include a recognition of the power to create fresh rights from the provisions of an earlier treaty after a war has intervened. Again, many treaties contain provisions relating to conduct during hostilities which would be meaningless were they supposed to lapse with a declaration of war. Special privileges and arrangements, on the other hand, are commonly understood so to lapse. In discussing this problem, Adams was particularly anxious to obtain recognition of the rights and privileges accorded to American fishermen on the coast of British America by the treaty of 1783. The British held that these clauses had ceased to operate; consequently fifteen hundred New England vessels previously employed in this occupation were now barred from it. Adams could not press his point as he might have wished; for we on our part treated as void the permanent clause of the Jay treaty giving mutual privileges in the fur trade, by passing, April 29, 1816, an act forbidding licences for trade with the Indians to any except United States citizens, unless by special permission of the President. Adams attempted to draw a distinction between the two treaties, on the ground that the first "was not, in the general provisions, one of those which, by the common understanding and usage of civilized nations, is or can be considered as annulled by a subsequent war." This Lord Bathurst denied; but he admitted that this treaty, "like many others, contained provisions of different character-some in their own nature irrevocable, and others of a temporary character."

Upon this basis the convention of 1818 dealt with the question. The "right" of Americans to fish off the Banks of Newfoundland, "acknowledged" by the treaty 1818 and the of 1783, remained acknowledged; the “liber

Convention of

fisheries

ties," however, were treated as void, and a substitute arrangement was entered into. This contract gave us the right to take fish within the three-mile limit on the coast of Labrador and certain specified coasts of Newfoundland, and to use for drying fish the same shores so long

as they remained unsettled. Our fishermen might also use the settled harbors "for the purpose of shelter and of repairing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no other purpose whatever." But, runs the treaty, "they shall be under such restrictions as may be necessary to prevent their taking, drying or curing fish therein, or in any other manner whatever abusing the privileges hereby reserved to them."

In spite of

Later problems of the

fisheries

Under this convention, which is still in force, the American fishermen at once resumed their occupation. its apparently liberal provisions, however, the document proved to be a Pandora's box of discords, and its ambiguities have been sources of dispute almost to the present day. There were stretches of coast where we wished to fish which were not included in the treaty definition. Here we certainly could not encroach within the three-mile limit, but it was not certain what the three-mile limit meant. Great Britain insisted that a number of bays, even though their mouths exceeded six miles across, were closed waters; and we desired to use the Gut of Canso, separating Nova Scotia from the island of Cape Breton, although it was less than six miles broad. The important, almost necessary, privilege of purchasing bait was not mentioned in the treaty and was often denied, as was that also of using the harbors for transshipment of fish from one vessel to another.

rivalries

The local port regulations admitted of being made very burdensome, and the spirit to make them so developed, for the rivalry between American and Canadian Fishermen's fishermen became constantly keener. Heretofore the Canadians had had the best of it, for the most important common market for both countries, the British West Indies, had been regulated to their advantage. Now the United States was developing into the most important market, and here the Americans had the aid of tariff protection. They also received bounties from the national govern

ment, as an offset to the duty on the salt they used and in recognition of the fisheries as a "nursery of seamen." The less fortunate Canadians were eager to embarrass the Americans by disagreeable regulations, but they were not unwilling to sell them fish, upon which many Americans unblushingly collected bounties and which they sold at prices enhanced by the tariff.1

Indian claims

A somewhat similar question, which can hardly be said ever to have risen to the surface of diplomacy, related to the annuities granted by the United States, in payment for Indian lands, to certain tribes which subsequently removed to Canada. Although paid before the war, the annuities were discontinued afterwards, and are now (1914) the subject of arbitration.

The most important unsettled question, however, though not of so immediate concern as the fisheries, was that of Northwestern boundary. At the "most northwestern point boundary of the Lake of the Woods" the dividing line between the two nations vanished into thin air. The direction of the treaty of 1783 to continue a line westward until it struck the Mississippi could not be carried out, as such a line would not strike the Mississippi. Perhaps the most logical thing would have been to draw the shortest line to that point, but there was no entirely obvious course. Moreover, the matter had been further complicated by our purchase of Louisiana, which had no northern boundary. Finally, however, the two questions were combined and settled in the convention of 1818, by the dropping of a line due south from the termination of the boundary to the forty-ninth parallel, along which it continued westward to the "Stony," or, as we say, Rocky Mountains. This adjustment was eminently satisfactory, as it gave us almost exactly the natural drainage basin of the Mississippi, which practically constituted our claim by the Louisiana purchase. Although some commun

1 Raymond McFarland, A History of the New England Fisheries, New York, 1911.

ities along the northern border might to-day be somewhat better accommodated had the natural line been followed, the national area would not be noticeably different, and the national temper would have been many times tried, and might have been lost, in the attempt to locate it. Astronomical boundaries have the advantage of being ascertained by mechanical rather than by human instruments, although, as we shall discover, astronomers may themselves go wrong.

The obscuration of the Mississippi by this line, which left it entirely within United States territory, gave a curious and final twist to the problem of its navigation, The navigauntil then a perennial question. Had the tion of the Mississippi Mississippi taken its rise in British territory, the clause of the treaty of 1783 giving Great Britain its free use must probably have been interpreted as on a par with that giving us the "right" to fish on the Banks. As the river lay wholly in our territory, however, we successfully asserted that the clause in question lapsed with the one that gave us fishing "liberties." Subsequent discovery, it is true, has shown that the Milk river and a few other branches of the Missouri do rise in Canada; but their navigation will scarcely serve to revive the question, although their use for irrigation is perhaps not without diplomatic significance.

In the same convention a fourth link was added to our claim to the Oregon country by Great Britain's recognition of our pretensions to it. Neither side ac- Joint occupaknowledged more than the fact that the other tion of Oregon had a claim, and it was agreed that the subjects of both might for ten years jointly use the whole region.

With the convention of 1818 practically all the immediate and special questions between the United States and Great Britain had been put in process of settlement. The issues that remained were for the most part

Permanent issues

in the nature of permanent conflicts of interest and opinion,

which do not admit of final determination.

Commercial

Of these, commercial intercourse was the most important. The commercial problem of diplomacy was now less than previously one of opening up markets for our conditions goods. Our fish, that bone of contention, we were coming to eat ourselves; most of the rest were raw materials eminently desired by other countries. England had a small duty on our cotton, but it was soon removed because of internal policy. The foreign products that we handled, as tea from Asia, occasioned more difficulty. The main problem, however, was to protect and encourage the employment of our vessels. For years Great Britain and the United States, the former under the protection of her navy, the latter as the sole important neutral, had almost monopolized the world's shipping. Both suffered from the peace. The neutral trade had been a constant source of embarrassment, but now there was no neutral trade. Our feelings were relieved, but we suffered in pocket. The vessels of other countries came out of their seclusion, and their governments sought to encourage and favor them. One result of this general revival of interest in navigation was that at length, and with difficulty, international coöperation was brought to bear on the Barbary states, till by degrees that pest was wiped out and the Mediterranean was opened to all nations. We did not join in the coöperation, which was under the direction of the quadruple alliance; but we sent a squadron there, and we shared the advantages.8

Commercial policy

Our method of favoring the merchant marine rested on Jefferson's idea of commercial discrimination. It was embodied in what was called a policy of reciprocity which was based on an act of March 3, 1815, providing for the abolition of all discriminations against foreign vessels in our ports in the case of those nations who would reciprocally abolish their discriminating duties. The execution of this policy was to be by means of diplomacy. On this basis, a convention was in the same year arranged with

1 Moore, American Diplomacy, 63-130.