ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1841 



them towards putting forward terms of peace, and they want 

 1118 to get the 9-mile coast-line limit. They do not say anything 



about bays, but did that mean at that time that they did not 

 want bays? Here again we must turn to their journal of Congress and 

 it is on p. 166. It is curious how little definiteness there is there even in 

 their coast-line. At p. 164, I observe, is the report of the committee 

 that, the Tribunal will remember, we discussed, as to whether it was 

 ever acted on or not. Perhaps the Tribunal will remember that there 

 was a report presented to Congress on the 22nd January, 1782, that 

 it was then referred to another committee and that that committee 

 reported that it should be referred to the Secretary for Foreign 

 Affairs to be by him digested, completed, and transmitted to the 

 ministers plenipotentiary. So that, it is digested and completed and 

 is sent to the ministers plenipotentiary for their instruction and guid- 

 ance in August 1782. I will read the whole paragraph : 



" Thus it appears, upon strict principles of natural law," 



They are discussing these very questions of property to the fisher- 

 ies and territorial jurisdiction 



"the sea is unsusceptible of appropriation; that a species of con- 

 ventional law has annexed a reasonable district of it to the coast 

 which borders on it ; and that in many of the treaties to which Great 

 Britain has acceded, no distance has been assumed for this purpose 

 bej'Ond fourteen miles." 



They have got in their heads their coast -line limit I do not care 

 whether it is 3, 9, or 14 miles, or any other figure but they clearly 

 have in their minds that there is a distance of water which ought to 

 be appropriated to the coast all the way round. Does that mean that 

 they must follow the coast-line of the bays, or that they take the 

 bays on a different footing altogether, on a separate principle, to 

 the water which they take off the open coast? You will find that 

 dealt with on the next page. It says : * 



" But the sea cannot be holden or possessed, these terms implying 

 appropriations. They accord well with havens, bays, creeks, roads 



or coasts ; " 



You may possess them. They agree that you may possess havens, 

 bays, creeks, roads, or coasts even though they are part of the sea. 

 It is a right to possess them separately and by a title quite inde- 

 pendent of the principle on which you possess the 14 miles, or 3 

 miles, or 9 miles of sea attached to the coast. They thus indicate by 

 their own resolutions that when you are to fix the limit alongside the 

 shore, that does not mean that you are going to give up the bays 

 which are treated as separate. You keep them. They are suscepti- 

 ble of appropriation and the word " appropriation " is proper there- 

 fore to them. So that the use of the word "shore," at p. 29, where 



