PERIOD FROM 1836 TO 1854. 519 



protection of British fisheries on the coasts, the mainland, and islands 

 forming part of her Majesty's North American possessions. 



Her Majesty's government must necessarily entertain the sincerest 

 regret that such a publication should have been made without what 

 appears to Her Majesty's government sufficient inquiry into the cir- 

 cumstances of the case; for the terms of friendly alliance which so 

 happily subsist between the two nations would, on the one hand, 

 not have warranted her Majesty's government in adopting any 

 measures which might be held to be offensive to the United States, 

 and, on the other hand, could not have justified the government of 

 the United States in supposing that any such measures were intended. 

 Her Majesty's government, therefore, while it gives expression to 

 the above mentioned regret, will assume at once that neither govern- 

 ment entertains towards the other any intention of acting dis- 

 courteously or provoking collisions or unfriendly feelings between 

 the subjects and citizens of the two countries; and I will now proceed 

 to explain to you how greatly this question of the protection of 

 British fisheries has been misunderstood and misinterpreted in the 

 United States. 



In the first place, it has been assumed by Mr. Webster, that " with 

 the recent change of ministry in England has occurred an entire 

 change of policy;" and here I must take occasion to state that the 

 question of protecting British subjects in the exercise of their un- 

 doubted rights under treaties, is one which, in this country, is not 

 materially affected by changes of ministry; and the real question, 

 therefore, is, what are those rights, and how they are understood 

 respectively by Great Britain and the United States? 



The rights are laid down in the treaty of 1818, as quoted by Mr. 

 Webster; that is, undoubted and unlimited privileges of fishing in 

 certain places were thereby given by Great Britain to the inhabitants 

 of the United States; and the government of the United States, on 

 their part, renounced forever any liberty previously enjo} r ed or 

 claimed by its citizens to fish within three marine miles of any other 

 of the coasts, bays, necks, or harbors of the British dominions. 



A point in dispute in regard to this matter subsequently arose as 

 to the interpretation to be given to the term "bay," namely, whether 

 an American vessel could fish within a bay so long as she was beyond 

 three miles from (he shore, or whether the words of the Treaty, 

 "within three miles of any of the bays," meant within three miles 

 of a line drawn from headland to headland; and in the year 1845, a 

 correspondence ensued between the British and the United States 

 governments, which led to the despatch of a letter from Mr. Everett, 

 the United Si ' minister in this country, to his government, dated 

 London, April 26, 1845. This Letter has been published by Mr. 

 Webster, and is, unfortunately, calculated to cause an incorrect view- 

 to be taken of the subject by the American public; far Mr. Everett 

 therein stated thai Lord Aberdeen' uote of the 10th <>f March, 1845, 

 conceded to American fishermen the right of fishing within the Bay 

 of Fundy, but left doubtful the question <>f other bays, and that he 

 had accordingly claimed the same right a rds other hay-; and it 



is to be inferred from Mr. Everett' expn ions, that Lord Aberdeen 

 had replied that he would submit that question to the Colonial Of- 

 fici . and that meanwhile the conce don was to be Limited to the Bay 

 of Fundy. 



