ARGUMENT OF ELIHU KOOT. 2183 



SENATOR ROOT : I should think so. 



THE PRESIDENT: Then it refers also to " bays "? 



SENATOR ROOT: Yes; any of the coasts, bays, creeks or harbours. 



THE PRESIDENT : Then it would be the same if it said " of any of 

 the coasts, any of the bays, creeks, or harbours," if it refers to the 

 whole ? One could repeat before every one of those words ? 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : It must be repeated, under grammatical 

 construction. 



SENATOR ROOT: It would not give the same force of classification 

 as where they are grouped in under the same words. "Any of the 

 coasts, bays, creeks or harbours " carries the idea of a combination 

 of coasts, bays, creeks or harbours; and any of those combinations 

 of coasts, bays, creeks or harbours is the idea carried in this form 

 of words. 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : If you were parsing that sentence, 

 would you not say " of any of the coasts, of any of the bays, of any 

 of the creeks or of any of the harbours"? 



SENATOR ROOT : I should say " any " qualified all those words. 



In connection with this suggestion. I think the distributive use 

 of the word " coasts " occurred in the treaty of 1783. as well as in 

 the treaty of 1818. and I think that it had its origin in one of the 

 British proposals, which appears at p. 96 of the British Counter- 

 Case Appendix. This paper in which this occurs is a draft of the 

 preliminary articles sent by Mr. Townshend to Mr. Strachey, and the 

 whole thing consists of proposals made by the British at a meeting 

 which, I think, was on the 25th November, between the negotiators, 

 in 1782. That proposal I will read, from about the middle of the 

 page: 



" The citizens of the United States shall have the liberty of taking 

 fish of every kind on all the banks of Newfoundland, and also in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and also to dry and cure their fish on 

 the shores of the Isle of Sables, and on the shores of any of the 

 unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of the Magdalen Islands in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence, so long as such bays, harbours, and creeks 

 shall continue and remain unsettled. On condition that the citizens 

 of the said United States do not exercise the said fishery, but at the 

 distance of Three leagues from all the coasts belonging to Great 

 Britain, as well those of the continent, as those of the islands situated 

 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And as to what relates to the fishery 

 on the coasts of the island of Cape Breton out of the said gulf, the 

 citizens of the said United States shall not be permitted to exercise 

 the said fishery, but at the distance of fifteen leagues from the coasts 

 of the island of Cape Breton." 



That is treating these coasts distributively and separately. It is 

 not treating of a srreat coast as a whole, as we shall think of it when 

 we sail back to America. It is treating specifically of the shores 

 and of the unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of the Magdalen 



