ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM KOBSON. 1629 



contract. I am now showing that they could not raise such a 

 985 contention, because when the contemporaneous correspondence 



is read, they themselves excluded the possibility of such a con- 

 tention being, accepted. 



I go just a step farther, for I am cutting these references short. 

 There came afterwards a dispute with which the Tribunal is familiar, 

 between Great Britain and the United States, in relation to the 

 American rights on the French shore. All those documents have been 

 gone through with regard to bays, and they have a great bearing on 

 this Question too. Who was conducting those negotiations? It is 

 very useful to observe that they were negotiations conducted by the 

 same persons, who had changed their capacity a little; I think Mr. 

 Adams was in some higher capacity than that which he had pre- 

 viously occupied, he was Secretary of State; but the same persons 

 who had made the treaty of 1818 were conducting this very important 

 international dispute in relation to their use of the French shore in 

 1822. Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Rush were the signatories to the treaty 

 of 1818. Mr. Adams also played, in that treaty, an important part. 

 So that you have the persons who had drafted the treaty, who had used 

 its language, who were the best of all judges as to its true intent, 

 from their point of view. These, are the very persons who, within a 

 short time after that treaty, are writing these letters ; and now mark 

 the language they use. It is language which puts this point really 

 beyond any doubt at all. France, of course, had a very strong case 

 for partition of sovereignty, if such a case could ever be established 

 at all. It had been sovereign, undisputed sovereign of the Island of 

 Newfoundland at least never undisputed sovereign I do not be- 

 lieve there was any part of the French or English dominions of those 

 times that was not disputed by the other; but at all events it had 

 been owner and lord of Newfoundland. They had reserved as a right 

 to themselves upon the western coast a right of fishing which was, 

 according to their contention, one to be exercised alone; so that, if 

 anybody had a good right for partition of sovereignty, it would be 

 the French. Now when the Americans came and claimed the right 

 to fish on that shore by virtue of our grant, the French said : " No." 

 And the reply of these gentlemen who had made the treaty of 1818 

 was : " But you have no right to exclude us. You undoubtedly have a 

 right to fish here. We do not think it is exclusive, but at all events 



& 



there is nothing to show that you have got any share in the sov- 

 ereignty of Great Britain. Great Britain has not granted you any 

 share of her legislative or executive power." In fact, Mr. Gallatin, 

 Mr. Rush, and Mr. Adams took up the argument which I am now 

 humbly endeavouring to present, and they used it, I am afraid more 

 concisely than I am able to use it, but at all events certainly not less 

 clearly. They said : " There can be no grant of sovereignty, except 



