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Description

Negotiating Better US Fishing Rights in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Rare separately published map of northeastern Canada, which illustrated an American Government memorandum entitled Confidential Memorandum For The Use of The Commissioners on the Part of the United States in the American-British Joint High Commission, Washington, 1871.

The map was used to illustrate the section of this confidential memorandum that described the fishing rights which were established between the US and British Dominions in by the Treaty of 1818, as thereafter modified between the two countries, and concluded with a review of the points which the diplomats would press to obtain better fishing rights for American Fisherman.

As noted on the map:

The United States have renounced the liberty to take, dry, or cure fish within three marine miles of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of the British Dominions in America, not including in the above limits; but the privileges is reserved to American Fisherman to enter such bays or harbors for the purpose of shelter and repairing damages there, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no other purpose whatever, under such restrictions as may be necessary to prevent them from taking, drying, or curing fish therein, or in any other manner whatever abusing the privileges reserved to them.

Color coding shows the fishing rights of the Americans and French under current treaties.

The memorandum ends with the following suggested remedies:

It is suggested that this class of questions may be adjusted, either-

I. By agreeing upon the terms upon which the whole of the reserved fishing-grounds may be thrown open to American fishermen, which might be accompanied with a repeal of the obnoxious laws, and the abrogation of the disputed reservation as to ports, harbors, &c., &c.; or, failing that-

II. By agreeing upon the construction of the disputed renunciation; upon the principles upon which a line should be run by a joint commission to exhibit the territory from which the American fishermen are to be excluded; and by repealing the obnoxious laws, and agreeing upon the measures to be taken for enforcing the colonial rights, the penalties to be inflicted for a forfeiture of the same, and a mixed tribunal to enforce the same. It may also be well to consider whether it should be further agreed that the fish taken in the waters open to both nations shall be admitted free of duty into the United States and the British North American Colonies.

In addition to the authorities hereinbefore cited, there is in the archives of the Department of State a copious and well-arranged memoir upon the subject of the fisheries, by Richard D. Cutts, esq., of the Coast Survey, which will be placed at the disposal of the commissioners.

Reference
Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the ..., Part 2, Volume 3; Part 3, p. 277 to 288. (1874).
G.W. & C.B. Colton Biography

G. W. & C. B. Colton was a prominent family firm of mapmakers who were leaders in the American map trade in the nineteenth century. The business was founded by Joseph Hutchins Colton (1800-1893) who bought copyrights to existing maps and oversaw their production. By the 1850s, their output had expanded to include original maps, guidebooks, atlases, and railroad maps. Joseph was succeeded by his sons, George Woolworth (1827-1901) and Charles B. Colton (1831-1916). The firm was renamed G. W. & C. B. Colton as a result. George is thought responsible for their best-known work, the General Atlas, originally published under that title in 1857. In 1898, the brothers merged their business and the firm became Colton, Ohman, & Co., which operated until 1901, when August R. Ohman took on the business alone and dropped the Colton name.