1874 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



may be wrong. It may have been a failure of Lord Bathurst's mem- 

 ory. It is only a conversation of a rather casual character, and I 

 do not know who was mistaken, but it does not matter, because Mr. 

 Adams, in writing to Mr. Monroe, refers him to the letter itself for 

 the precise terms. It is on p. 66, at the last paragraph of the 

 letter : 



" The answer which was so promptly sent to the complaint relative 

 to the warning of the fishing vessels, by the captain of the Jaseur, 

 will probably be communicated to you before you will receive this 

 letter. You will see whether it is so precise, as to the limits within 

 which they are determined to adhere to the exclusion of our fishing 

 vessels, as Lord Bathurst's verbal statement of it to me, namely, to 

 the extent of one marine league from their shores." 



There was no reference to bays in this letter ; and he says that Great 

 Britain was not going to assert jurisdiction beyond 1 marine league. 

 But now he tells Mr. Monroe to go to the letter, and we know that if 

 Mr. Monroe did not go to the letter, the letter went to him, and he 

 knew not only that it contained the word " bays," but that that was 

 the very backbone of the whole thing. 



From that moment onwards, I challenge my learned friend, Senator 

 Root, to point to anything which shows that we ever receded from 

 that position. Mr. Warren kept on talking about the 1 league. That 

 has nothing to do with this point ; it is a different point. It is a point 

 that concerned Mr. Adams very much, because he was always afraid 

 that we should go back upon our concession in 1783 I will not say 

 concession our acknowledgement in 1783 of the right of public fish- 

 ing on the banks. The great war had ended in June 1815 by the 

 Battle of Waterloo; we were a great maritime power, and I daroay 

 he might fear that we were not disposed to use our victory very 

 tenderly, and he was afraid that it might affect the fisheries on the 

 banks. It was always that. Mr. Adams, everywhere throughout 

 all these letters, has the bank fishery in mind, not those little trum- 

 pery bits of coast that they got afterwards in 1818. He had not 

 thought much about them. As far as they were concerned, the whole 

 of this controversy was brought to an end by that letter, I respect- 

 fully and humbly submit. 



THE PRESIDENT: May I ask why this letter which we have com- 

 municated now was not printed in the Appendix ? 



SIR W. ROBSON: It was not found; it was not known. I do not 



think that anybody attached very much importance to it 



1134 until the argument compelled a re-search. We never knew of 



it and did not get it until this argument was developed here. 



Then a fresh search was made and this draft was discovered for the 



first time. I do not know that the documents are very carefully kept. 



There have been a great many documents that we would like to have 



got but could not find at all, documents which I cannot help thinking 



