DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 309 



Islands; on the northern and western coasts of Newfoundland, from 

 Cape Ray to the Quirpon Islands; and also the right of fishing 

 along the Magadalene Islands; and from Mount Jolly, on the 

 southern coast of Labrador, to and through the Straits of 

 183 Belle Isle, and thence northwards indefinitely. Here on this 

 map you see these common fighing [fishing] grounds. By 

 that Convention the United States renounced all right to fish any- 

 where within the distance of three miles of the shore, within any other 

 of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbours of His Majesty's Dominions 

 in North America, or to enter them for any cause but distress and 

 want of food and water. The fisheries to which this provision was 

 applicable were, on the excepted coasts of Nova Scotia, New Bruns- 

 wick, Cape Breton, Prince Edward's Island, and a portion of Canada, 

 called Gaspe. You see them all here on the chart. 



Will the Senate please to notice that the principal fisheries in the 

 waters to which these limitations apply, are the mackerel and the 

 herring fisheries, and that these are what are calied "shoal fisheries; " 

 that is to say, the best fishing for mackerel and herrings is within 

 three miles of the shore. Therefore, by that renunciation, the United 

 States renounced the best mackerel and herring fisheries. Senators 

 please to notice, also, that the privilege of resort to the shore con- 

 stantly, to cure and dry fish, is very important. Fish can be cured 

 sooner; and the sooner cured the better they are, and the better is 

 the market price. This circumstance has given to the Colonies a 

 great advantage over us in this trade. It has stimulated their 

 desire to abridge the American fishery as much as possible; and in- 

 deed they seek naturally enough to procure our exclusion altogether 

 from the fishing grounds. Such was the Convention of 1818, and its 

 effects. 



On the 14th of June, 1819, the British Parliament passed an Act 

 for the purpose of carrying the provisions of thi% Convention into 

 effect, by which they authorized the King to issue Orders in Council. 

 By Orders in Council the Government of Great Britain provided 

 for the seizure of persons trespassing within the forbidden fishing 

 grounds, or abusing the conceded privileges. 



The Provincial Government of Nova Scotia, in 1836, passed a very 

 stringent law for the purpose, or under the pretext, of preventing 

 encroachments by American fishermen ; and simultaneously with this 

 Act, they set up the claim to exclude the American fishermen from 

 entering the great Bays of Fundy and Chaleurs, and all other great 

 bays; and also to shut up the Gut of Canso, to prevent American 

 fishermen from using that very necessary channel to reach the Straits 

 of Northumberland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. That province 

 asserted, at the same time, that by the true and just construction of 

 the Convention of 1818, we were excluded from the British harbours 

 and waters, except in cases of actual distress; and authorized the 

 police to assume to judge absolutely what were cases of distress, and 

 \\hen the pk-a was at end; and declared it a cause of forfeiture, also, 

 when a fisherman should come in for wood or water, without showing 

 that he had been well supplied when he left home. The province 

 also declared it an abuse and ground of forfeiture, when our fisher- 

 men baited fish within three miles from the shore, for the purpose 

 of tempting them out into the deep sea ; and also when they prepared, 

 within three miles of the shore, to fish outside those limits. 



