284 



of Nova Scotia, what did the American ministers mean, in the state- 

 ments which I have marked? Did they attempt to deceive an Adams, 

 on questions connected with the fisheries; or were they ignorant of 

 their duty? Neither; for Mr. Adams himself emphatically and posi- 

 tively affirms their construction of the convention. Under circum- 

 stances* higlily interesting to his fame with this generation and with 

 posterity, he declared that this convention '■'■secures esse?itiaUy cmd siib- 

 stantiulbj all the rights acepiirecl by the treaty of 1783; it secures the ivhole 

 coast fishery of every i^art of the British dominion, excepting ivithin three 

 murine miles of the shores.''^ What answer can be made to this? 



Still again : If the crown lawyers are in the right, how does it hap- 

 pen that we were in the uninterrupted possession of the very bays in 

 dispute for a quarter of a century ? The fact is not doubted ; indeed, 

 the attempt to dispossess us is the cause of the controversy. Mr. Ev- 

 erett afforded Lord Aberdeen an opportunity — nay, invited him — to 

 explain this circumstance ; but his lordship dechned to reply. During 

 these twenty-five years, ships of the royal navy annually appeared on 

 the fishing grounds under special orders to prevent aggressions ; yet 

 not one of them, prior to the capture of the Washington in 1843, ever 

 seized an American vessel for merely fishing within these bays ! 



It may be answered, however, that we were occupants without title 

 and by permission. But, says Blackstone, possession of lands, " by 

 length of time and negligence of him who hath the right, by degrees 

 ripens into a perfect and indefeasible title." As upon the land, so 

 upon the sea. A nation, says Vattel, " if it has once acknowledged 

 the common right of other nations to come and fish there, can no 

 longer exclude them from it. It has left that fishery in its primitive 

 freedom, at least in respect to those who have been in possession 

 ofit."t 



If these remarks and authorities are pertinent, what term is necessary 

 to give us a right to the common use of the bays of British America by 

 uninterrupted occupancy and possession ? Lord Stanley, in a despatch 

 to Lord Falkland, as we have seen, considered that we had " practi- 

 cally acquiesced" in the opinion of the crown lawyers, because we 

 did not protest against it in less than two years ; and it might seem 

 that the " practical acquiescence" of the British government for a period 

 of twenty-live years previously was sufficient to place us within the 

 rule of the writers above quoted, Especially since, after all, the true 

 question in discussion is simply whether we shall continue in the com- 

 mon use of waters to which we have never ceased to resort from the 

 peace of 1783 ; to which our fathers resorted as British subjects before 

 the dismemberment of the empire ; and to which we, as their descend- 



* Controversy with Jonathan RiisselL 



t Dr. Paley, in his MumI und Political Philosophy, states the principle far more broadly. 

 In chapter eleven, which is devoted to the "general rights of mankind," he says: 



" If there be fisheries wliich are inexhanstible — as, for aught I know, the cod-fishery upon 

 Che Banks of Newfoundland and tin; herring fisliery in th(! British 8(!as are — then all those con- 

 ventions by which one or two nations claim to tliemsidves, and guaranty to each other, the ex- 

 clusive enjoyment of these fisheries, are so many encroachments upon the general rights of 

 mankind.' —Boston edition, 18'21, p. 84. 



