of repairing damages therein, or of purchasing wood, or of obtaining water, he is 

 bound to furnish evidence that all the members of his crew are inhabitants of the United 

 States. We cannot for a moment admit the existence of any such limitation upon our 

 Treaty rights. The liberty assured to us by the Treaty plainly includes the right to 

 use all the means customary or appropriate for fishing upon the sea, not only ships 

 and nets and boats, but crews to handle the ships and the nets and the boats. No 

 right to control or limit the means which Americans shall use in fishing can be admitted 

 unless it is provided in the terms of the Treaty, and no right to question the nationality 

 of the crews employed is contained in the terms of the Treaty. In 1818, and ever since, 

 it has been customary for the owners and masters of fishing-vessels to employ crews 

 of various nationalities. During all that period I am not able to discover that any 

 suggestion has ever been made of a right to scrutinize the nationality of the crews 

 employed in the vessels through which the Treaty right has been exercised. 



The language of the Treaty of 1818 was taken from the Illrd Article of the Treaty 

 of 1783. The Treaty made at the same time between Great Britain and France, the 

 previous Treaty of the loth February, 1763, between Great Britain and France, and 

 the Treaty of Utrecht of the nth April, 1713, in like manner contained a general grant 

 to ' the subjects of France" to take fish on the Treaty coast. During all that period 

 no suggestion, so far as I can learn, was ever made that Great Britain had a right to 

 inquire into the nationality of the members of the crew employed upon a French 

 vessel. 



Nearly two hundred years have passed during which the subjects of the French 

 King and the inhabitants of the United States have exercised fishing rights under 

 these grants made to them in these general terms, and during all that time there has 

 been an almost continuous discussion in which Great Britain and her Colonies have 

 endeavoured to restrict the right to the narrowest possible limits, without a suggestion 

 that the crews of vessels enjoying the right, or whose owners were enjojdng the right, 

 might not be employed in the customary way without regard to nationality. I can- 

 not suppose that it is now intended to raise such a question. 



I observe with satisfaction that the Memorandum assents to that part of my 

 second proposition to the effect that "an American vessel seeking to exercise the 

 Treaty right is not bound to obtain a license from the Government of Newfoundland," 

 and that His Majesty's Government agree that "no law of Newfoundland should be 

 enforced on American fishermen which is inconsistent with their rights under the 

 Convention." 



The views of His Majesty's Government, however, as to what laws of the Colony 

 of Newfoundland would be inconsistent with the Convention if applied to American 

 fishermen, differ radically from the view entertained by the Government of the United 

 States. According to the Memorandum, the inhabitants of the United States going 

 in their vessels upon the Treaty coast to exercise the Treaty right of fishing are bound 

 to enter and clear in the Newfoundland custom-houses, to pay light dues, even the 

 dues from which coasting and fishing-vessels owned and registered in the Colony are 

 exempt, to refrain altogether from fishing except at the rime and in the manner pre- 

 scribed by the Regulations of Newfoundland. The Colonial prohibition of fishing on 

 Sundays is mentioned by the Memorandum as one of the Regulations binding upon 

 the American fishermen. We are told that His Majesty's Government "hold that 

 the only ground on which the application of any provisions of Colonial law to American 

 vessels engaged in the fishery can be objected to is that it unreasonably interferes 

 with the American right of fishery." 



