ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 165 



But we are not left entirely to the absence of regulation. There 

 is affirmative evidence, perfectly clear evidence, that the negotiators 

 did have regulations in naind. What they had in mind was not 

 regulations which were determined upon by Great Britain, or any 

 of its colonies, in the exercise of its sole judgment; but they were 

 regulations established by the concurrence, the accord of the judg- 

 ment both of Great Britain and the United States regarding the 

 exercise of the common liberty. 



I will ask the attention of the Tribunal again to a letter which 

 I have so often referred to, and shall again, the letter from Lord 

 Bathurst to Mr. Adams of the 30th October, 1815, in the United 

 States Case Appendix, p. 278. I begin at the last paragraph on 

 p. 277. Mr. Adams and Lord Bathurst had been arguing out the 

 question, the Tribunal will remember, as to whether the liberty 

 granted in 1783 survived the War of 18 12, and had been stating 

 their reasons; and in this letter Lord Bathurst had stated his 

 ground for insisting that the Hberty fell with the war. Then he 

 goes on: 



"Although His Majesty's Government cannot admit that the claim of 

 the American fishermen to fish within British jurisdiction, and to use the 

 British territory for purposes connected with their fishery, is analogous to 

 the indulgence which has been granted to enemy's subjects engaged in fishing 

 on the high seas, for the purpose of conveying fresh fish to market, yet they 

 do feel that the enjoyment of the hberties, formerly used by the inhabitants 

 of the United States, may be very conducive to their national and individual 

 prosperity, though they should be placed under some modifications, and 

 this feeling operates most forcibly in favor of concession. But Great Britain 

 can only offer the concession in a way which shall effectually protect her 

 own subjects from such obstructions to their lawful enterprises as they too 

 frequently experienced immediately previous to the late war, and which 

 are, from their very nature, calculated to produce coUision and disunion 

 between the two states. 



"It was not of fair competition that His Majesty's Government had 

 reason to complain, but of the preoccupation of British harbors and creeks, 

 in North America, by the fishing vessels of the United States, and the forcible 

 exclusion of British vessels from places where the fishery might be most advan- 

 tageously conducted. They had, likewise, reason to complain of the clandes- 

 tine introduction of prohibited goods into the British colonies .by American 

 vessels ostensibly engaged in the fishing trade, to the great injury of the British 

 revenue. 



"The undersigned has felt it encumbent on him thus generally to notice 



