803 



yfs/i," allows them to seize our vessels under every imaginable pretence. 

 The repairing of damages to sails, rigging, and boats; the arranging 

 or reeling of lines; the preparation of bait; the eating of food; the 

 mending of garments, are all prohibited — for all are performed with ref^ 

 erence to the main objects of the voyage. An American vessel, when 

 within three miles ot the coast, or when in a harbor for shelter, cannot 

 escape seizure, if the colonial cutters enforce the law; for it is obvious 

 that everything done on board may be embraced in the comprehensive 

 words — "preparing to tish." The act is a flagrant violation of the 

 convention, which restricts us in certain particulars, when within three 

 marine miles of the colonial shores; but "preparing to fish" is not 

 among the interdictions. The convention provides, "That the Amer- 

 ican fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbors for the 

 pui-p,ose of shelter, and of repairing damages therein, of purchasing 

 wood and of obtaining water, and tor no other purpose whatever; but 

 they shall be under such restrictions as may be necessary to prevent 

 tjieir taking, drying, or curing fish therein, or in any other manner what- 

 ever abusing the privileges reserved to them." What, then, is the 

 common sense construction of these words? I reply, that a fishing 

 vessel at home, secured at her owner's wharf, is said to be "preparing 

 to fish,"^ when, among other things, her crew are "repairing" her, and 

 are taking in "wood" and "water;" and that a repetition of these acts, 

 when in a colonial harbor, constitutes the same preparation. If this 

 interpretation is just, it follows that while our vessels cannot take, dry, 

 or cure fish within the colonial harbors, or within three miles of certain 

 colonial coasts, they can prepare to do one and all, whenever necessity 

 arises; responsible only for '■'■abusing the privileges reserved to them." 



The a!)surdity, the inhumanity, of the pretensions set up by Nova 

 Scotia, can be shown by the report of one of her own officers. " I 

 have seen," says Paul Crowfll,* (February, 1852,) "instances where 

 American vessels had been fishing the whole of the day, and towards 

 evening, a gale springing up, they were forced to run tor a harbor with 

 fifty or sixty barrels of fresh mackerel on deck ; and if salting those 

 fish is understood curing fish — which I think is the onl}' way in which 

 mackerel can be cured — under those circumstances these people must 

 cast their fish into the sea again, or run the risk of having the vessel 

 and cargo seized." 



And again : "When cruising in the schooner Telegraph, last fall, being 

 in Little Canso, an American vessel lay near. Observing the men 

 busily employed on deck, I manned my boat and boarded her ; I 

 found ihem employed grinding bait fiir mackerel. The captain ap- 

 peared quite innocent, and said he had been so careful that ht; had not 

 taken a lobster while in the harbor. This might be understood ' pre- 

 paring to fi.-h.' " 



This g.;ntleman, to his honor, refused to seize the vessels to which 

 he refers; but, under the new construction of the convention, they 

 were all j)rizes. He states truly, that mackerel caught on the eve of 

 a gale, and not dressed and salted at sea at the peril of human life, 

 cannot be "saved" in a colonial harbor resorted to f)r shelter, without 



* The Crowells of Cape Cod are of the same lineage. 



