ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1857 



THE PRESIDENT: May I come back, Mr. Attorney-General, for a 

 moment to article 25 of Jay's treaty, and the dissent of opinion 

 which appeared ? This question appears to me so very essential, that 

 it is perhaps useful to fix the two opinions. The question put by my 

 colleague Dr. van Lohman I do not wish to say the opinion of Dr. 

 Lohman but the question put by him, because our questions are not 

 to be taken as expressions of our opinion 



SIR W. ROBSON : I take them as the questions of the whole Tribunal, 

 of course. 



THE PRESIDENT: Yes. The question put by Dr. Lohman supposes 

 that the treaty of 1818 contains a specific provision concerning fishery 

 rights which could make an exception to a general rule concerning 

 territorial rights, even if such rule concerning territorial rights should 

 be established? 



SIR W. ROBSON : Certainly. 



1123 THE PRESIDENT: Whereas your contention, Mr. Attorney- 

 General, is that the general rule concerning territorial rights 

 embodies also fishery rights? 



SIR W. ROBSON : Yes. 



THE PRESIDENT: That it concerns also the regulation of fishery 

 rights. That seems to me to be the difference between the two opin- 

 ions concerning the applicability of an argument drawn from the 

 second paragraph of article 25 of this treaty of 1794. 



SIR W. ROBSON : Yes, but of course I admit as fully as can be, when 

 once I have given a fishing right, of course I have qualified my terri- 

 torial powers, and I am bound to give effect to the fishing right. 

 There is no doubt about that. The only question here is : Over what 

 area did I give the fishing right. That is the point, and that has 

 to be decided by discovering the area over which I had jurisdiction. 

 Did I, when I said you might fish in the bay, mean you may fish 

 within 3 miles of the coasts of the bay, or did I mean you may fish 

 over the whole of the bay ? The United States say : " You meant 

 only that you might fish within 3 miles of the coast." I say : " No, 

 I meant more than that ; I meant to give you, and you meant to take, 

 the right to fish within the whole of the bay though it be 10 miles 

 from the coast. And the reason why you asked for that and I gave it 

 was that at that time I was speaking of the whole of that bay, not 

 merely of the 3 miles from the coast, as my own territory, and I was 

 in the habit of drawing my coast line so as to include that bay in my 

 territory. I never drew my line round the coast inside the bay. I 

 drew it across the bay from headland to headland, and made it all 

 mine; and you, the United States, at that date, were doing exactly 

 the same thing. That is what you did at Delaware ; that is what you 

 did at Chesapeake. You claimed a complete jurisdiction, and, hav- 

 ing got it, you said, ' No one else shall fish here.' " That was said 



