ARGUMENT OF JOHN S. BWABT. 1295 



I think this letter is important, in view of the suggestion made by 

 Mr. Warren that Mr. Webster did not mean what, as I think, he 

 plainly said in his notice. If Mr. Webster did not so mean, we would 

 not have found this method suggested of meeting the difficulty. Here, 

 he does not at all question the correctness of the British contention, 

 but he does question the method by which that contention is being 

 enforced. He says that the British vessels have no rights without a 

 British Act, and, as for provincial vessels, they have no rights at all; 

 and that is all he has to say about it. 



The next letter, to which I wish to call the attention of the Tri- 

 bunal, will be found in the British Case Appendix, p. 168, from Mr. 

 Crampton to Lord Malmesbury. He says that he had remained in 

 Marshfield until the 5th August, having stayed there from the 26th 

 July. Now he had gone back to Washington. He says in the third 

 paragraph of the letter : 



"At Mr. Webster's suggestion I immediately waited upon the Presi- 

 dent of the United States, who, Mr. Webster said, evidently felt a 

 good deal of uneasiness respecting the view taken in the Senate of 

 the fishery question, as evinced by a debate which took place on the 

 3rd instant, in regard to the President's message on that subject. 

 781 " I have the honour to inclose herewith two extracts of the 

 ' National Intelligencer ' containing a report of this debate 

 and a notice of the message, which has not yet been printed. 



" Mr. Fillmore's tone and manner in a long and confidential con- 

 versation which I had with him on the subject of the fisheries, was 

 frank and conciliatory. I remarked however with regret that, con- 

 trary to what I had been led to expect from my conversations with 

 Mr. Webster at Marshfield, he did not seem to concur in the con- 

 struction of the Convention of 1818 as regards the definition of bays, 

 laid down in the opinion of the Advocate General and Attorney Gen- 

 eral of 30th of August 1841, but seemed rather disposed to adopt the 

 view taken of that point by General Cass and Mr. Davis in the debate 

 to which I have alluded. I say ' rather disposed ' because Mr. Fill- 

 more in avowing his impression of the correctness of that view, 

 frankly admitted that he had not yet sufficiently examined all the 

 documents relating to the subject, and more particularly the opinion 

 of the Law Officers of the Crown referred to, of which he requested 

 me to furnish him with a copy in extenso. 



" I remarked to Mr. Fillmore that I had been struck in reading the 

 speeches of the Senators who had impugned the opinion in question, 

 by the absence of any allusion to the doctrine on the subject of the 

 true definition of the maritime jurisdiction over bays which had been 

 invariably held by the United States in regard to their own waters, 

 and which was laid down by the highest American authorities, a 

 doctrine exactly coinciding with that which had always been held by 

 Her Majesty's Government. 



" The President not seeming to be clearly aware of the existence of 

 any authoritative statement on this subject by an American authority, 

 I read to him, with his permission, a short memorandum, which, 

 92909 T -S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 10 26 



