The Fishery Question. 53 



mile wide. In 1820 the government of Nova 

 Scotia annexed Cape Breton and laid out 

 counties across the strait. All vessels used 

 the passage on their way from the Atlantic to 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as it avoided the 

 lonof and danoferous circuit around the Island 

 of Cape Breton. The American fishermen 

 had thus used it since the beginning of the 

 Gulf Fishery, and had paid tolls, when, by the 

 McLean arrangement, British vessels were 

 passing and repassing unmulcted through 

 Long Island Sound. As for the Magdalen 

 coasts, the locality is a herring, not a cod^ 

 fishery. These fish were taken in seines or in 

 weirs built on the beach, almost within low 

 water mark. The convention conceded the 

 liberty to take " fish of every kind " on the 

 shores of these islands. As it was intended by 

 the convention to give the herring fishery, the 

 right to land is accessory to its prosecution. 



On the arrival of the opinion of the Crown 

 lawyers in Nova Scotia, the authorities pro- 

 ceeded to employ its convenient law, as if it 

 had been communicated to, and acquiesced in 

 by, the United States Government. They did 

 not get a fleet from England, though they 

 asked for it. Raising a small force of their 



