This proposition is assented to, and itis agreed that the wountains which the negotiators contemplated, extended in a general direction yrumalel with the coust, and that they did not contemplate a crest of mountains, winding in and out, alone the sinuosities of the coast. There is a difference between the description of the mountains, and the description of the line in reference to the coust, in ease the moun- tains fail. ‘They contracted with reference to a crest of mountains generally parallel to the coast, but if the mountains should fail, then the line was to he drawn parallel to the sinuositics of the coast.
The British Case gives a very deft, but palpably unfair turn to this, Referring to the mountains it says:
In this they differ from the arbitrary 10-league line which, especially as it wonled ouly fall to he drawn through a country where mountains failed, might he dwn with substantial accuracy parallel to the general line of the coast.¢
It isa forced construction to say that the treaty only contemplated that the line should be druwn on the ten-Jeague basis ‘through a country where mountains ful,” The Treaty provided that, if the crest of the mountains, with reference to which they contracted, and which extended apparently ina direction parallel to the coast, should, at any place, be at a greater distance than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the line should be drawn parallel to the sinuositics of the coast. There was no provision that this line should not be drawn through a mountainous country. There is every reason to believe that the negotiators knew that the whole country was moun- trinous, and that, if the crest of the mountains which they had in view shonld be further from the coast than ten marine leagues, the line would nevertheless he drawn through a country where mountains did not fail. It was not te be drawn “parallel to the general line of the coast.” but parwllel! to the séinoxities af the coust,
The British Case proceeds to say that:
- * © the monntains in question might vary in distance from the coast,
from its very edge to the extreme limit of the 10 marine leagues, without sacrificing their gener) parallel character.¢
It might have been added that it was contemplated that the moun- tins in question might erred? the extreme limit of ten marine leagues from the coast.
a, C,, 80.
