only from the coast, (for the pretension to remove us twenty 

 leagues is too absurd to be discussed), I shall not dilate on it, especially at this time. 

 It is sufficient to observe here, that the right of the United States to take fish on the 

 coast of Newfoundland, and on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of His Britannic 

 Majesty's dominions in America, and to dry and cure fish in any of the imsettled 

 bays, harbors, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador — in 

 short, that every right appertaining to the fisheries, which was secured by the treaty 

 of 1783, stands now as unshaken and perfect as it then did, constituting a vital part 

 of our political existence, and resting on the same solid foimdation as our independence 

 itself. In the act of dismemberment and partition, the rights of each party were 

 distinctly defined. So much of territory and incidental rights were allotted to one, 

 so much to the other; and as well might it be said, because our boundary had not 

 been retraced in the late treaty, in every part, that certain portions of our territory 

 had reverted to England, as that our right to fish, by whatever name secured, had 

 experienced that fate. A liberty of unlimited duration, thus secured, is as much a 

 right as if it had been stipulated by any other term. Being to be enjoyed by one, 

 adjoining the territory allotted by the partition to the other party, it seemed to be 

 the appropriate term. I have made these remarks to show the solid ground on which 

 this right is deemed to rest by this Government, relying on your thorough knowledge 

 of the subject to illustrate and support it in the most suitable manner. 



It can scarcely be presumed that the British Government, after the result of the 

 ' Appendix, U. S. Case, p. 263; Appendix, British Case, pp. 63-64. 

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