ARGUMENT OF JOHN S. EWABT. 1301 



right that depended upon no grant of Great Britain, and belonged 

 to the United States? 



MR. EWART : Yes, Sir. 



JUDGE GRAY: And therefore when, in the treaty of 1818, they 

 renounced, not the right, but the liberty theretofore claimed, they 

 were necessarily renouncing the liberty to fish in territorial waters, 

 for no liberty could have been given to them except in territorial 

 waters. 



MR. EWART: I think that probably that may be included in Mr. 

 Webster's idea, although not specifically stated. At all events I do 

 not contest that idea, as the learned Arbitrator knows. 



JUDGE GRAY : I was only asking whether that was not the conclusion 

 at which he was pointing. 



MR. EWART : No, I do not gather that. The line of argument that 

 I think he follows I will confess that the argument is somewhat 

 involved, and that it is not beyond dispute, what it was that Mr. 

 Webster was dealing with. But what I do say is this, that having 

 those two views in mind the two views that are very easily stated, 

 and the arguments for which can be made very clear by a man of 

 far less mental pretension than Mr. Webster, these views, at all events, 

 are not put forward, unless inferentially for the purpose of the new 

 argument which he is attempting to evolve. 



Now, as I said to Mr. Justice Gray a short time ago, I proceed to 

 give such citations as I have with reference to the instructions under 

 which the British cruisers were acting between 1845 and 1852. 



In the first place I refer to the letter of Vice- Admiral Seymour to 

 the Secretary of the Admiralty, and although we are unfortunately 

 unable to produce these instructions, I think that I shall satisfy the 

 members of the tribunal, beyond all question, what those instructions 

 were. British Case Appendix, p. 202: a letter from Vice- Admiral 

 Seymour to the Secretary of the Admiralty, commencing at the begin- 

 ning of the letter : 



" I have to acquaint you, for the information of the Lords Commis- 

 sioners of the Admiralty, that Mr. Crampton, Her Majesty's Minister 

 to the United States, arrived at Halifax on the night of the 7th 

 instant, for the purpose of conferring with me on a notice he had 

 received on the 2nd from Mr. Marcy, the Secretary of State at Wash- 

 ington, of the intention of the United States Government to send a 

 force to the fisheries, and their desire that the possibility of any 

 collision in the present season should be avoided, by his receiving an 

 assurance that no American vessel would be actually seized for fishing 

 in the open bays; with regard to which the American Government 

 placed a different construction on the terms of the Convention from 

 that adopted by Great Britain. Mr. Crampton felt unable to give 

 this assurance, but deemed it advisable at once to communicate with 

 me on the subject. 



