460 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Stevenson. 



(No. 89.) Department of State, 



Washington, February 20, 181^1. 



Sir: At the time of addressing you the instructions numbered 71, 

 of 17th of April last, relating to the interruptions experienced by 

 the vessels of our citizens employed in intercourse with the ports of 

 Nova Scotia, and in the prosecution of the fisheries on the neighbor- 

 ing coasts, it was deemed expedient, before presenting through you 

 the latter branch of the subject to her Majesty's government in a 

 formal manner, to await the communication to this department of a 

 case in which the details of the seizure — the grounds on which it was 

 made, and the consequent judicial and other proceedings should be 

 fully set forth. Several cases of seizures and detention have, as was 

 apprehended, occurred since the date of my letter, but none of those 

 reported to the department have been presented in a form to fulfill 

 the expectation entertained that the government would be enabled 

 to found upon it a specific complaint against the conduct of the local 

 authorities, whilst protesting against the injurious operation of 

 provincial law upon American interests brought involuntarily and 

 unjustly within its jurisdiction. 



The first article of the convention of 1818, between the United 

 States and Great Britain, which contains the treaty stipulations 

 relating to the subject, is so explicit in its terms that there would 

 seem to be little room for misapprehending them ; and indeed it does 

 not appear that any conflicting questions of right between the two 

 governments have arisen out of differences of opinion between them 

 regarding the intent and meaning of this article. Yet in the actual 

 application of the provisions of the treaty, committed on the part of 

 Great Britain, to the hands of subordinate agents, subject to and 

 controlled by local legislation, difficulties growing out of individual 

 acts have sprung up from time to time, and of these, perhaps the 

 most grave in their character, are the recent seizures of American 

 vessels, made, it is believed, under color of a provincial law, entitled 

 William IV., chap. 8, 1836, enacted doubtless with a view rigorously 

 to restrict if not intended directly to aim a fatal blow at our fisheries 

 on the coast of Nova Scotia. 



From the information in the possession of the department, it ap- 

 pears that the provincial authorities assume a right to exclude Ameri- 

 can vessels from all their bays, even including those of Fundy and 

 Chaleurs, and to prohibit their approach within three miles of a 

 line drawn from headland to headland. 



These authorities also claim a right to exclude our vessels from 

 resorting to their ports unless in actual distress, and American ves- 

 sels are accordingly warned to depart or ordered to get under weigh 

 and leave a harbor whenever the provincial custom-house or British 

 naval officer supposes, without a full examination of the circumstances 

 under which they entered, that they have been there a reasonable 

 time. 



Now, by the convention above referred to, American fishermen are 

 forever secured in their right to take, dry, and cure fish on the coasts 

 of the Magdalen islands and of Newfoundland and Labrador, within 

 certain defined limits, and the United States renounced forever any 



