'909.] ATLANTIC FISHERIES QUESTION. 325 



ington/^ delivered the opinion of the court. On the continuance of 

 treaties, he held:^* 



But we are not inclined to admit the doctrine urged at bar, that treaties 

 become extinguished, ipso facto, by war between the two governments, unless 

 they should be revived by an express or implied renewal on the return of 

 peace. Whatever may be the latitude of doctrine laid down by elementary 

 writers on the Law of Nations, dealing in general terms on this subject, we 

 are satisfied, that the doctrine contended for is not universally true. There 

 may be treaties of such a nature, as to their object and import, as that war will 

 put an end to them; but where treaties contemplate a permanent arrangement 

 of territorial and other national rights, or which, in their terms, are meant to 

 provide for the event of an intervening war, it would be against every prin- 

 ciple of just interpretation to hold them extinguished by the event of war. If 

 such were the law, even the treaty of 1783, so far as it fixed our limits, and 

 acknowledged our independence, would be gone, and we should have had 

 again to struggle for both upon original revolutionary principles. Such a 

 construction was never asserted, and would be so monstrous as to supersede 

 all reasoning. 



We think, therefore, that treaties stipulating for permanent rights, and 

 general arrangements, and professing to aim at perpetuity, and to deal with 

 the case of war as well as of peace, do not cease on the occurrence of war, 

 but are, at most, only suspended while it lasts; and unless they are waived by 

 the parties, or new and repugnant stipulations are made, they revive in their 

 operation at the return of peace. 



In the case of " Sutton vs. Sutton," in order to decide the case 

 at bar, it was necessary for the British High Court of Chancery to 

 pass upon the continuance or abrogation of the treaty of 1794, be- 

 tween America and Britain, known as Jay's Treaty, after the War 

 of 1812 between these two powers. Sir John Leach, Master of the 

 Rolls in the British High Court of Chancery held:^^ 



The relations, which subsisted between Great Britain and America, when 

 they formed one empire, led to the introduction of the ninth section of the 

 treaty of 1794, and made it highly reasonable that the subjects of the two 

 parts of the divided empire should, notwithstanding the separation, be pro- 

 tected in the mutual enjoyment of their landed property; and, the privileges 

 of natives being reciprocally given, not only to the actual possessors of lands 

 but to their heirs and assigns, it is a reasonable construction that it was the 

 intention of the treaty that the operation of the treaty should be permanent, 

 and not depend upon the continuance of a state of peace. 



" Mr. Justice Bushrod Washington. 



"Wharton's "United States Supreme Court Reports," New York, 1823, 

 p. 494. 



" Russell and Mylne's " Chancery Court Reports," Vol. I., 676. 



