204 APPENDIX TO BKITISH CASE. 



120 places in which, under the convention of 1818, the United 

 States had forever renounced the right of their vessels to take, 

 dry and cure fish ; retaining only the privilege of entering them for the 

 purposes of shelter, repairs, purchasing wood and obtaining water, 

 and no other. In the absence of information of a character suffi- 

 ciently 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 induced their seizure by British authorities, 

 the department is unable to state whether, in the cases under consid- 

 eration, there has been any flagrant infraction of the existing treaty 

 stipulations. The presumption is, that if, on the part of the 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 disregard 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 knowl- 

 edge of the department, and requested him to direct the attention 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 forbearance in future, in order that American citi- 

 zens, 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 suitable 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. 



No. 68. 1839, September 28: Letter from Mr. James Primrose, 

 United States Consul at Pictou, Nova Scotia, to Sir R. D. George, 

 Provincial Secretary. 



CONSULATE or THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



Pictou, September 28, 1839. 



SIR : It becomes my duty to call your attention to the enclosed copy 

 of an affidavit of the master of the American brig Emerald. 



The conduct of the collector of light-dues at the Strait of Canso 

 towards vessels of the United States bound to this port, continues to 



