224 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



No. 76. 1843, October 17: Despatch from the Right Hon. Viscount 

 Falkland to the Right Hon. Lord Stanley. 



No. 185. GOVERNMENT HOUSE HALIFAX. 



October 17. 1843 



MY LORD, I have had the honour to receive your Lordship's Des- 

 patch, No. 132, enclosing the copy of a letter from Mr. Addington, 

 covering the copy of a note from Mr. Everett, the American Minister 

 in London, complaining of the seizure, in the month of May last, by 

 an officer of the Provincial Custom House in Nova Scotia, of an 

 American fishing schooner the " Washington " for an alleged infrac- 

 tion of the stipulations of the Convention of the 20th. of October 

 1818 between Great Britain and the United States, and desiring that 

 I would make a full report of the circumstances attending the 

 transaction. 



In obedience to your Lordship's commands, I herewith transmit a 



report of the Attorney General of Nova Scotia, (see paper 



132 No. 1) explaining the grounds on which the above vessel was 



captured, and setting forth the reasons which induced me, in 



accordance with the advice of the Provincial Crown Officers, not to 



interfere to prevent her condemnation. 



I likewise forward (see paper No. 2) a copy of a Despatch, num- 

 bered 75, dated May 8. 1841, and addressed by me to Lord John Rus- 

 sell, on the occasion of the letter sent by Mr. Stevenson to Lord 

 Polmerston on the 27th March 1841, (to which letter Mr. Everett 

 alludes in his communication to your Lordship dated 10th August 

 1843) the perusal of which will apprise you of the footing on which 

 matters stood with regard to American fishermen tresspassers on 

 these coasts, up to that period, since which no reference has been 

 made to the subject by either the British, or, in as far as I am aware, 

 the American Government : The House of Assembly of Nova Scotia 

 however, anxious to set at rest by means of a legal determination a 

 question likely to engender unpleasant feelings between Her Majesty's 

 subjects of this province and their neighbours of the United States, 

 have never ceased from their endeavours to obtain a judicial decision 

 as to the interpretation to be given to the terms of the Convention of 

 1818: but unwilling to proceed with precipitation in a case in which 

 some of the most important interests of this colony are involved, and 

 in which therefore it was natural to suppose the judgments of the 

 local authorities might be in some degree biased, the house re- 

 quested that I would obtain ; through your Lordship's predecessor the 

 opinion of the Crown Officers of England as to the several points on 

 which the Provincial Legislature and the citizens of the United 

 States are at issue. I, in consequence, begged, in my Despatch No. 

 69, dated 28th April 1841, that Lord John Eussell would allow a 

 case stated, and therewith forwarded, to be submitted to the Attorney 

 and Solicitor General, which being done, your Lordship in your 

 Despatch, No. 86, dated 28 November 1842, inclosed an opinion signed 

 ' J. Dods m ' and, ' Thomas Wilde,' directly confirmatory of the inter- 

 pretation put on the words of the treaty by the Assembly ; and on the 

 capture of the Washington, the captor having an interest in the 

 result, and being resolved to stand all the consequences of his acts, 

 as he believed himself supported by the opinion above referred to, I, 

 after consulting the Provincial Crown Officers decided on allowing 



