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Cape Breton to Nova Scotia, the undersigned would observe that he is 

 under the impression that the question of the legality of that measure 

 is still .pending before the judicial committee of her Majesty's privy 

 council. It would be very doubtful whether rights secured to American 

 vessels under public compacts could, under any circumstances, be im- 

 paired by acts of subsequent domestic legislation ; but to proceed to 

 capture American vessels, in virtue of such acts, while their legality is 

 drawn in question by the home government, seems to be a measure as 

 unjust as it is harsh." 



And he remarked, further, that "it is stated by the captain of the 

 'Argus' that the commander of the Nova Scotia schooner, by which he 

 was captured, said that he was within three miles of the line beyond 

 which, ' on their construction of the treaty, we were a lawful prize, and 

 that he seized us to settle the question.' 



"The undersigned again feels it his duty, on behalf of his govern- 

 ment, formally to protest against an act of this description. American 

 vessels of trifling size, and pursuing a branch of industry of the most 

 harmless description, which, however beneficial to themselves, occasions 

 no detriment to others, instead of being turned off the debatable fishing 

 ground — a remedy fully adequate to the alleged evil — are proceeded 

 against as if engaged in the most undoubted infractions of municipal 

 law or the law of nations, captured and sent into port, their crews de- 

 prived of their clothing and personal effects, and the vessels subjected 

 to a mode of procedure in the courts which amounts in many cases to 

 confiscation; and this is done to settle the construction of a treaty. 



"A course so violent and unnecessarily harsh would be regarded by 

 any government as a just cause of complaint against any other with 

 whom it might differ in the construction of a national compact. But 

 when it is considered that these are the acts of a provincial government, 

 with whom that of the United States has and can have no intercourse, 

 and that they continue and are repeated while the United States and 

 Great Britain, the only parties to the treaty, the purport of whose pro- 

 visions is called in question, are amicably discussing the matter, with 

 every wish, on both sides, to bring it to a reasonable settlement. Lord 

 Aberdeen will perceive that it becomes a subject of complaint of the 

 most serious kind. 



"As such, the undersigned is instructed again to bring it to Lord 

 Aberdeen's notice, and to express the confident hope that such meas- 

 ures of redress as the urgency of the case requires will, at the instance 

 of his lordship, be promptly resorted to." 



The events of 1845 were highly interesting and important. The 

 colonists had, apparently, accomplished their long-cherished plans. 

 The opinion of the crown lawyers in 1841 ; the declaration of Lord 

 Stanley in 1842, that our government "prarfic«% acquiesced'^ in the new 

 construction of the convention; and the capture of the Washington in 

 1843, for an infringement of that construction, and f(3r no other offence 

 whatever, were all calculated to impress them with the belief that the 

 contest was at an end. Such, I confess, was the inclination of my 

 own mind. My home was on the frontier ; I was a dealer in the pro- 

 ducts of the sea, and was in the daily transaction of business with fish- 

 ermen of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and was well advised of 

 16 



