78 COUNTER CASE OP THE UNITED STATES. 



It may fairly be assumed at the outset that, if the negotiators of the 

 treaty of 1818 had under consideration any such unusual arrange- 

 ment as the reservation of the bays, creeks, and harbors within the 

 limits of the treaty coasts, some mention of it would have been made 

 in the course of the negotiations, and that either an agreement or a 

 disagreement on the point would have been reported by them to 

 their respective Governments; or, even if there had been any such 

 intention on the part of the British Plenipotentiaries, which they did 

 not disclose to the American Plenipotentiaries, it must be assumed that 

 they would have reported to their Government the course of the 

 negotiations and the effect of the treaty on that point; or, again, if 

 the American Plenipotentiaries had been willing to agree to any such 

 arrangement, it is reasonable to suppose that it would have been 

 expressed in the treaty by a special clause for that purpose, instead 

 of being concealed in language which necessitates the resort to infer- 

 ence and ingenious interpretation in order to give it the desired 

 meaning. 



Neither in the official records of the negotiations nor in the reports 

 of either the British or the American Plenipotentiaries to their respec- 

 tive Governments is mention made of any such intention on the part 

 of the negotiators on either side, and it is of peculiar significance that 

 it never occurred to the British Government or to anyone else to attrib- 

 ute any such intention to the negotiators until after the treaty had 

 been in force for nearly ninety years, during which period the under- 

 standing of both Great Britain and the United States with respect to 

 the effect of the treaty upon the subject under consideration was dis- 

 tinctly shown by their actions to be exactly the reverse of the inten- 

 tion which Newfoundland now attributes to the negotiators of the 

 treaty. 



Bearing these considerations in mind the Tribunal is invited to 

 consider the character of the evidence which is presented in the 

 British Case to overcome the overwhelming weight of evidence 

 against the present contention of Great Britain. 



The evidence relied on ~by Great Britain. 



The evidence, upon which the Tribunal is asked to hold that the 

 negotiators had such an intention as is attributed to them in the 

 British Case, consists of (1) an extract from a letter written in 1815 

 by Lord Bathurst to Mr. Adams; (2) a statement in a letter of in- 



