ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1849 



THE PRESIDENT: But in this connection can it be a stream? There 



is no question about fishing in rivers? 

 1118 SIR W. ROBSON : No. 



THE PRESIDENT: There is only the question concerning the 

 fishing in the sea. 



SIR W. ROBSON : I should have said, speaking humbly on the mat- 

 ter, that a creek was the expression applied, not to the stream, but to 

 the indentation of the coast into which the stream emptied an 

 estuary; I think that is really what we should call it. A stream is 

 not an inlet of the sea. I think from the way in which the word 

 " creek " is used here, that it refers to the sea coming into the land, 

 rather than to a stream coming down from the land towards the sea ; 

 but probably the correct meaning is a stream broadening into an 

 estuary. 



JUDGE GRAY: A small river? 



SIR W. ROBSON: Yes: where the estuary is broad enough to look 

 not as though it were formed, not by the stream or river coming down, 

 but by the sea curving in at that point. It is an indentation. I think 

 a creek must be treated as an indentation in the coast by the sea. 

 But it may be very often indicated as the estuary into which the 

 stream flows. Of course it does not much matter, for my purpose, 

 what its precise meaning may be. One sees how it is used, in a 

 general sense, and we all know what a bay is. The creeks do not have 

 names; at least, they do not have names on the map. The bays do 

 have names on the map. So that we know where we are when we are 

 talking of bays, and we do not quite know where we are when we are 

 talking about creeks. 



THE PRESIDENT : So that the smallest indentations of the coast are 

 not bays. The smallest indentations of the coast would be creeks? 



SIR W. ROBSON: I should say that they are bays in form, though 

 perhaps not in dimension ; but that, witHout any very exact dividing 

 line between a creek and a bay, I think it may be taken that creeks 

 are smaller than bays; that creeks generally are smaller than bays 

 generally. You might, I daresay, find a creek which might be 

 larger than some small bay; but still I think that they must be 

 treated as indentations of the coast. 



Now, then, I have come, therefore, to the first point to which I 

 desire to draw attention, making a distinction between the " bay " 

 and the " coast," for purposes of territory and fishing: Namely, that 

 nobody in taking a right desires to run any risk of having that right 

 limited. And there was just the possibility, which would occur to 

 any ingenious person, that if they relied on the word " coast " by 

 itself, though geographically the word " coast " would give them all 

 they wanted, because it would give them the coasts of the bays as 

 92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 11 18 



