DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 249 



An American fisherman on the 5th of this month was seized in the 

 Bay of Fundy at anchor, inside of the lighthouse at the entrance of 

 Digby Gut about one quarter of a mile from the shore, with nets on 

 deck still wet and with the scales of herrings attached to the meshes 

 and having fresh herring on board. 



The excuse sworn to is that rough weather had made a harbour 

 necessary, that the nets were wet from being recently washed but 

 that the fish were caught while the vessel was beyond three miles 

 from the coast. 



Hence will be extended and aggravated all the mischiefs to our 

 fisheries from the means used by the Americans in fishing, as " by 

 jigging," drawing seines across the mouth of the river and other 

 expedients from their practice of drawing the schools from the 

 shore by baiting and above all from their still more pernicious 

 practice of throwing the garbage upon the fishing grounds and 

 along the shore. 



Every facility afforded the American fishermen to hold frequent, 

 easy and comparatively safe intercourse with the shore, extends an- 

 other evil, perhaps more serious in its results the illicit traffic carried 

 on under cover of fishing in which not only the revenue is defrauded 

 and the fair dealer discountenanced but the coasts are filled with 

 noxious or useless articles in exchange for the money or fish of the 

 settlers in the remote harbours, among which may be mentioned the 

 poisonous rum and gin and manufactured teas of which already too 

 much is introduced into the country; and from this intercourse when 

 habitual and established from year to year, the moral and political 

 sentiments of our population cannot but sustain injury. 



In the argument of the American minister, his Excellency appears 

 to assume that the question turns on the force of the word " bay and 

 the peculiar expression of the treaty in connexion with that word. 



But although it was obviously the clear intention of its framers, 

 to keep the American fisherman at a distance of three marine miles, 

 from the "Z>ays, creeks, and harbours," there does not therefore arise 

 any just reason to exclude the word " coasts" used in the same con- 

 nexion in the treaty, from its legitimate force and meaning 

 147 and if it be an admitted rule of general law, that the outline 

 of a coast is to be defined, not by its indentations, but by a line 

 from its principal headlands, then waters altho' not known under 

 the designation, nor having the general form of a bay, may yet be 

 within the exclusion designed by the treaty. 



His Excellency the American minister complains of "the essential 

 injustice " of the law of this province under which the fisheries 

 are attempted to be guarded, and declares that it, possesses none of 

 the qualities of the law of civilized states but its forms." 



His Excellency in using this language, possibly supposed the Colo- 

 nial Act attempted to give a construction to the treaty of 1818, or 

 originated the penalty and mode of confiscation, of which he so 

 much complains. But had his Excellency examined the Act of this 

 province he has so strongly stigmatized, he would have discovered 

 that as regards the limits within which foreign fishermen are re- 

 stricted from fishing, the Colonial Legislature has used but the 

 words of the treaty itself And a comparison of the Provincial Act 

 with an Act of the Imperial Parliament the 59th Geo. 3 : cap 38 will 

 show that as regards the description of the offence; the confiscation 



