ARGUMENT OF SAMUEL J. ELDEB. 1567 



the said United States in common with His Majesty's subjects on the 

 said coasts, within the limits assigned to them by* the said Treaty : 

 and that the Governor of Newfoundland do conform himself to the 

 said Treaty, and to such instructions as he shall from time to time 

 receive thereon in conformity to the said treaty, and to the above- 

 recited Act, from one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, 

 anything in His Majesty's Commission under the Great Seal, consti- 

 tuting him ^Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over the said 

 island of Newfoundland in America, and of the islands and terri- 

 tories thereunto belonging, or in His Majesty's general instructions 

 to the said Governor, to the contrary notwithstanding." 



Nowhere is there any provision with regard to the bays of the west 

 coast, or any intimation that this order to His Majesty's subjects not 

 to interfere was to be limited to interference on the aforesaid 3-mile 

 belt. It is a broad order, not to interfere on the coasts which are 

 named in that treaty : and the word " coast " is used just as much, as 

 I recall it, of Labrador, as it is of Newfoundland. Yes: 



" On the said coasts, within the limits assigned to them ; " His 

 Majesty understanding distinctly that the word "coasts" meant just 

 the same in regard to Labrador, where the bays are included, as it 

 did in Newfoundland and the Magdalens, where we insist that they 

 are also included. And that is signed by Lord Bathurst, who had 

 had so much to do with the negotiations. 



On the 21st June, 1819, at p. 99 of the British Case Appendix, 

 Lord Bathurst writes a letter, and in the first paragraph he says : 



"As the inhabitants of the United States will undoubtedly proceed 

 without delay to exercise the privilege granted to them under that 

 convention His Royal Highness has commanded me " 



That is, after sending a copy of the Act, and the Order-in-Council, 

 and all that. Why did Lord Bathurst think that the Americans 

 would immediately begin to exercise the right there? Sir James 

 Winter tells us that there were no fish there; that the reason that 

 they never interfered with the United States fishermen in all these 

 intervening years was because there were no fish there, and the 

 United States fishermen were not there. There was nobody to order 

 off. Why was it that Lord Bathurst, in 1819, said that the Ameri- 

 cans would immediately begin to use their right? Why, because 

 they had been using it there in all those previous years, and were 

 likely to continue to do it. 



Lord Bathurst goes on, in a carefully composed letter, to point out 

 just exactly what rights the Americans had, and just what they had 

 not. He gets down to as fine a point as this, with regard to the dry- 

 ing and curing on the southern coast of Newfoundland, as compared 

 with the drying and curing on the coast of Labrador. He points 

 out that the United States fishermen had the right to dry and cure 

 on the coast of Labrador, under the treaty of 1783, in the places 

 92909 8. Doc. 870, 61-8, vol 10 43 



