310 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



Moreover, the Nova Scotia statute rendered it almost impossible 

 for a fisherman to defend a just cause, because it allowed only a 

 month in which to prepare his defence, and cast the onus probandi 

 on the party libeled. Mr. Stevenson, and after him Mr. Everett. 

 remonstrated with the Imperial Government against this atrocious 

 Act, and insisted on the same construction of the Act we now demand. 

 The Imperial Government indulged a desire to accommodate, and 

 submitted such a proposition to the Colonial authorities of Nova 

 Scotia. That colony resisted, as I think did all the others ; and Nova 

 Scotia requested the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown on 

 the construction of the Treaty in regard to all the points to which I 

 have thus adverted. Those Law Officers confirmed all the preten- 

 sions of the Nova Scotians. Under these circumstances the British 

 Government, declaring their adherence to the construction given by 

 the Law Officers, yielded to the appeal of the United States so far 

 as to grant, as a concession, that the Bay of Fundy should be open 

 to the American fishermen, subject to the limitation of not going 

 within three miles of the shore, and they declined to concede more. 

 The American Minister, Mr. Everett, received this not as a conces- 

 sion, but as a right. The British Minister insisted that it should be 

 regarded not as a right, but as a concession. 



Mr. Everett wrote on the 25th of March, 1845, thus : 



I received, a few days since, and herewith transmit, a note from Lord Aber- 

 deen, containing the satisfactory intelligence, that after a reconsideration of the 

 subject, although the Queen's Government adhere to the construction of the 

 Convention which they have always maintained, they have still come to the 

 determination of relaxing from it, so far as to allow American fishermen to 

 pursue their avocations in the BAY OF FUNDY. 



So, the one party calling it a " concession," and the other defining 

 it as a " right," the privilege of fishing, or the right to fish within 

 the Bay of Fundy, except within three miles of the shore, was ad- 

 mitted, and so has constituted a departure, in one instance and on 

 one point, from the rigorous construction otherwise pertinaciously 

 adhered to by the Government of Great Britain. 



What the British Government had thus conceded as a relaxation, 

 the Canadian authorities still declared was unwise; and, although 

 this concession had been made, yet all that time, as well as ever since. 

 the Provincial authorities have insisted upon the technical and rigor- 

 ous construction of the Treaty, and the United States upon the more 

 liberal and just one. The Imperial Government, although it adopted 

 and has adhered to the Provincial construction, has, nevertheless, 

 always declined to maintain it practically by force. Such have 

 been the attitudes of the three parties heretofore. Such are their 

 attitudes now. 



Now, Sir, during all this time I do not know how long before 

 the Imperial Government has kept some naval force in those seas, 

 for the purpose of preventing encroachments and abuses by Ameri- 

 can and French fishermen; and the Colonies have, at all times, I 

 believe, made some show of naval force for that purpose, or on that 



pretext. 



184 In the last year a new Administration with the Earl of 

 Derby at its head obtained the control of the Imperial Gov- 

 ernment. That Administration was understood to favour the prin- 

 ciple of protection. The United States pay considerable bounty to 



