ARGUMENT OP SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1891 



same year, the American fishing schooner Bird together with thirty 

 other American fishing vessels, while fishing at the Bay of Islands 

 about the first of June, were boarded by a French naval officer and 

 threatened with seizure if again found ' fishing there or any place 

 on the shore of Newfoundland between Cape Ray and the Carpoon 

 (Quirpon) Islands.' " 



Of course the dispute was not confined to bays. As between 

 France and the United States it did not turn on bays, and that is 

 one reason, I say, this feature of the dispute has not received suffi- 

 cient attention. France said : " You have no right to be anywhere 

 on this coast." And that was what the United States reported to 

 England. As far as Great Britain was concerned, it treated the dis- 

 pute, from beginning to end, as dispute about the right to fish 

 anywhere on the coast. It did not distinguish between coast and 

 bay, because it did not know where the vessels had been fish- 

 1144 ing. But it is very important for our purpose to distinguish. 

 The affidavits that were made on this point by the United 

 States seamen, appear in the United States Counter-Case Appendix, 

 at p. 105. I need not read them as I have given their effect. I only 

 give the reference, pp. 105 and 106, because it shows where each ves- 

 sel was fishing. I do not read them because I want to save time, and 

 they do not add to the statement that I have given ; but I am desir- 

 ous that the Tribunal should have the reference. 



See what that means. Perhaps I should pursue the facts a little 

 further, before I go on with the Argument. When the United States 

 vessels were put out of these bays the three principal bays on the 

 treaty coast the Government of the United States made complaint 

 to Great Britain. In the British Case Appendix from pp. 101 to 113, 

 these complaints appear; and again I am going to deal with them 

 shortly. I will just read one or two passages, in the letters of Mr. 

 Adams and Mr. Gallatin. Mr. Gallatin was then the Minister at 

 Paris, and that is very important, because he was one of the signa- 

 tories to the treaty; so that when he was talking about the meaning 

 of the treaty, he knew what he was about. He had signed it; and 

 the meaning that he and Mr. Rush put upon it, is very important; 

 because he and Mr. Rush and Mr. Adams are the very three that 

 were concerned in the making and signing of the treaty of 1818; 

 and the very three who are now conducting this correspondence. 

 What they do is to turn round on England and say : " You gave us 

 the right to fish here " meaning, of course, in these very bays ; not 

 merely on the coast at large " You gave us the right to fish in these 

 very bays ; and we have been turned out of these bays, and you must 

 pay us. You have given us a right which apparently you cannot 

 make good, because the French will not let us fish there; and there- 

 fore we insist that you shall give us compensation." 



