440 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



set nets in Beaver Harbor. In all other cases, where the evidence had 

 not been submitted to him, it was to be called for before any further 

 proceedings were had. He concludes by stating that, where the evi- 

 dence is not complete, no decree will be urged by default, until ample 

 time and opportunity be afforded for defence, upon the most favor- 

 able terms that by law can be granted; and that in any case where 

 there shall not appear good cause of prosecution, he will exercise his 

 own discretion in releasing the property. 



From these statements it will appear that the only cases of seizure 

 of which anything is known at the department, not being made on 

 the coasts of Newfoundland or Labrador, occurred at places in which, 

 under the convention of 1818, the United States had forever re- 

 nounced the right of their vessels to take, dry and cure fish ; retaining 

 only the privilege of entering them for the purposes of shelter, re- 

 pairs, purchasing wood and obtaining water, and no other. In the 

 absence of information of a character sufficiently precise to ascertain 

 either, on the one side, the real motives which carried the American 

 vessels into British harbors, or, on the other, the reasons which in- 

 duced their seizure by British authorities, the department is unable 

 to state whether, in the cases under consideration, there has been 

 any flagrant infraction of the existing treaty stipulations. The 

 presumption is, that if, on the part of citizens of the United States, 

 there has been a want of caution or care in the strict observance of 

 those stipulations, there has been, on the other hand, an equal dis- 

 regard of their spirit, and of the friendly relations which they were 

 intended to promote and perpetuate, in the haste and indiscriminate 

 rigor with which the British authorities have acted. 



Under the supposition that many of the seizures had been made 

 upon insufficient grounds, and in order, if possible, to preclude for 

 the future the recurrence of such proceedings, the acting Secretary 

 of State, in a note dated the 10th of July, called the attention of 

 the British minister to the cases of seizure which had come to the 

 knowledge of the department, and requested him to direct the atten- 

 tion of the provincial authorities to the ruinous consequences of the 

 seizures to the owners of the vessels, whatever might be the issue 

 of the legal proceedings instituted against them ; and to exhort them 

 to exercise great caution and forebearance in future, in order that 

 American citizens, not manifestly encroaching upon British rights 

 should not be subjected to interruption in the pursuit of their lawful 

 avocations. The President's directions, that a vessel of war of suit- 

 able force should be held in readiness to proceed to the coasts of the 

 British provinces having been communicated to the Secretary of the 

 Navy, an answer has been received that the schooner Grampus, now 

 lying at Norfolk, would be prepared to proceed to that quarter at a 

 moment's notice; and that, should it be the desire of the President 

 that a vessel of higher class should be employed on that duty, a 

 sloop of war can be detailed from the station at Pensacola so as to 

 be ready to sail at the end of this month. 



Respectfully submitted. 



A. Vail, 

 Acting Secretary of State. 



To the President of the United States. 



