292 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



We live in strange times, Mr. President, that we have to witness 

 occurrences like those through which a nation, with whom we are at 

 peace, and semblingly, at least, on terms of reciprocal kindness and 

 amity, attempts to signify her disregard of the protest which 

 173 we have so often and so solemnly entered against her assuming 

 the rights which she claims to exercise, to the exclusion of 

 others, over regions of the sea which are of all nations, and which she 

 can only make hers as long as she is permitted to cover them, unques- 

 tioned and unmolested, with her armed steamers, her sloops, and her 

 men-of-war, and to ride triumphantly upon their waters, in the 

 gorgeous display of her supremacy; and like that Van Tromp, of 

 Holland, to whom my honourable friend from Maine so happily 

 alluded the other day, with a broom at the mast-head of her ships, to 

 sweep away from their approaches whomever she finds within sight 

 of the shore under colours not her own. 



The first notice we have of these unaccountable proceedings on the 

 part of England, is to be found in the LETTER-PROCLAMATION issued by 

 our Secretary of State, and officially dated, State Department, Wash- 

 ington, July 5th, 1852. 



Among other things copied in that letter, from a circular communi- 

 cation addressed, on the 1st of May preceding, by Her Majesty's 

 present Colonial Minister to the Governors of the North American 

 Colonies, I note w r hat follows : 



Her Majesty's Ministers are desirous of removing all grounds of complaint 

 on the part of the Colonies, in consequence of encroachments of the fishing ves- 

 sels of the United States upon waters from which they are excluded by the 

 terms of the Convention of 1818; and they, therefore, intend to dispatch, a 

 soon as possible, a SMALL naval force of steamers, or other small vessels, to 

 enforce the observance of that Convention. 



We find in the same paper that 



in the mean time, and within ten days of its date, an American fishing vessel 

 called the Coral belonging to Machias, in Maine, has been seized in the Bay of 

 Fundy, near the Grand Messan, by the officer commanding Her Majesty's cutter 

 Nettle, already arriving in that bay, for an alleged infraction of the Fishing 

 Convention, and the fishing vessel has been carried to St. John, New Bruns- 

 wick, where proceedings have been taken in the Admiralty Court with a view to 

 her condemnation and entire forfeiture. 



It informs us, also, that the United States having, by the first 

 Article of the Convention of 1818, 



" renounced forever any liberty theretofore enjoyed or claimed by their inhab- 

 itants, to take, dry, or cure fish within three marine miles of any of the coasts, 

 bays, creeks, or harbours of His Britannic Majesty's Dominions in North 

 America," not included in " that part of the coast of Newfoundland which ex- 

 tends from Cape Ray to the Rameo Islands, on the western and northern coast 

 of the said Newfoundland, from the said Cape Ray, to the Quirpon Islands, on 

 the shores of the Magdalen Islands, and also in the coasts, bays, harbours, and 

 creeks, from Mount Jolly, on the coast of Labrador, to and through the Straits 

 of Belle Isle, and thence, northwardly, along the coast ; " and that " being 

 permitted to enter the bays or harbours " first named, only, for the purpose of 

 shelter and of repairing damage therein, and purchasing wood, and obtaining 

 water, it would appear by a strict and rigid construction of the Article. Hint 

 fishing vessels of the United States are precluded from entering into such bays 

 end harbours of the British Provinces, 



for any other purpose. 



That the British authorities insist that England has a right to 

 draw a line from headland to headland, and to capture all American 

 fishermen who may follow their pursuit inside of said line. 



