84 CASE OP GBEAT BRITAIN. 



proceeds to state more particularly its nature and extent, he confines 

 it to a permission to be granted to " the United States fishermen to 

 pursue their avocations in any part of the Bay of Fundy, provided 

 they do not approach, except in the cases specified in the treaty of 

 1818, within three miles of the entrance of any bay on the coast of 

 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick," which entrance is defined, in an- 

 other part of Lord Aberdeen's note, as being designated by a line 

 drawn from headland to headland. 



BOUNDARY IN THE PACIFIC, 1846. 



18^6. By a convention between the United Kingdom and the 

 United States made in this year, it was provided that the boundary 

 between Canada and the United States should follow the 49th 

 parallel of north latitude (App., p. 33) 



to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Van- 

 couver's Island ; and thence southerly through the middle of the said 

 channel, and of Fuca's Straits, to the Pacific Ocean ; provided, how- 

 ever, that the navigation of the whole of the said channel and straits, 

 south of the 49th parallel of north latitude, remain free and open to 

 both parties. 



By this convention the two countries asrumed ownership over 

 waters distant from the shore much more than three miles. 



BRITISH ATTITUDE, 1852. 



1852. The withdrawal of efficient British naval protection had 

 been followed by such continuous and persistent encroachment by 

 American fishing-vessels upon acknowledged British waters that the 

 British Government was again compelled to dispatch a very consid- 

 erable armed force to the colonial coasts. The United States Govern- 

 ment appears to have thought that this action indicated a 

 96 change of policy of the British Government. Such was, how- 

 ever, not the case. Lord Malmesbury, in a letter to Mr. Cramp- 

 ton, British Minister at Washington (10th August, 1852), said (App., 

 p. 171) :- 



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 a matter of negotiation between the two Governments. 



NOTICE ISSUED BY MR. WEBSTER, 1852. 



In consequence of this letter it became necessary for the United 

 States to assume some clearly defined attitude towards the " bay " 

 question, and Mr, Daniel Webster (United States Secretary of State) 



