ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1861 



We claim them absolutely; we have nothing to do there with coast 

 line limits." 



[Thereupon at 12 o'clock the Tribunal took a recess until 2 o'clock 

 p. M.] 



AFTERNOON SESSION, MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 1910, 2 P. M. 



THE PRESIDENT: Will you please to continue, Sir William? 



THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, SIR WILLIAM ROBSON (resuming) : I am 

 sorry I am going over ground so often trodden I must apologise to 

 the Tribunal, but I need not say the subject is one of such importance 

 I am sure I -shall have their indulgence in dealing with it. 



I have come to the letters in 1793 referring to the Delaware Bay 

 incident, and I have explained that the significance of that incident 

 with regard to this argument is that the United States, who are 

 claiming exclusive jurisdiction, which of course included the right 

 of fishing, and I have pointed out that in fact, in that bay, the 

 United States had exercised the right to exclude all fishermen except 

 its own. The State of Delaware did that. And that was the footing 

 upon which both parties treated " bays." 



Perhaps it will be within the recollection of the President of the 

 Tribunal, that when we were dealing with the treaty of 1794, which 

 was made after the Delaware Bay incident (article 25), each nation 

 agrees that it will treat its bays as they stand, as they are that it 

 will treat them as their own separate property, and the learned 

 President drew attention to the fact that in 1806 that provision was 

 omitted, when in 1806 the parties came to endeavour to make an 

 agreement. 



Well, I have followed up that enquiry, and I find that the ref- 

 erence to bays in the article of the 1806 draft, which corresponded 

 to the article in the 1794 draft, which referred to bays, was dropped 

 out because the United States thought it unnecessary. The language 

 used appears in the American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. 

 iii, p. 83. It has not been before the Tribunal before. It is very 

 confirmatory of my present argument, namely, that " bays " were 

 regarded as so much national property that it was really beneath 

 the dignity of a State to seek that they should be protected from 

 foreign enemies, any more than any other part of their territory 

 should be protected. 



Mr. Madison is writing to Mr. Monroe on the 5th January, 1804. 

 They are discussing what shall be done with regard to the claim for 

 impressments which England was putting forAvard. England was 

 claiming the right to capture her seamen, or those whom she said 

 were her seamen, wherever she could find them, Mr. Madison com- 



