PERIOD FROM 1836 TO 1854. 521 



are not merely contrary to treaty, but which are mixed up with 

 smuggling transactions damaging to British interests. 



Little, therefore, as her Majesty's government could have contem- 

 plated the impression which this matter appears to have produced 

 in the United States, still less could they have imagined that the or- 

 ders given by them to Vice Admiral Sir George Seymour to attend 

 personally to this matter should have been construed into an offensive 

 proceeding, and one calling for the strictures which, without any de- 

 fence on the part of the United States government, it occasioned in 

 the Senate; for, although it is true that the flag of the commander- 

 in-chief is hoisted on board a ship-of-the-line, and that, in the execu- 

 tion of his inspections, her Majesty's ship " Cumberland " was or- 

 dered, with other vessels, to the fishery station, this measure was not 

 adopted with a view to show an imposing force, but in order that her 

 Majesty's government might have the advantage, in a matter requir- 

 ing judgment and discretion, of the presence of an officer so highly 

 distinguished for both qualities, and whose recent judicious conduct 

 in an affair at Greytown called forth the praise of the officers and of 

 the government of the United States. 



As I propose that this despatch shall merely explain away certain 

 points which have clearly been misunderstood, I shall abstain for 

 the present from entering into a discussion upon the interpretation 

 to be given to the term bay"; and upon this part of the subject 

 I will only add that her Majesty's government intended to leave the 

 matter precisely where it was left in 1845 by the governments of 

 Great Britain and the United States — namely, that the relaxation as 

 to bays applied, as is stated in Lord Aberdeen's note to Mr. Everett 

 of the 21st of April, 1845, " to the Bay of Fundy alone "—any further 

 discussion of that question being as a matter of negotiation between 

 the two governments. 



I cannot, however, conclude without adverting to the fact that the 

 proceedings of her Majesty's government which have called forth so 

 much animadversion on the part of the United States were adopted 

 not merely with reference to the protection of British fisheries 

 against American encroachments, but also against similar encroach- 

 ments on the part of French fishermen; and that a considerable pro- 

 portion of the armed craft employed for protecting the British fish- 

 pries in North America were placed there in order to use means 

 equally used by the French government to protect French rights. 



Now. with regard to such species of protection, the governments 

 of Great Britain and Franco have qoI been in the habit of evincing 

 any national jealousy, or of considering that offence was thereby in- 

 tended. On the contrary, both governments have found that the 

 surest mode of preventing misunderstandings was to join in effect- 

 ually protecting their respective lines of demarcation. 



Such protection, Or rather guard, is constantly maintained by both 



governments in the British channel, where the fishery is regulated 

 by a convent ion bel ween ( hreal Britain and France, \\ hereby the lines 

 are clearly Laid down, and where, ootwith landing the mutual pre 

 caution adopted by the cruisers of both nations, the fishermen of both 

 countries are repeatedly found encroaching. Bui such encroachments 

 are not countenanced by either government. The cruisers of each 

 government are instructed to warn their own countrymen whenever 



