ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 549 



Adams, wliicli J respectfully submit in a conclusive answer to this con- 

 tention put forward by my learned friend, Mr. Phelps. 



Wheu, therefore, Grecat Britain, admitting the independence of the United States 

 denies their right to the liberties — 



You will remember that the liberties were the inshore rights 



it is not that she selects from the treaty articles or parts of articles, and says, at 

 her own will, this stipulation is liable to forfeitnre by war, and that it is irrevoca- 

 ble; bnt the ])rinciple of her reasoning is, that such distinctions arise ont of the pro- 

 visions themselves, and are fonnded on the very nature of the grants. But the 

 rights, acknowledged by the Treaty of 1783, are not only distinguishable from the 

 liberties, couceded by the same Treaty, in tlie foundation, upon which they stand, 

 but they are carefully distinguished in the Treaty of 1783 itself. The undersigned 

 begs to call the attention of the American minister to llie wording of the 1st and 3rd 

 articles, to which he has often referred for the foundation of his arguments. In the 

 first article, Great Britain acknowledges an independence, already exj)ressly recog- 

 nized by the powers of Europe and by In^rself in her consent to enter into the pro- 

 visional articles of November 1782. In the 3rd article Great Britain acknowledges 

 the right oi' the United States to take fish on the Banks of Newfoundland and other 

 places, from which Great Britain has no right to exclude an independent Nation. 



That is the language of Lord Bathurst on behalf of Great Britain in 

 the year 1815. It is a little hard that for the purpose of this case, for 

 the purpose of endeavouring to allege inconsistency on the part of the 

 Eepresentatives of Great Britain, that my learned friend should have, 

 perhaps by inadvertence, thought fit to say in his Case that it never 

 occurred to the Eepresentatives of Great Britain to point ont that the 

 Fisheries on the Bank of Newfoundland were enjoyed as of right. 



In order to point my observation, I read further from the letter: 



But they are to have the liberty to cure and dry them in certain unsettled places 

 within his Majesty's territory. 



Aiul the next passage refers to those liberties being such as those 

 that were put an end to by the war. 



It is surely obvious, that the word ri{/ht is, throughout the treaty, used as appli- 

 cable to what the United States were to eiijoy in virtue of a recognized independence 

 and the word liberty to what they were to enjoy as concessions, strictly dependent 

 on the treaty itself. 



Sir, I cannot believe that had Mr. Senator Morgan in his mind the 

 facts that my learned friend the Attorney General and I have taken 

 entirely from the official documents, from the language of the Ameri- 

 can Representatives, from the language of the Representatives of 

 Great Britain at the time these matters were under negotiation, that 

 it would have escaped his attention, that the language of the first 

 clause of Article III of the Treaty of 1783 was inserted for the imrpose 

 of preventing molestation in respect to a right which the United 

 States people claimed as of right by virtue of their being recognized 

 as an independent Power, — as one of the nations of the world. 



Senator Morgan. — My difficulty, Sir Richard, in making that sug- 

 gestion was this; why the American people should have apprehended 

 molestation about a matter that Great Britain made no claim to at all. 



Sir Richard Webster. — Well, Sir, I have already, I think, 

 answered that; but 1 may do it again in one summary. It was that 

 thej' themselves had made a bargain with France, — there had been a 

 claim made by Lord North to exclude them on the ground of being 

 subjects in rebellion, and, therefore, they could be so excluded, and it 

 is a clause inserted against any subsequent interference — in fact just 

 in the same way, Mr. Senator, as I have submitted to you, I hope not 

 unsuccessfully, that under the first Articles of the Treaties of 1824 and 

 1825 between Russia and the United States, and Russia and Great 



