ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 103 



And the new grant of the treaty covered a portion of the liberty 

 claimed, and the renunciation of the treaty covered all the remain- 

 der of the liberty claimed. So I say it is not to be supposed that 

 the makers of this treaty considered that they were going very far 

 in making a grant of a right affecting this small portion of the 

 coasts involved in the controversy as a right of the highest order 

 of dignity. 



The true nature of this right could not be better stated than it 

 was stated by Lord Bathurst in his letter to Mr. Adams of the 30th 

 October, 1815, which appears in the United States Case Appendix, 

 and from which I will read, p. 274. 



First let me say a word about the significance of the letter. 



As we all know. Great Britain claimed, after the end of the war 

 of 181 2, that the right of the United States within her maritime 

 jurisdiction had been destroyed by the war. We all know that Mr. 

 Adams controverted this very vehemently, and this letter is the 

 statement of the British ground upon which it maintained that 

 position and refused to permit the United States to exercise the 

 liberty which it had held under the treaty of 1783. 



This is the formal authentic statement of the position of Great 

 Britain under which she justified herself — was ready to justify 

 herself to the world — for the denial of the rights which she had 

 solemnly granted by the treaty of 1783 to the United States. It 

 was the formal statement of the position of Great Britain in that 

 controversy. 



Mr. Adams, you will remember, had claimed that, because of 

 this original right of the United States under the partition of 

 empire theory, the grant of the liberty or the right of 1783 was not 

 ended by the war, but that it was an original right which continued, 

 war or no war. That was Mr. Adams's position. 



Lord Bathurst is here controverting that position and stating 

 the contrary position on which Great Britain stood, and he says 

 in the first paragraph on p. 274: 



"The minister of the United States appears, by his letter, to be well 

 aware that Great Britain has always considered the hberty formerly enjoyed 

 by the United States of fishing within British limits, and using British terri- 

 tory, as derived from the third article of the treaty of 1783, and from that 

 alone; and that the claim of an independent state to occupy and use at its 



