ARGUMENT OP ELIHU BOOT. 1943 



When the treaty of 1783 came to be made, John Adams claimed 

 that the United States was equal in title with Great Britain to the 

 fisheries which, you will remember, he speaks of as being one whole 

 fishery on the banks and coasts. Great Britain, willing to concede 

 that the United States had, irrespective of any grant from her, the 

 right to fish on the banks, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in other 

 places in the sea, was unwilling to concede that the United States 

 had, without a grant from her, the right to fish upon the coasts. At 

 that time, the old vague claims to well-nigh universal control over 

 the seas were beginning to fade away. The new idea of a protective 

 right over a limited territorial zone had not yet become distinct, 

 certain, and fixed; but Great Britain was willing to abandon her 

 claims to exclude any other independent nation from the Banks of 

 Newfoundland and from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as she had so 

 long sought to exclude, and with great success, France and Spain. 

 She was willing to concede the right, and did concede the right, to 

 the United States as an independent nation to use that fishery. But 

 she insisted upon using in the grant of the right to fish on the coasts 

 a word which connoted the acquisition of the right by the United 

 States from her, and not as incident to the independence of the United 

 States. That was very well explained by Lord Bathurst in his letter 

 of the 30th October, 1815, which is found in the United States Case 

 Appendix at p. 273. I will read a few words from the paragraph 

 at the foot of p. 276. He said : 



" It is surely obvious that the word right is, throughout the 

 treaty " 



That is, the treaty of 1783. 



" used as applicable to what the United States were to enjoy, in virtue 

 of a recognised independence; and the word liberty to what they 

 were to enjoy, as concessions strictly dependant on the treaty itself," 



You will remember that, in some of these letters, there is a state- 

 ment of one of the negotiators speaking of the word " right " as 

 being impleasing to the English people in that relation because it 

 would indicate that the United States did not get it from them but 

 held it by original title as against them ; not that the word " right " 

 itself was unpleasant. There is no word, perhaps, so pleasing to the 

 English ear as the word " right," but it was because of the inference 

 that would be drawn from its use. So the word " liberty " was 

 applied to this particular kind of right that must come by grant from 

 another. The same distinction is very well stated by Mr. Webster 

 in that unfinished memorandum of which we have heard. I read 

 from p. 526 of the United States Case Appendix. He says : 



" It is admitted that by these treaties," 



That is, the preliminary treaty of 1782 and the treaty of 1783. 



