524 APPENDIX TO BEITISH CASE. 



send a telegram, or buy a newspaper, to obtain a physician in case 

 of illness, or a surgeon in case of accident, to land or bring off a pas- 

 senger, or even to lend assistance to the inhabitants in fire, flood, or 

 pestilence, it would, upon this construction, be held to violate the 

 Treaty stipulations maintained between two enlightened, maritime, 

 and most friendly nations, whose ports are freely open to each other 

 in all other places and under all other circumstances. If a vessel is 

 not engaged in fishing, she may enter all ports. But if employed in 

 fishing not denied to be lawful, she is excluded, though on the most 

 innocent errand. She may buy water, but not food or medicine; 

 wood, but not coal. She may repair rigging, but not purchase a new 

 rope, though the inhabitants are desirous to sell it. If she even 

 entered the port (having no other business) to report herself to the 

 Custom House, as the vessel in question is now seized for not doing, 

 she would be equally within the interdiction of the Treaty. If it be 

 said these are extreme instances of violation of the Treaty, not likely 

 to be insisted on, I reply that no one of them is more extreme than 

 the one relied upon in this case. 



I am persuaded that your Lordship will, upon reflection, concur 

 with me that an intention so narrow, and in its results so unreason- 

 able and so unfair, is not to be attributed to the High Contracting 

 Parties who entered into this Treaty. 



It seems to me clear that the Treaty must be construed in ac- 

 cordance with those ordinary and well-settled rules applicable to all 

 written instruments, which, without such salutary assistance, must 

 constantly fail of their purpose. By these rules the letter often gives 

 way to the intent, or, rather, is only used to ascertain the intent. The 

 whole document will be taken together, and will be considered in 

 connection with the attendant circumstances, the situation of the 

 parties, and the object in view. And thus the literal meaning of an 

 isolated clause is often shown not to be the meaning really understood 

 or intended. 



Upon these principles of construction, the meaning of the clause in 

 question does not seem doubtful. It is a Treaty of friendship, and 

 not of hostility. Its object was to define and protect the relative 

 rights of the people of the two countries in these fisheries, not to 

 establish a system of non-intercourse, or the means of mutual and un- 

 necessary annoyance. It should be judged in view of the general 

 rules of international comity, and of maritime intercourse and usage, 

 and its restrictions eonsidered in the light of the purposes they were 

 designed to serve. 



Thus regarded, it appears to me clear that the words, " for no 

 other purpose whatever," as employed in the Treaty, mean no other 

 purposes inconsistent with the provisions of the Treaty, or prejudi- 

 cial to the interests of the provinces or their inhabitants, and were 

 not intended to prevent the entry of American fishing vessels into 

 Canadian ports for innocent and mutually beneficial purposes, or un- 

 necessarily to restrict the free and friendly intercourse customary be- 

 tween all civilized maritime nations, and especially between the 

 Unitd States and Great Britain. Such, I cannot but believe, is the 

 construction that would be placed upon this Treaty by an enlightened 

 Court of Justice. 



But even were it conceded that if the Treaty was a private con- 

 tract instead of an international one, a Court, in dealing with an 



