548 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 



I do not imagine that those who have preiiared the Case of the 

 United States are unacquainted with the book to which I have been 

 making reference. I mean Lyman's Diplomacy of the United States, 

 and it is a little remarkable in the face of what I am now going to read 

 to the Tribunal from that book, that such a statement should have 

 appeared. 



You will remember, Mr. President, that my learned friend. Sir Charles 

 Eussell, read the letter from Lord Bathurst to Mr. Adauss also from 

 the United States othcial Papers, and we have the volume here. He 

 read the letter from Bathurst to Mr. Adams in 1815 in which he (Lord 

 Bathurst) said, as I have been saying, that Great Britain recognized 

 the right of the United States to enjoy that fisherj^, as one of the 

 nations of the world. When we called attention to that letter my 

 learned friend, Mr. Phelps, was good enough to tell the Tribunal we 

 need not trouble further about the reference because he had the book 

 from which we read, in Court, or in Paris. Sir, that letter from Lord 

 Bathurst to Mr. Adams is set out in this book — Lyman's Diplomacy of 

 the United States; and here, at any rate was a diplomatist who knew 

 what was the true state of the matter, and argues, as he is entitled to 

 argue, in this book that the United States always had this fishery as of 

 right, and that the Treaty of 1783 was simijly for the purpose of pre- 

 venting molestation, fearing claims might be set up, and more than 

 that, that subsequently there was no renewal of that right. I will call 

 your attention to two passages in Lyman's Dij^lomacy. It sets out the 

 commission to the United States Commissioners to negotiate the Treaty, 

 and the terms of the Commission are given at page 8Q of the second 

 volume. They are set out in terms. 



I read not from the actual language at full length, but from the text 

 of Mr. Lyman: 



The most important matter, adjiisted at this negotiation, was the fisheries. The 

 position assumed at Ghent, that the fishery rights and liberties were not abrogated 

 by war, was again insisted on, and those portions of the coast fisheries, relinquished 

 on this occasion, were renounced by express provision, fully implying that the whole 

 right was not considered a new grant. The American commissioners in 1814 were 

 instructed not to bring that subject into discussion, aud the proposition ultimately 

 submitted, securing the rights aud liberties, as in the Treaty of 1783, arose from a 

 stipulation, offered by the British commission, respecting the Mississippi, a right 

 invested by the American with the same permanent character, as the fisheries them- 

 selves. The English, knowing the slight comparative value of the Mississippi, 

 proposed the two parties should resume their respective rights in consideration, 

 respectively, of a full equivalent; but this proposition was not accepted, for, in the 

 opinion of one party, the right remained entire, and lest it should be impaired by 

 implication, the American coraiuission offered to recognize the right of Great Britain 

 to the navigation, and declined the boundary of the parallel of the 49th degree to 

 the north, (since agreed on) not choosing, even, to accept an implied renunciation 

 on the part of Great Britain to that navigation. 



The instructions for the Commissioners in 1818 do not agree precisely with the 

 position, assumed at Ghent, respecting the Mississippi. 



Then lower down on the same page. 



A certain part of the doctrine, as to the effect of war on the treaty of 1783, is 

 undoubtedly sound, but it appears to us, the remark is equally just, that certain 

 portions of the fishing rights or liberties have, from the commencement of the first 

 negotiation with England, been made the subject of Treaty regulation. These 

 remarks, of course, do not apply to the bank, or deep water fisheries, about which 

 all formal stipulations are needless. 



That, Sir, was Mr. Lyman's opinion. My learned friends will scarcely 

 deny that he was a diplomatist of eminence, and it will show you, at 

 any rate, that this is no fresh case we are setting up. But, Sir, at 

 page 97 occurs the passage in that letter from Lord Bathuj-st to Mr. 



