ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1825 



which shows that they did not want to have a distinction between 

 one kind of a bay and another. They did not want it to be said that: 

 Some shall be treated as open to the world, and some only as open to 

 us. Why should they? In 1783 it was the interest of America to 

 have all bays under the jurisdiction of a great maritime Power. It 

 was in the interest of America, because America was going to get the 

 right of fishing in them all, and they did not want to have it de- 

 clared that the bays of British North America were to be treated as 

 international and open. That would only have meant that other 

 Powers might come there; whereas it would suit her purposes better 

 that other Powers might be excluded, "because she was going to enjoy 

 a right which only Great Britain at that time in the world could 

 effectually assert; because we had then the greatest navy in the world. 

 One must approach the consideration of this doctrine, remembering 

 that the interest of the United States was to make the word " bays " 

 as inclusive as it could reasonably be construed to be. 



There is one other author, and I think he will be the last with 

 which I shall find it necessary to trouble the Tribunal Azuni, 1806. 

 The translation of this work was published in New York in 1806. 

 Azuni is very explicit and very emphatic. He says: 



" Having established the general principles on which the empire of 

 territorial sea is founded, it remains to define what is meant by the 

 terms, open sea, and inclosed sea, that we may better ascertain what 

 ought to be comprehended under the denomination of territorial sea, 

 and to corroborate the opinion advanced in the next article, as to the 

 extent of this empire. It is certain, and all writers on this subject 

 have agreed, that that must be called an inclosed sea "- 



So, I have got down to 1806 now, I have got past my critical date 

 of 1783, and I have a writer of eminence saying that all writers have 

 agreed that that must be called an enclosed sea : 



" the shores of which, like great gulphs, as well as the mouth, 



communicating with the high sea, belong to one nation." 



In other words he laid down a proposition, which nobody up to this 

 stage 1806 had contested, that, with reference to all these in- 

 dentations here, the territory is not to be calculated by its sinuous 

 line that is not what the international writers establish and that 

 is not what any practical nation would be willing to admit but he 

 says that such a territory is to be calculated so as to include all the 

 seas wherever you have the adjacent land of this formation which 

 belongs to one nation. Some writers go on after 1806, but they are 

 of less importance, because my date is 1783. 



Then, I come to 1820, when Joseph Chitty, an English writer be- 

 longing to a well-known family of law writers, lays down the same 

 proposition, and that carries me to the treaty of 1818. That is why 

 I go as far as he. Chitty says that all writers seem to admit that 



