242 



the measures which were adopted by the colonists, from lime to time, 

 to induce the ministry at home to sustain their pretensions. The zeal 

 which was manifested by those who managed the British side of the 

 case, and the seeming apathy of the American press and the American 

 people ; the rumors from the Government House at Halifax, and the want 

 of all information from the White House at Washington, gave rise to 

 much alarm. Official silence on our part was at last broken; and such 

 of our citizens as were engaged in the fisheries, or were otherwise 

 involved in the issue of the controversy, were astounded, in June, at 

 the following paragraph which appeared in the "Union," a newspaper 

 supposed to enjoy the confidence of our government, and said, in the 

 popular sentiment, to be its "organ." " We are gratified," said that 

 paper, "to be now enabled to state, that a despatch has been recently 

 received at the Department of State from Mr. Everett, our minister at 

 London,with which he transmits a note from Lord Aberdeen, containing 

 the satisfactor}"" intelligence that, after a reconsideration of the subject, 

 althougli the Queen's government adhere to the construction of the con- 

 vention which they have always maintained, they have still come to 

 the determination of relaxing from it, so far as to allow American fish- 

 ermen to pursue their avocations in any part of the Bay of Fundy, pro- 

 vided they do not approach — except in the cases specified in the treaty 

 of ISIS — within three miles of the entrance of any bay on the coast 

 of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. 



•' This is an important concession, not merely as removing an occasion 

 of frequent and unpleasant disagreement between the two governments, 

 but as reopening to our citizens those valuable fishing grounds within 

 the Bay of Fundy which tliey enjoyed before the war of 1S12, but 

 from \vhich, as the British government has since mainlained, they were 

 excluded b}^ the convention of 1818." 



The assertion, from such a source, that the British government had 

 ** always ma'mtaincd^^ the construction of the convention contended for in 

 the "case " submitted to the crown lawyers by Lord Falkland, in 1841 ; 

 the annunciation that our vessels were no longer to fish ^^ivithin three 

 miles of the entrance of amj hay on the coast of Novq, Scotia or New 

 Brunswick,''^ the Bay of Fundy alone excepted ; the further declaration 

 that the fishing grounds of that bay "enjo^-'cd before the war of 1812," 

 and lost to us by that event, were now "reopened" to us by "an im- 

 portant concession" — excited the liveliest sensibihty, and were regarded 

 in the fishing towns of Maine and Massachusetts with dismay. The 

 colonists had pushed their claims so secretly and so adroitly, that the 

 crowning acts of their policy were hardly known to our countrymen who 

 resorted to their seas; and the fict that the Bay of Fundy was in dis- 

 jmte, was first ascertained by many of them on the seizure of the 

 "Washington" for fishing there. It was expected that some more defi- 

 nite annunciation would be made, or that the correspondence between 

 Mr. Everett and the British government, which preceded and led to the 

 "concession," would follow the article just quoted from the "Union;" 

 but the precise terms of the arrangernc^nt of 1S45 were never stated, 

 either in that paper or elsewhere, and the citizens whose property was 

 exposed to capture by British cruisers and colonial cutters were left to 

 pursue their business in apprehension and doubt. Under these circum- 



