AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1541 



Treaty of Washington confers no such rights on the inhabitants of the 

 United States, who now enjoy them merely by sufferance, and who can 

 at any time be deprived of them by the enforcement of existing I;I\VH 

 or the re enactment of former oppressive statutes. We say first, that 

 you have no jurisdiction over such matters as a subject of compensation, 

 because the treaty confers none upon you and nothing of the kind 

 is denominated in the bond. We say secondly, that we have no vested 

 rights under the treaty, regarding commercial intercourse of this de- 

 scription ; and that as regards such intercourse, the inhabitants of the 

 United States stand in the same relation to the subjects of Her Majesty 

 as they did before this treaty was negotiated. These two points though 

 running somewhat together are nevertheless distinct. And we base our 

 contention upon the plain language of the treaty, in which not one 

 word can be found relating to the right to buy or sell, to traffic or trans- 

 fer cargoes; the whole language is limited to the privilege of the inshore 

 fisheries, both in Article 18, where these privileges are conferred, and in 

 Article 22, which provides for the appointment of this Commission. Of 

 course, it is not necessary for me to call your attention to the fact that 

 commissioners, arbitrators, referees, and every other description of tri- 

 bunals, are limited in their powers by the terms of the instrument under 

 which they act; and that if they include in any award, a thing upon which, 

 they are not authorized to decide, the entire award is thereby vitiated ; 

 and their whole action becomes ultra vires, and void. I cannot antrci- 

 pate that there will be any denial of this plain proposition. 



Now, the Commissioners will be pleased to observe, and our friends 

 on the other side to take notice, that the United States utterly repudiate 

 any obligation either to make compensation or pay damages for any of 

 these matters; that they maintain, as they have from the first, that the 

 question submitted here is solely and exclusively the adjustment of 

 equivalents relating to the inshore fisheries; and that the Unired States 

 will not be under the slightest obligation to submit to an award includ- 

 ing anything more than thes * things. Turning to the treaty again, we 

 find that there are commercial articles in it, but these are not articles 

 with which this tribunal is concerned. From Article 20th to the 3Lst, 

 inclusive, various commercial privileges are given to the citizens of the 

 two countries. These articles relate to the navigation of the lakes, rivers, 

 and canals, to the conveyance of goods transshipped in bond free of 

 duty, to the carrying trade; and as to them the Treaty of Washington 

 is a Reciprocity Treaty. As to these matters, that which is conceded 

 on the one side is an equivalent for that which is conceded on the other, 

 and the mutual concessions are the sole equivalents for each other. 

 Indeed, who ever heard of a treaty of commercial reciprocity where a 

 money payment, to be ascertained by arbitration, was to balance con- 

 cessions granted by the one side to the other ? It is enough to say that 

 in these commercial clauses of the Treaty, as in all other commercial 

 arrangements that have ever been made between the two countries, there 

 is no stipulation for compensation. It may be well to inquire on what 

 looting the commercial relations between the United States, and Great 

 Britain do rest. How have they stood for more than a generation past, 

 for nearly a hundred years ? My friend, Mr. Trescot, has investigated 

 the treaties, and the result, as I understand it, is this: that the Com- 

 mercial Convention of 1815, originally entered into for four years, was 

 extended during ten years more by the Convention of 1818, and ex- 

 tended again indefinitely in 1827. The last clause of the second article 

 of the Convention of 1815, after providing as to the duties to be levied 

 on the products of each country, &c., and as to the commercial inter- 





