44 THE ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



on plausible grounds as reasonable and beneficial. The proposition 

 now insisted on is that if an implied power of limiting and restrain- 

 ing the American fishing right is to be deduced from the words in 

 question, the power of limiting and restraining that right is not 

 confined in principle to regulations for the preservation of the fish- 

 eries, but may be extended to any clog, burden or restraint which 

 Great Britain sees fit to impose in aid of any other policjr ; and hence, 

 if the United States by virtue of those words took for its inhabitants 

 such rights only as might be permitted by Great Britain to her own 

 subjects, the power of Great Britain to limit and restrain the exercise 

 by American fishermen of the right to fish is subject to one condition 

 only, namely, that she must limit and restrain her own fishermen to 

 the same extent. The United States would then be subject to any 

 self-denying ordinance Great Britain might see fit to impose without 

 reference to its object or purpose and whether well or ill conceived. 

 The argument of Great Britain drawn from the use of the words 

 in common necessarily and at once compels this result, a result im- 

 possible to conceive of as within the contemplation of the two nations. 

 If it could be thought that the British negotiators had such a result 

 in mind it is impossible to conceive that the American plenipoten- 

 tiaries would have accepted a fishing right so empty and valueless. 



INTERPRETATION AND CONSTRUCTION BY THE PARTIES. 



CONSTRUCTION OF UNITED STATES SUSTAINED BY NEGOTIATIONS 

 PRECEDING THE TREATY. 



The protocols and diplomatic correspondence leading up to the 

 treaty of 1818 show beyond question that the words of the treaty were 

 not employed by the negotiators in the sense now claimed for them 

 by Great Britain. 



The fishing rights secured to the inhabitants of the United States 

 by the treaty of 1783 were not limited by words from which a right 

 of regulation by Great Britain might have been deduced. This is 

 important to be remembered. The American negotiators of the 

 treaty of 1818 approached their work imbued with the American 



U. S. Case, 222. 



