ARGUMENT OF JOHN S. EWAET. 1383 



in the future, he found no clearer or more compendious language 

 than that it was to be the same as it was " before the war." 



Then, on the same page, is a letter from Mr. Madison to Mr. Ed- 

 mund Randolph, referring to the boundaries and indicating what 

 they were to be. It ends, so far as this extract is concerned, with an 

 unfinished sentence; but I am satisfied there is nothing in what re- 

 mains of the sentence that is of any interest, or else it would have 

 appeared 



" That the fisheries shall be exercised as formerly ; . . . " 

 And, Sirs, curiously enough, I do not find that that is so widely 

 apart from some expressions in the United States Counter-Case, p. 81, 

 the last sentence: 



" The British Case omits to state that this French claim, the ex- 

 istence of which 'may have supplied an additional reason for not 

 extending the grant to bays, harbours, and creeks ' in 1818, antedated 

 the treaty of 1783 between the United States and Great Britain, and 

 by that treaty, it will be remembered, the American fishermen were 

 placed upon an exact equality with British fishermen in the use of 

 all the waters of Newfoundland for fishing purposes." 



That is, when they were introduced into the French shore they 

 went there on a footing of an exact equality with British fishermen, 

 which of course at least I submit would mean that they would be 

 subject to the same regulations as British fishermen. And at the top 

 of p. 86: 



" These treaties of 1783 " 



Those are the British treaties with the United States and with 

 France. 



" These treaties of 1783, therefore, left the American fishermen on 

 exactly the same footing as British fishermen, so far as the use of the 

 waters of the so-called ' French Coast ' was concerned. 



835 And I submit, Sirs, if they were on the same footing exactly 

 as British fishermen, that they were subject to the same 

 regulations. 



We are told, Sirs, that Great Britain, by the treaty of 1818, aban- 

 doned its sovereignty and its power to legislate, save with the con- 

 currence and consent of the United States; and I think it is worth 

 considering whether any such concurrence and consent could have 

 been anticipated at that time. We must remember that King George 

 was then in pretty bad odour in the United States, and that there 

 would have been hardly any chance in the world of his obtaining 

 assent to any of his laws. It will be remembered that one of the 

 counts of the long indictment against him contained in the American 

 Declaration of Independence was that 



" He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and neces- 

 sary for the public good." 



