ARGUMENT OF JOHN S. EWART. 1375 



Provinces, and saying that he was compelled to turn to France alone, 

 and France 



" assures us that it is not in her po.wer to make us any further grants 

 of money." 



Then, at the foot of p. 31 : 



" When Congress call upon a State for supplies, they are usually 



answered by pleas of disability, urged too by the State with good 



faith and a firm persuasion that they speak their real situation. A 



recurrence to facts that have passed under their own observation will 



convince them that they are deceived." 



830 The most cursory reader of the history of the great difficul- 

 ties that General Washington had at that period knows that 

 that last clause is exactly in accordance with the terrible difficulty 

 that he experienced in getting supplies and in keeping his men 

 together. 



Then, Sirs, turning to Mr. Adams' testimony, I refer to the letter 

 upon which Senator Turner placed much reliance in United States 

 Case Appendix, at p. 318. There are two elements in that letter 

 that have to be dealt with. Mr. Adams is stating the grounds and 

 principles upon which the negotiators had contended for the third 

 article of the treaty, and upon which Great Britain had finally 

 yielded (I read from the top of p. 318) : 



" That the Americans, and the adventurers to America, were the 

 first discoverers and the first practisers of the fisheries. 



" 2. That New England, and especially Massachusetts, had done 

 more in defence of them than all the rest of the British empire. That 

 the various projected expeditions to Canada, in which they were 

 defeated by British negligence, the conquest of Louisburg, in 1745, 

 and the subsequent conquest of Nova Scotia, in which New England 

 had expended more blood and treasure than all the rest of the British 

 empire, were principally effected with a special view to the security 

 and protection of the fisheries. 



" That the inhabitants of the United States had as clear a right 

 to every branch of those fisheries, and to cure fish on land, as the 

 inhabitants of Canada or Nova Scotia; that the citizens of Boston, 

 New York, or Philadelphia, had as clear a right to those fisheries, as 

 the citizens of London, Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, or Dublin." 



The first observation that occurs to one in connection with a claim 

 based upon a ground of that kind a claim of co-operation with 

 Great Britain is this: That if the colonies did co-operate with 

 Great Britain, and if that gave to the colonies something of a title 

 to British territory, the same co-operation would have given Great 

 Britain a title to colonial territory. The two parties were working 

 together, and Mr. Adams says : Because they were working together 

 the United States had, after separation, a right to a bit of the British 

 Empire. The same line of reasoning would have given the British 

 92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 10 31 



