ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 213 



have got in the habit of calling the Boutwell circular. The Boutwell 

 circular sent by the Secretary of the Treasury in pursuance of a 

 letter from the Secretary of State, Mr. Fish, in 1870, to the collectors 

 of customs, in order that they might communicate with the Ameri- 

 can fishing vessels as they went out. The circular related exclusively 

 and solely to the non-treaty coast, and it had no relation whatever, 

 nor did a word in it have any relation whatever, to the conduct of 

 American fishermen, the obligations or duties or rights of American 

 fishermen on the treaty coast, except as that might be contained 

 in the fact that there was a quotation from the first article of the 

 treaty of 1818, by way of stating an exception from the subject- 

 matter. The circular was sent by Mr. Boutwell upon the request 

 of the Secretary of State, contained in a letter of the 23rd April, 

 1870, which appears at p. 187 of the American Counter-Case 

 Appendix. Of course the Secretary of State is the Minister of 

 Foreign Affairs of the United States, and it is his business to express 

 the views of the government of the United States upon international 

 questions, and not the business of the Secretary of the Treasury. 

 Therefore the Secretary of the Treasury, in issuing a circular to his 

 collectors of customs, in order to reach the fishermen, upon inter- 

 national questions, on the request of the Secretary of State, cannot 

 be supposed to have intended to set up for himself an inconsistent 

 position, or to do anything other than that which the Secretary 

 of State had requested him to do. There is the strongest kind of 

 presumption that he was, in following the Secretary of State, under- 

 taking to do what the Secretary of State requested. I will ask the 

 Tribunal to kindly consider that letter of Mr. Fish, the Secretary 

 of State: 



"Hon. George S. Boutwell, 



"Secretary of the Treasury 

 "Sir, April 23, 1870 



"I have the honor to enclose a copy of House of Representatives Ex. 

 Doc. No. 239, 2d session, 41st Congress, and of a communication of the 14th 

 instant, from the British Minister, relating to the measures adopted, and 

 proposed to be adopted, by the Authorities of the Dominion of Canada, for 

 the exdusion from certain of the inshore fisheries within the jurisdiction thereof, 

 of foreign fishermen. I beg leave to suggest, that with a view to fully acquaint- 

 ing citizens of the United States interested in the fishing business in waters 

 adjacent to the Dominion of Canada, these facts that a circular be issued 



