1826 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



there may be a property in gulfs and even in straits which are open 

 at both ends. He refers to Grotius and then says : 



"After all the admissions that have been made as to the lawful- 

 ness of appropriating gulphs and streights, it becomes quite impos- 

 sible for those who reason on the other side to draw any distinct line 

 even on that part of the subject; for the proportion of the sea to 

 the territory of any nation that borders upon it being made the meas- 

 ure of that nation's right to acquire an exclusive property in any 



part of such a sea, this proportion will always be variously 

 1104 estimated, according to the interest of the most powerful 



among the different states concerned in deciding upon the 

 lawfulness of the appropriations." 



That, no doubt, again, is a very sensible reference to the facts of 

 life and of the world. It is not a case of our laying down mathe- 

 matical rules, because it will depend after all upon what a State can 

 acquire and what a State can defend. Some of them, he states, 

 claim 60 miles out on the sea. But, I have no concern with these 

 extreme applications of the principle; I am only concerned with 

 establishing the distinction. I do not want to direct attention to the 

 question as to how far you might exercise territorial dominion; that 

 is not the object of my argument, because that was so fully dealt 

 with by my learned friend Sir Robert Finlay, and I shall not pre- 

 sume to go over the same ground for exactly the same purpose. I 

 am going over this part of his ground again in order to make good 

 the distinction to which Dr. Lohman has drawn my attention. Is 

 it to be said that before 1818 the United States admitted that bays 

 were not to be treated as open seas? I say that the law shows it 

 and that the treaties which I have read show it 1686, 1713, 1763, 

 1783. 



My learned friend, Mr. Peterson, reminds me that I omitted two 

 of the treaties, one of which is very important. It was the treaty in 

 1778. I did refer to it, but I did not refer to it in its proper order. 

 In 1778 the United States made an agreement with France which re- 

 peated in express terms the treaty of 1686. When I was dealing with 

 the treaty of 1686, the Tribunal will remember that I mentioned that 

 fact, but I ought to have given the treaty itself later on. It is at 

 p. 3 of the British Counter-Case Appendix, and it is very, very im- 

 portant as an express admission by the United States, five years be- 

 fore the treaty of 1783. It is now on the European stage, before the 

 world as an independent power, and it sits down to make an agree- 

 ment with France as follows : 



" The subjects, inhabitants, merchants, commanders of ships, mas- 

 ters, and mariners of the states, provinces, and dominions of each 

 party respectively shall abstain and forbear to fish in all places pos- 

 sessed or which shall be possessed by the other party; "- 



