18 



land, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, over which she had no juris- 

 diction whatever, she also did acknowledge an equal participation in 

 the shore fisheries of her American possessions, and gave this right, 

 to the United States in perpetuity, reserving only the use of the 

 shores to her own fishermen. This right or grant was not a partial " 

 liberty, but was a defined national settlement, based upon the same 

 power and principles as that conveying our landed territory. This 

 treaty distinctly shows the animus of British diplomacy ; first to as- 

 sume unlimited power, and then by its abandonment claim conces- 

 sion. The Headland line theory is based upon the same premises, 

 and is valuable only as a pretence with which to purchase some sub- 

 stantial benefit, claiming as she does jurisdiction of the Bay of Fun- 

 dy and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the navigation of the Straits 

 of Canso. And this theory is still held by Great Britain, although 

 in abeyance at the present time. 



The war of 1812, which was settled by the treaty of Ghent in 1814, 

 was seized upon by Great Britain as a pretext for the annulling of 

 the fishery provisions of 1783, and although this view was resisted 

 by the United States, still a commission was appointed to settle the 

 differences which had arisen between the two nations, represented on 

 the part of the United States by Albert Gallatin and Richard Rush. 

 This commission reported the treaty of 1818, which has been the 

 cause of nearly all the trouble between Canada and our fishermen, 

 and if longer acknowledged will be the cause of much more. By the 

 terms of this treaty a complete surrerMer was made of all the shore 

 fisheries except on the southern and western parts of Newfoundland, 

 around the Magdalen Islands and northward along the Labrador 

 coast through the Straits of Belle Isle indefinitely. This of itself 

 would seem to have been the extreme limit of concession on the part 

 of our commissioners, but lost to all considerations of common sense 

 or shrewdness, they allowed the insertion of a clause which forbade 

 American fishing vessels from entering Canadian ports for any pur- 

 pose except for shelter or to procure wood or water ; thus cutting 

 them off from all commercial privileges, and putting into the hands 

 of the Canadians the power, by our own concession, to drive our ves- 

 sels to sea, forbid the purchase of ice or bait or supplies. 



It would be unfair not to state that at that time the mackerel fish- 

 eries were hardly in existence, and the commissioners had no knowl- 



