1296 NOBTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



with the assistance of an eminent lawyer of this city, I had drawn up 

 for my own use, a copy of which I have the honour to inclose. Mr. 

 Fillmore seemed struck with the justice of the arguments adduced 

 by Chancellor Kent (a very high authority in this country) which he 

 said would certainly be applicable to the case of two nations when 

 their rights had not been modified by treaty, but he seemed to appre- 

 hend that the Treaty of 1783 and the Convention of 1818 ' taken to- 

 gether' would qualify the principle laid down by Kent as regarded 

 the present question between Great Britain and the United States. I 

 confess I was at a loss to seize the drift of his argument in this 

 respectj for he did not contest the correctness, of my remark that the 

 rights in question, whatever they might be, now rested solely on the 

 Convention of 1818." 



That last paragraph will help one very much to understand the 

 memorandum which Mr. Webster afterwards wrote. Mr. Crampton 

 could not understand what Mr. Fillmore hoped to gain by joining 

 these two treaties of 1783 and 1818 together. Mr. Fillmore seemed 

 to admit that the view of the British territoriality of bays was cor- 

 rect, but said that that would apply to the case of two nations when 

 their rights had not been modified by treaty; that is, that if there 

 had been no treaties between Great Britain and the United States, 

 all these bays would have been British bays. That is what Mr. 

 Fillmore, or that is what Chancellor Kent, understood, but Mr. Fill- 

 more says that the situation had been modified in this particular 

 case by the two treaties taken together. What he means there I 

 shall try to explain when I come to Mr. Webster's memorandum. It 

 is an idea he had got, no doubt, from Mr. Webster in conversation 

 with him unless it is possible that this very extraordinary con- 

 struction of the treaty could have occurred independently to the 

 minds of these two men separately. I wish to read one other para- 

 graph of that letter the third paragraph on p. 169 : 



" In alluding to the possibility of settling the present question of 

 the fisheries by a negotiation or by legislation embracing the whole 

 subject of reciprocity of trade with the British North American Colo- 

 nies, Mr. Fillmore seemed to fear that the excitement created in the 

 country and which he was sorry to see was participated in by the 

 Legislature, had exercised a very unfavourable influence upon this 

 mode of settling the question. He hoped however that even were it 

 found impossible to combine the settlement of reciprocity of trade 

 with that of the present difference about the fisheries, means might 

 nevertheless be found of arranging the latter independently " ; 



and so on. 



The debate was resumed in the Senate on the 12th August, and will 

 be found to be reported to a certain extent in so far as we deemed 

 it necessary in the British Case Appendix, p. 172. There is a 

 speech by Mr. Soule", Senator from Louisiana, and in that speech we 

 find the origin of the territorial idea the Halifax idea. I read, at 

 the top of p. 174, two short paragraphs. He had referred to Mr. 



