1298 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



Before coming to this memorandum of Mr. Webster, which is to 

 be found in the United States Case Appendix, at p. 527, may I re- 

 mind the Tribunal that Mr. Rush was alive at the date of this notice, 

 issued by Mr. Webster; that he was in no doubt whatever as to 

 Mr. Webster's meaning; and that he wrote a letter to his executor 

 enclosing a long statement in vindication of the negotiators of the 

 convention of 1818, declaring that they were guilty of no oversight 

 such as Mr. Webster had imputed to them? There seems to have 

 been no doubt, at the time, that Mr. Webster meant exactly what he 

 said. 



Now, Sirs, this memorandum, which Mr. Webster never completed, 

 is a rather remarkable document. It is remarkable for two things: 

 in the first place, because, having before him both the fishermen's 

 idea and (from Senator Soule's speech) the territorial idea, he puts 

 both aside and says nothing about them. He is seeking some 

 argument upon which he can justify a claim to the bays. He has 

 those two presented to him. He had made, as the United States Case 

 says, an exhaustive study of this whole subject. He knew perfectly 

 the history of it, and he absolutely disregards the two theories which 

 had been advanced, and which were there for his consideration. 



I should have mentioned, before leaving the Everett correspond- 

 ence, that if anything could have been said in favour of an under- 

 standing between the Governments in 1806 and in 1815, one of which 

 has been put forward by Senator Turner and the other by Mr. 

 Warren, Mr. Everett would have known about it, and said some- 

 thing about it. Mr. Everett says nothing about it, but concedes the 

 validity of the British contention. 



One point that is to be observed in reference to this memorandum 

 of Mr. Webster is that, having these theories before his mind, he 

 disregards them and thinks there is nothing in them. The next 

 point to be observed in reference to this memorandum is that it is a 

 most remarkable effort by a most remarkable man to make something 

 out of nothing. I cannot believe that if Mr. Webster had lived he 

 would ever have put his name to an argument developed along 

 783 the lines that he foreshadows here. He never did put his name 

 to it, and in my statement of the different positions that the 

 United States has from time to time taken, I do not include this one ; 

 but it is well worthy of consideration as being a remarkable effort 

 along a line that the United States has never seen its way to adopt 

 as an argument in support of the United States desire to get into 

 the bays. 



The view that Mr. Webster seems to have taken was this and we 

 will see now what Mr. Fillmore meant by the " junction " of the two 

 treaties of 1783 and 1818, and how the junction of these two treaties 

 was to be useful. In Mr. Webster's mind this seemed to be possible : 



