1892 NOBTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



SIB CHARLES FITZPATRICK : Were they within the 3-mile limit ? 



SIR W. ROBSON : It could not be said that they were, when you look 

 at the affidavits. They do not say they were in the 3-mile limit, and 

 when they talk of being ordered out of the bay, out of St. George's 

 Bay, for instance, they do not say a word about the 3-mile limit. 

 They say "St. George's Bay." I think as many as thirty vessels 

 were ordered out. The probability is that they were fishing generally 

 in the bay. The United States claimed that the vessels were fishing 

 there under a title derived from us. Their argument in effect meant 

 this: "These bays are within your jurisdiction. You have given us 

 the right to fish there. It turns out that we are not allowed to fish 

 there, because France claims an exclusive right; and you must 

 either establish our right as against France or give us monetary 

 compensation." 



If there was nothing else in the case, it seems to me that this would 

 settle the meaning of the treaty, because it is the construction of the 

 treaty by the men who signed the treaty. They know that these 

 vessels were fishing in the bays. The affidavits do not say. and I do 

 not believe it was the fact, that they were fishing within the 3-mile 

 limit. Now, mark the way in which it is treated by Mr. Adams. Hv> 

 argues that France had not an exclusive right. The order to go out 

 applied to the whole bay ; so that wherever they were found, they were 

 told : " You cannot fish in this bay, as a whole." And they were 

 ordered to go out of it completely, into the open sea. 



Among the letters which are here, which I hope the Tribunal will 

 read on this point I do not think I should be justified, as I am try- 

 ing to finish within a limit of time, in going over them all one need 

 only mention a letter like that from Mr. Gallatin to Viscount de 

 Chateaubriand, on p. 105 of the British Case Appendix, where he 

 draws attention to the proceedings of the commanders of French 

 armed vessels in driving American fishermen from 



"a coast the sovereignty of which belongs to another Power, and 

 over w'hich France has no jurisdiction," 



And he complains of that as an aggression. Then, Mr. Adams, at 

 p. 107 of the British Case Appendix, wTites to Mr. Rush, who was 

 then the American envoy in London, and says that Great Britain has 

 an interest in this question, because Great Britain has exclusive sov- 

 ereignty of that coast, and he goes on to tell Mr. Rush to put forward 

 this claim to the British Government; and, at the end of the third 

 paragraph in the letter he tells. Mr. Rush to call on the Briti.-h 

 Government 



" to maintain at once the faith of their treaty with us and the efficacy 

 of their own territorial jurisdiction, violated by the exercise of force 

 against the fishing vessels of the United States engaged in their law- 

 ful occupation under its protection." 



