ARGUMENT OF SIB WILLIAM BOBSON. 1625 



pendent republic, and therefore I claim now, what I never had before, 

 what your agreement does not give me, I claim sovereign rights." 

 That is something not at all necessary to the enjoyment of the right 

 as he had hitherto enjoyed it; and yet that fallacious argument, that 

 false step in the reasoning of the United States, is at the very root 

 of their case. It is the foundation of their case on what is called the 

 historic part of the argument; that merely because they acquire full 

 independent political rights they obtain powers of jurisdiction in a 

 foreign State, because they enjoyed a liberty in a foreign State. By 

 what reason do they draw any such inference or put up any such 

 claim ? We allow foreign States to come on our territory, we give 

 them many rights, not prsedial servitudes, but we give them ordinary 

 rights under our obligations. The mere fact that we have given 

 those rights to the members of a foreign State does not make any 

 difference to their Government. It does not give their Government 

 any rights. It does not enable them to treat those rights as though 

 they were different in character and substance from our own subjects, 

 who enjoy them over the same territory. But that assumption is 

 made by the United States not proved, not argued out in law 

 throughout all the argument ; and there could be none more learned, 

 none more careful and ingenious than that which Mr. Turner 

 addressed to us ; but he never took up that link in his chain of argu- 

 ment, and decided it for our benefit. No reason was shown why, 

 because the States had become independent, therefore they were to 

 have this right in some different measure and in some higher degree 

 than that in which they had previously enjoyed it. In fact, they 

 are now claiming that which certainly they could never have enjoyed 

 as colonists claiming, in fact, that the other colonists are subordi- 

 nated to them. 



Now I come to another point which I think I shall establish, that 



the whole argument with which I have dealt up to now, as based 



upon the circumstances and conduct of the parties, and as being 



therefore necessary implications in the construction of the contract, 



really can be established on the documents, the letters them- 



983 selves. I shall seek to make good, in a few references to 



evidence, with which the Tribunal is familiar, though it has 



mostly been quoted upon other points, these two propositions: 



That the United States and Great Britain, in 1818, contracted on 

 the express basis, on the express and agreed basis, that the grant of 

 this liberty should not and did not divide the sovereignty; and then 

 I will show as a further proposition, that, having made the treaty, 

 the parties acted and this has been so much dealt with that I shall 

 deal with it briefly, but still I must take it up as part of the regular 

 sequence of my argument both parties acted upon it according to 

 92909 S, Poc. 870, 61-3, vol 11 4 



