268 



a large force to execute her construction of the treaty. Americans are 

 to be expelled from rights which they have enjoyed for thirty years, 

 under what their government has at all times and now declaresto be 

 the proper construction of the treaty. Ouglit not a force to be sent 

 there to protect them in those rights which this treaty has declared to 

 be theirs ? Certainly there ought. 



"Mr. Davis said, by the newspapers it would appear that the Secre- 

 tary of State and the British minister, who had gone to Boston, were 

 now consulting on this matter, and he thought, from this fact, that there 

 was little apprehension but that the matter would be settled amicably. 

 He had no difficulty at arriving at the object of the movement. The 

 senator from Maine, he thought, had touched the key to the whole. 

 He would not hesitate to act on a bill proposing a proper and suitable 

 principle of reciprocity. 



" Mr. Seward would vote with pleasure for the resolution. It was 

 limited to two objections: to obtain information as to diplomatic cor- 

 respondence on the subject, and whether any naval force had been sent 

 to the seas where the difficulty had arisen. The importance of these 

 fisheries was conceded by all, and no one State was more interested in 

 them than another. It was well known that any attempt to drive our 

 fishermen from these fisheries would involve the whole country in a 

 blaze of war, in which case his State would be deeply interested. 



"Mr. Rusk said that if the object of that naval force by Great Britain 

 was to bring about a reciprocity of trade, no matter how favorably he 

 ought to look on such a proposition otherwise, he ^vould never give it his 

 assent under the duresse of British cannon. He thought the domineer- 

 ing spirit of England ought to be met promptly." 



On the 25th of .luly, and two days after the resolution passed the 

 Senate, the Secretary of State was publicly received at his famil}' home, 

 Marshfield, Massachusetts. In the course of his reply to an address 

 by the Hon. Seth Sprague, he is reported to have spoken in reference 

 "to recent occurrences, threatening disturbances to this country, on 

 account of the fisheries," in these words : 



"It would not become me to say much on that subject, until I speak 

 officially, and under direction of the head of the government. And 

 then I shall speak. In the mean time, be assured that that interest 

 will not be neglected by tJiis administration, under any cu'cumstances. 

 The fishermen shall be protected in all their rights of property, and in 

 all their rights of occupation. To use a Marblehead phrase, they shall 

 be protected 'hook and line, and bob and sinker.' And wlw should 

 they not? They are a vast number wdio are employed in that branch 

 of naval enterprise. Many of the people of our own town are engaged 

 in that vocation. There are among you some, who, perhaps, have been 

 on the Grand Bank for forty successive years. There they have hung 

 on to the ropes, in storm and wreck. The most important consequen- 

 ces are involved in this matter. Our fisheries have been the very nur- 

 series of our nav3^ If our fiag-ships have met and concjuered the ene- 

 my on the sea, the fisheries are at the bottom of it. The fisheries were 

 the seeds from w^iich these glorious triumphs were born and sprung. 



"Now, gentlemen, I may venture to say one or two things more on 

 this highly important subject. In the first place, this sudden interrup- 



