ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLJAM ROBSON. 1753 



set out to read it some time ago a passage from a letter of Mr. 

 Adams. It is a strong appeal, and has an important bearing upon 

 any attempt to extend the right. If the United States come before 

 this Tribunal and say : Look at the circumstances of the case. Is 

 it fair, is it equitable, is it in accordance with the intent of the 

 parties that we should not be allowed to employ foreigners, leaving 

 the documents aside and looking at the business of the thing? I 

 reply: Let us look at the intent of the parties as declared and dis- 

 closed by contemporary evidence. Mr. Adams put it very strongly, 

 and I think I am justified in saying that his appeal must have had 

 some effect. I want to show that it was not, as Mr. Elder has said, 

 the millionaire fisherman that Mr. Adams was fighting for, but that 

 it was the hardy working fisherman. He says that : 



" Independent of the question of rigorous right, it would conduce 

 to the substantial interests of Great Britain herself, as well as to the 

 observance of those principles of benevolence and humanity which it 

 is the highest glory of a great and powerful nation to respect, to 

 leave to the American fishermen the participation of those benefits 

 which the bounty of nature has thus spread before them ; which are 

 so necessary to their comfort and subsistence "- 



It is purely an appeal for individuals. All this talk about a grant 

 made to the State never enters anybody's head when they are making 

 the treaty 



"which they have constantly enjoyed hitherto; and which, far from 

 operating as an injury to Great Britain, had the ultimate result of 

 pouring into her lap a great portion of the profits of their hardv and 

 laborious industry; that these fisheries afforded the means of sub- 

 sistence to a numerous class of people in the United States, whose 

 habit of life had been fashioned to no other occupation, and whose 

 fortunes had allotted them no other possession ; that to another, and, 

 perhaps, equally numerous class of our citizens, they afforded the 

 means of remittance and payment for the productions of British in- 

 dustry and ingenuity, imported from the manufactures of this United 

 Kingdom ; that, by the common and received usages among civilized 

 nations, fishermen were among those classes of human society whose 

 occupations, contributing to the general benefit and welfare of the 

 species, were entitled to a more than ordinary share of protection; 

 that it was usual to spare and exempt them even from the most ex- 

 asperated conflicts of national hostility; that this nation had, for 

 ages, permitted the fishermen of another country to frequent and 



fish upon the coasts of this island " 



Then he went on to show the economic advantages of mutual trade. 

 Clearly the request for the right is put upon considerations which 

 relate to individuals, and individuals alone; so that, when one goes 

 outside the treaty and begins to see what there is in the conditions 

 or in the contemporary documents which might encourage or allow 

 an extension of that right, instead of finding matter which allows 

 92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 11 12 



