ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM EOBSON. 1631 



That is signed by Mr. Gallatin, who was one of the signatories to 

 the treaty of 1818. Could my point be better put than it is put there? 

 The jurisdiction all I am contending for remained with Great 

 Britain. Although the French liberty was of a character so much 

 more extensive and explicit in its terms than the liberty given to 

 the United States, still, says Mr. Gallatin, it does not touch jurisdic- 

 tion. Then he explains what he means by jurisdiction. He says 

 France cannot herself do summary justice. But that is what Mr. 

 Turner wants for the United States. Mr. Turner says : " We claim 

 not only an equal voice, we claim by our own hand to enforce our 

 rights." And Mr. Turner went no further than the necessities of his 

 argument compelled him to go; because you cannot trifle with sover- 

 eignty. If you once give anything in the nature of a sovereign 

 legislative power to a state, you cannot stop there. If you are doing 

 it by implication, the same implication that induces you to give 

 anything compels you by logical necessity to give all. It would be 

 absurd for Mr. Turner to have argued he did not, of course, but it 

 would have been absurd for him to have argued that the United 

 States got some right of recommendation, or of being consulted, or 

 any such modified right of that kind. It would be no use. And if he 

 felt that if the implication which he was seeking to establish was 

 to be established at all, it must go the full length. It must be real 

 sovereignty, with all the incidents of sovereignty, and among others 

 that of enforcing their rights on a foreign soil by hostile action 

 against the citizens of a foreign State in time of peace. That is the 

 contention to which he was driven. The framer and signatory of 

 the treaty tells this Tribunal, as clearly as he can use words, that 

 that is not what he meant in 1818, because he was taking, then, a far 

 less right than the French enjoyed ; and he said even with regard to 

 that greater right, the ordinary principles which govern nations in 

 their contracts apply, and you are not to imply, as part of the con- 

 tract, that which it cannot be reasonably supposed the parties in- 

 tended to give. Mr. Gallatin was a good enough lawyer to know 

 that he could not make a contract for the parties, and he told France : 

 " If you wanted an exclusive jurisdiction, you should have had it 

 put in. You should have had the word ' exclusive ' used. You have 

 no right to get by implication that which you might have got by 

 explicit terms." 



That was the attitude, the just and fair attitude of the framers 

 of that treaty themselves. Then, later on, there are other passages 

 that I need not trouble about. Again, there is the repetition of the 

 words " exclusive jurisdiction." And they claimed the protection 

 of Great Britain. They say: "France has no jurisdiction; none at 

 all." And they claim the protection of Great Britain. Why? Be- 

 cause they say : " We have this grant at your hands, and it is for you 



