DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 269 



Government dream of it. What we wanted was the enjoyment of a 

 right we had possessed since the settlement of the country, to fish 

 near to the coast when necessary, without reference to the question 

 of jurisdiction, and to dry the fish in proper places; and what Eng- 

 land wanted, was to reduce these claims within the narrowest limits 

 she could induce us to accept ; and the result was the existing arrange- 

 ment. 



We did not get the right to fish on the ocean from England, nor 

 from any other earthly power. We got it from Almighty God, and 

 we mean to hold on to it, through the whole extent of the great 

 deep, now in the days of our strength, as our fathers held on to it 

 in the days of our weakness. Should we abandon this attribute of 

 independence, even in any extremity which human sagacity can fore- 

 see, we should prove recreant both to the glories of the past and to 

 the hopes of the future, to the deeds of our fathers and to the just 

 expectations of our children. I know but little of the character of 

 my countrymen, if they would not reject with indignation, any propo- 

 sition thus to tarnish their history, and to write their own dishonour 

 upon it. 



What, then, I repeat, have we secured by the Convention? The 

 right to take fish within three miles, and the right to come ashore to 

 dry them, and the right of shelter in certain coasts, harbours, creeks, 

 and bays. In what bays do we possess rights ? for there arises the 

 controversy. 



This word "bay," as a geographical designation, is very indefinite 

 in its application. Neither the form, size, nor position of the various 

 expanses of water to which it is applied has any such strict relation 

 as to give to the term a fixed definition. We have designated that 

 great interior sea, under the Arctic circle, named from the enterpris- 

 ing mariner, Hudson, as a bay, though with its various indentations 

 it extends through twenty degrees of latitude, and as many of longi- 

 tude. And the few miles at the mouth of the North River, forming 

 the harbour of New York, js equally entitled to the same appellation. 

 Baffin's Bay is another prodigious indentation of the ocean, covering, 

 with Davis's Straits as far as Cape Farewell, a greater area than 

 the Gulf of Mexico and the whole Caribbean Sea. The Bay of Bis- 

 cay whose headlands, according to the new doctrine, may be said to 

 be near Brest, as my honourable friend from Louisiana [Mr. SOULE] 

 well knows, on the northeast, and Corunna on the southwest, giving 

 an arc of near five hundred miles is another of these mighty sheets 

 of water with a comparatively humble name; and so is the Bay of 

 Fundy, though less, and the Bay of Chaleur, from both of which we 

 are sought to be excluded. The same uncertainty prevails as to gulfs 

 and seas ; for we have them of all sizes and forms, from the great Gulf 

 of Guinea and the Mediterranean Sea down to the Gulf of Patras, 

 and to the far-famed but diminutive Marmora, renowned in history, 

 but insignificant in geography. 



Now, Sir, it is preposterous to run a line from one projecting point 

 of these vast expansions to the other, and claim for the State which 

 holds the coast, even if it is the whole of it, exclusive jurisdiction 

 over great arms of the ocean, with the right to prevent any other 

 nation from enjoying them, either for the purpose of fishing or of 

 navigation. 



