ARGUMENT OF SAMUEL J. ELDEB. 1533 



It is quite interesting that Adams, the earlier, tells us, at p. 101 of 

 the British Counter-Case Appendix, about the conduct of the fisheries 

 off Labrador and on the northern shore of Newfoundland. He says 

 that the fish are taken directly abroad from there and that he was 

 interested in one of these ventures himself. He says : 



" Our fishermen from Boston, Salem, Newbury, Marblehead, Cape 

 Ann, Cape Cod, and Nantucket, have frequently gone out on the fish- 

 eries to the Straits of Belle-He, north part of Newfoundland, and 

 the banks adjacent thereto, there to continue the whole season, and 

 have made use of the north part of Newfoundland, the Labrador coast 

 in the Straits of Belle-He, to cure their fish which they have taken 

 in and about those coasts. I have known several instances of vessels 

 going there to load in the fall of the year, with the fish taken and 

 cured at these places for Spain, Portugal, &c. I was once concerned 

 in a voyage of that kind myself, and speak from my own knowledge." 



In 1845 (United States Case Appendix, p. 1068) in a report by a 

 committee to the Assembly of Newfoundland, to which the President 

 called attention when Sir James Winter was speaking, they say 

 that : 



" The American fishery is encouraged by a bounty of twenty shil- 

 lings per ton, and the supply of their own markets protected by a 

 duty of five shillings per quintal on foreign fish." 



In 1846 and 1847 there was another report, which appears on 

 p. 1071 of the same volume, and which says : 



" It creates an unequal competition in the markets in Europe and 

 the West Indies, most injurious to Your Majesty's subjects engaged 

 in the Fisheries. British fi<=h must be sold in these markets at the 

 same rate as the fish of the French and Americans, caught under the 

 protection of enormous bounties." 



Our argument, which we present most respectfully, is that a trade 

 authorized by a treaty is supposed to be conducted in the usual and 

 ordinary way of trades and industrial enterprises, with the employ- 

 ment of such help as you can get, to the best advantage. 



A word as to the treaty and as to the word " inhabitants." Our 

 friends seem to think that there was a kind of guarantee or protec- 

 tion to Great Britain in the use of the word " inhabitants." I want 

 to call attention to the vagueness of the meaning of the word " in- 

 habitants." A Frenchman, Spaniard, Norwegian, or Newfound- 

 lander can come to Gloucester, and if he affirm the intention of re- 

 maining there, he may and does become a resident. His domicile be- 

 comes that because he has changed his place of residence. He is still 

 a subject of France, or of Spain, or of Norway, or of Great Britain, 

 under our naturalization laws, for some years. Sometimes we are 

 told that the period is quite short, but under the law it is quite long, 

 but he is an inhabitant, and, under the terms of this treaty, is entitled 

 to fish, I submit, without going into that matter more fully, that the 



