ARGUMENT OF JOHN S. EWAET. 1369 



and eager competition destroy your fishing, as you say they will, we 

 have paid the damages beforehand ;" 



It seems to me that that very well sums up the position that the 

 United States have taken as to their legal right not that the United 

 States ever would pursue such a policy, but that there is the legal 

 right to destroy that fishery if they choose to do it. I do respect- 

 fully submit, Sirs, that, not consciously, at all events, was ever any 

 such treaty entered into between any two nations that had the slight- 

 est regard for the preservation of their fisheries. 



I shall now try to supply some evidence as to the position of fish- 

 ing liberties and fishing sovereignty at the date of the treaty of 1783, 

 with the view of showing what was the accepted idea of intercolonial 

 relationship at the time, and I shall take it up in two ways, first, 

 as between the thirteen colonies themselves, and afterwards as be- 

 tween the northern colonies and the thirteen southern colonies. 



By a charter of 1620, King James granted to the Council of Vir- 

 ginia a large tract of territory upon the American coast. Almost im- 

 mediately afterwards, a contest arose as to whether that charter 

 passed, to the grantees of it, an exclusive right to the fishing upon 

 the coast. That controversy was debated for several years. It was 

 carried into the House of Commons and formed one of the disputes 

 between the Stuart kings and the House of Commons the King de- 

 claring that he has a right to give away that monopoly, as he had 

 given away other monopolies, and the House of Commons saying 

 that he had no such right. Sabine gives an interesting account of 

 what took place, and it is reproduced in the United States Case 

 Appendix, at pp. 1166-1170. After tracing the struggle for some 

 time, Mr. Sabine shows that it was ended, in the year 1626, in favour 

 of the Commons' idea of free fishing to all British subjects 

 everywhere. 



The charters issued after that date invariably contained a clause 

 giving the right of free fishing, and prohibiting the grantees of 

 charters from interfering with that right of free fishing conferred 

 upon all British subjects. The United States, in their Case Ap- 

 pendix, has printed one of these charters a charter of Massachu- 

 setts I think it is the charter of 1691. Massachusetts had two 

 charters, one of 1629 and the other of 1691. They are, I believe, 

 almost identical in the respect to which I refer. By this charter, 

 and by the others a large number having been issued previously to 

 this very large rights of self-government were given to the colo- 

 nies courts were established, laws might be made, and fisheries 

 were granted, but there was always a clause, such as will be found 

 at p. 1039 of the United States Case Appendix a little below the 

 middle of the page : 



"And further Our expresse Will and Pleasure is and Wee doe by 

 these presents for Vs Our Heires and Successors Ordaine and appoint 



