1754 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



such an extension you find matter which evidently shows that it AV:IS 



a personal benefit, and intended to be personally enjoyed by those 



in whose favour it is granted. Then he says this at the end : 



1061 " By attributing to motives derived from such sources as 

 these the recognition of these liberties by His Majesty's 

 Government in the treaty of 1783, it would be traced to an origin 

 certainly more conformable to the fact, and surely more honourable 

 to Great Britain, than by ascribing it to the improvident grant of 

 an unrequited privilege, or to a concession extorted from the humil- 

 iating compliance of necessity. 



" In repeating, with earnestness, all these suggestions, it is with 

 the hope that from some, or all of them, His Majesty's Government 

 will conclude the justice and expediency of leaving the North Ameri- 

 can fisheries in the state in which they have heretofore constantly 

 existed." 



Here you have, as the reason urged by Mr. Adams, the benefit to 

 individuals and to individuals of a peculiarly meritorious class. 

 That is all; nothing else than that, because, at this time. Great Brit- 

 ain was certainly under no pressure. She was at the zenith of her 

 triumph, and she was certainly under no humiliating conditions or in 

 a situation which compelled compliance with humiliating conditions. 

 She was not under any necessity to consent to give a right which 

 might have the effect of depleting those fisheries if ever the United 

 States chose to exercise its right in a hostile spirit against its neigh- 

 bour. The interpretation which the United States seek to place upon 

 this right might have the effect of depleting the fisheries upon which 

 Newfoundland depends for its very existence. Just think of it. 

 Look at it from those considerations of fairness as between the 

 nations. We gave a grant in 1818 to a nation of, I think, about 

 3,000,000 inhabitants. I do not know what the American popula- 

 tion then was, and I may not be correct in that statement, but it was 

 probably something like 3,000.000. We gave it to thirteen States, 

 and we gave it to them under the title of the United States. These 

 thirteen States have become nearly fifty, and the 3,000,000 have 

 become nearly 80,000,000. A benefit which we conferred upon a 

 single class of United States inhabitants is now a benefit which ex- 

 tends to the greatest population of almost any State in the world, 

 except Russia and China, certainly to a population which, in point 

 of power, prosperity, and potential greatness, is unmatched in the 

 world. There is an increase of population to an enormous extent, 

 and a grant given to the 3,000,000 people is now to be enjoyed by 

 over 80,000,000. I am not saying that as a matter of law points 

 of law might not be raised upon it, but they are not raised here. I 

 think that if we were of Senator Turners way of thinking about 

 servitudes I might say that the servitude might not attach to the 

 dominant tenement in its increased extent, but, however, I do not 



