ABGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1893 



1145 Then he says, in an extract from his diary given on p. 108 

 of the British Case Appendix : 



" Great Britain was bound to maintain her own jurisdiction. And 

 if she had conceded to us a right which she had already granted as 

 an exclusive possession to France, she must indemnify us for it." 



Great Britain, finding that the dispute turned on the treaty of 

 1778 between France and the United States, referred the United 

 States to France; and, ultimately, the United States decided they 

 would not pursue that matter any further " for the present." On 

 p. 113 will be found the letter from the British Minister at Wash- 

 ington to Mr. Canning, saying that he had ascertained a few days 

 since (that is in 1825, more than two years after the controversy be- 

 gan) from the American Secretary of State that there was no inten- 

 tion on the part of the President to pursue the negotiations any fur- 

 ther " for the present." 



So here you have got American vessels ordered, not out of the 3- 

 mile limit, but out of the bays. You have the United States there- 

 upon saying to England : " You must pay us, because you gave us 

 the privilege of fishing in these bays, and we are not allowed even to 

 enter them." And England says : " We are not going to pay you. 

 You must maintain your own rights, if, having regard to your treaty 

 of 1778, you think you have got them ; " and ultimately the matter 

 dropped. But what is the construction or interpretation by the 

 United States of the treaty they have just signed; what is the inter- 

 pretation placed upon it by Mr. Kush, Mr. Gallatin, and Mr. Adams ? 

 They all of them in effect say : " The word ' bays ' which was used in 

 the treaty means all the bays and the whole of each bay. We, the 

 United States, are entitled to fish there, not because it is open sea if 

 it were open sea, we should not turn round and ask Great Britain for 

 compensation because we had been turned out we are entitled to fish 

 there because it is British jurisdiction, and exclusively British juris- 

 diction." In one of these very letters Mr. Adams refers to it as 

 purely British waters. 



There is a case of admission which is conclusive. For instance, 

 when I come to Question 6, I shall have to deal with some very 

 awkward admissions, but I do not think there is a single admission 

 so awkward as this on Question 5 for the United States. There is 

 not a point against me on that question which is stronger than or so 

 strong as this. I venture to say, that if this question was put before 

 any municipal tribunal, they would say : " The United States Commis- 

 sioners who made the treaty have put this construction on it. They 

 have decided the question for us. They have said that they con- 

 sidered the bays were included within the grant, not merely 3 miles 

 from the coast of the bays, but the whole of the bays. They have 

 said that these bays were not to be treated as open sea. They have 



