DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 235 



excluded in other words, that the American fisherman may fish in 

 any bay which does not afford him shelter from storms, and accom- 

 modation for repairing damage, and procuring wood and water. 



This argument seems inconsistent with the ordinary and acknowl- 

 edged rules of construction ; The portion of the treaty under consider- 

 ation was not made for the purpose of granting the privilege of 

 shelter &c. to American fishermen ; Its primary object was to exclude 

 them from fishing in certain parts of Her Majesty's North American 

 dominions; The proviso guards against this exclusion being extended 

 to another and different object, the privilege of shelter &c; and was 

 intended to protect this privilege just as far as the clause of exclu- 

 sion might have been liable to affect it, but not to limit the subject 

 matter itself of the exclusion. The construction seems simply to be 

 that in distress the fisherman may use any of the bays in Her 

 Majesty's possessions according to his necessity, and their- capacity of 

 relief. 



This argument also appears to prove too much. 



The majority of our bays are in themselves as little adapted as the 

 Bay of Fundy for shelter or repairing damages &c. 



If the argument is good at all it is applicable to those bays as well 

 as to the Bay of Fundy: 



But this would lead to incongruity in the application of the 

 treaty. 



For as this construction of the American minister depends on a 

 strained meaning put upon the word " such " in the proviso, if this 

 mode of interpretation should be pursued with a like verbal severity, 

 bays, not affording accommodation for shelter c. being mentioned 

 in the proviso would not be included in the American relinquishment 

 of claim to fish, but "coasts" not being mentioned in the proviso 

 would be included ; And thus those bays may be used for the purposes 

 of fishing at the distance of three miles from the shores (and it is 

 doubtful whether the argument would not over ride even this limita- 

 tion) when the adjacent open sea board is protected against Amer- 

 ican fishing. 



His Excellency complains that exclusion from the Bay of Fundy 

 keeps the American fishermen at such a distance from the harbours 

 within it as prevents their use of them for shelter in time of necessity. 



But if the Bay of Fundy be within the relinquishments by Ameri- 

 cans the fisherman is not privileged to pursue his occupation within 

 it, and has nothing to fear from its "iron bound coasts" or to depend 

 upon from its harbours. 



The storm finds him on other shores in the vicinity of other har- 

 bours. 



So far from the construction contended for by the British Colonial 

 Authorities leading as is alleged to two entirely different limitations 

 in reference to the right of shelter, it alone gives, as it is humbly 

 conceived, perfect uniformity and consistency in the interpretation 

 alike of the relinquishment and the reservation. 



The American Minister condemns, as his predecessor in yet stronger 

 language did. the conduct of the colonial authorities in enforcing 

 their construction of the treaty by the capture of an American fisher- 

 man, and places in contrast the forbearance of the United States, by 

 which, as his Excellency says, no disposition had been evinced to an- 



