304 APPENDIX TO BBITISH COUNTER CASE. 



183 present investigation. I suppose that a great deal of facti- 

 tious importance has been given to the Bay of Chaleurs from 

 the custom among fishermen, and almost universal a generation ago, 

 of which we have heard so much, to speak of the whole of the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence by that term. Over and over again, and particularly 

 among the older witnesses, we have noticed that when they spoke 

 of going to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, they spoke of it by the term 

 " Bay of Chaleurs," but in the Bay or Chaleurs proper, in the body 

 of the bay, I cannot find any evidence of any fishing at all. I think, 

 therefore, that the Bay or Chaleurs may be dismissed from our 

 consideration. 



There are two or three other bodies of water as to which a possible 

 theoretical question may be raised, but their names have not been 

 introduced into the testimony on this occasion from first to last. 

 The headland question, therefore, gentlemen, I believe may be dis- 

 missed as, for the purpose of this inquiry, wholly unimportant, and 

 although I am not authorized to speak for my friend, the British 

 Agent, and to say that he concurs with me, yet I shall be very much 

 surprised if I find any different views from those that I have ex- 

 pressed taken on the other side. If in argument other views should 

 be brought forward, or if it should seem to your honors, in consider- 

 ing the subject, that the question has an importance which it has not 

 in my view, then I can only refer you to the brief that has been filed, 

 and insist upon the principles which the United States have hereto- 

 fore maintained on that subject. For the present, I congratulate you, 

 as I do myself, that no grave and vexed question of international law 

 need trouble you in coming to a conclusion. 



I think it is necessary to go somewhat, yet briefly, into the his- 

 torical aspects of the fishery question, in order to see whether that 

 which has been the subject of diplomatic controversy and of public 

 feeling in the past is really the same thing which we have under dis- 

 cussion to day. The question has been asked, and asked with some 

 earnestness, by my friends on the other side, " If the inshore fisheries 

 have the little importance which you say they have, why do your 

 fishermen go to the Gulf of St. Lawrence at all ? " And again it has 

 been asked, " If the inshore fisheries are of such insignificant conse- 

 quence, why is it that the fishermen and people of the United States 

 have always manifested such a feverish anxiety on the subject ?" Those 

 questions deserve an answer, and unless an answer can be made, you 

 undoubtedly will feel that there must be some unseen importance in 

 this question, or there would not have been all the trouble with refer- 

 ence to it heretofore. Why do the fishermen of the United States 

 come to the Gulf of St. Lawrence at all ? Why should they not come 

 here ? What men on the face of the earth have a better right to plow 

 with their keels the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence than the 

 descendants of the fishermen of New England, to whose energy and 

 bravery, a century and a quarter ago, it is chiefly owing that there is 

 any Nova Scotia to day under the British flag? I am not going to 

 dwell upon the history of the subject. It is well known that it was 

 New England that saved to the Crown of England these maritime 

 provinces; that to New England fishermen is due the fact that the 

 flag of Great Britain flies on the citadel, and not the flag of France, 

 to day. 



