370 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



of this station, the vessel-of-war will have left the "Ray of Fundy, 

 and that there will remain but the testimony of the officer and boat's 

 crew that detained them, which they will take care to outnumber. 

 If the Vice Admiralty courts of New Brunswick are conducted 

 illegally and wrong, should they not make a representation to the 

 British Government, that they may be better conducted? How is 

 the captain of a man-of-war, stationed in the Bay of Fundy, to act, 

 if the proceedings in the Vice Admiralty court are to be considered 

 illegal and void, merely from the protest of some American fishermen? 



What are the Vice Admiralty courts instituted for, but to try 

 causes, and decide whether the capture is just; and I should conceive 

 that where they have passed judgment, the captain of the seizing 

 vessel is released from further responsibility; sufficient time is allowed 

 all parties to procure and produce evidence, and if they do not come 

 forward, is it not a tacit acknowledgment of the badness of their 

 cause — and such is the case with these American fishing vessels ; they 

 have asserted many things that are wholly false. It is said in the 

 memorial A, " that nine sail of American fishermen had been cap- 

 tured and sent to the province of New Brunswick, while others had 

 been converted into tenders, without trial, for the purpose of molest- 

 ing our fishermen; they have insulted and abused the crews, turned 

 them on shore in a foreign country, entirely destitute, and without 

 the means of returning to their homes." 



That any American fishing vessel detained by the Dotterel, or her 

 boats, has been converted into a tender for the better molesting their 

 fishermen, is wholly false; that the crews have, to my knowledge, 

 been insulted and abused, must be a gross and wilful perjury; it had 

 always been the custom, I understood, to allow the crews of the 

 vessels detained to take their clothes and such provisions as they 

 pleased, and find their way to the States. I have sometimes offered 

 to carry them back, when I returned to Passamaquoddy ; they have 

 invariably been allowed to take away everything they could claim as 

 their private property, and the whole of their provisions on board 

 their vessel, with which they paid their passage back to their country. 



And in the memorial C it is said " that the American fishermen 

 have no occasion nor inducement to violate the provisions of the 

 aforesaid convention, nor have they, as we firmly believe, given in 

 any instance just cause of complaint." 



It is a well known fact that the American fishermen leave their 

 fishing ground every Saturday, (when there is not a man-of-war or 

 her boats in the neighborhood,) and anchor in some of the harbors 

 of the Menan until the Monday, bringing in the fish offal with them, 

 and throwing it overboard on the inner banks, by which they drive 

 the fish off those banks, and they haul their nets during the Sunday, 

 and catch sufficient bait for the ensuing week. This they suppose is 

 not known ; for they are not ignorant that this is a violation of the 

 provisions of the convention ; the fact is, they want, by causing much 

 trouble, to deter the man-of-war stationed in the Bay of Fundy from 

 interfering with them at all. 



That the brig's barge has come into the wharf at Eastport and 

 taken and carried away two boats laden with flour. Lieutenant Drif- 

 field's letter on that subject will, I think, completely invalidate that 

 charge. 



