ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 143 



States to fish upon the treaty coast under the treaty of 1783 were 

 subjected to regulation by Great Britain. That proposition I con- 

 trovert, and I affirm upon the record that is here that the exercise 

 of fishing right by the inhabitants of the United States upon the 

 treaty coast under the treaty of 1783 never was subjected to regu- 

 lation by Great Britain. 



These statutes in the British Memorandum are arranged in 

 order of date, without special reference to the countries, or without 

 any complete separation in respect of the countries or colonies in 

 which the statutes were enacted. 



Let me first refer to the statutes which are said to have been 

 passed in certain of the colonies now forming part of the United 

 States, and which did in 1818 form part of the United States. 



I do not consider that those statutes are relevant to the question 

 whether American rights on the treaty coast were regulated under 

 the treaty of 1783. Manifestly they are not. Their materiaUty 

 is, I suppose, considered to be that their existence would naturally 

 have suggested to the negotiators the fact that fishing was a thing 

 appropriate and proper to be regulated; a suggestion which we 

 are not disposed materially to controvert; indeed, I intend here- 

 after to show that they did have specifically in mind the subject 

 of regulation, and that they acted specifically upon it, and that 

 there was a perfectly distinct understanding with regard to 

 regulation. Nevertheless, I will make some remarks upon these 

 American Statutes. 



They did not contain any general scheme of regulation or sug- 

 gest any general scheme of regulation. The first referred to are 

 the Statutes of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They appear 

 upon p. 4 of the British Memorandum. And they constitute a 

 series of statutes which upon examination are designed to control 

 the trade in fish, rather than the taking of fish. 



There was one in 1668 that provided that no cod-fish should 

 be killed or dried for sale in December or January; no mackerel 

 to be caught except for spending while fresh before the ist June. 

 This was amended in 1692, or rather re-enacted in 1692, and in 

 that form it has a preamble which is: 



"Upon consideration of great damage and scandal that hath happened 

 upon the account of pickled fish, although afterwards closed and hardly 



