DESPATCHES, REPOETS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 317 



Again, I recall the honourable Senator's argument, viz : 



Two things unite to give a country dominion over an inland sea. The first 

 is, that the land on both sides must be within the dominion of the Government 

 claiming jurisdiction, and then that the strait is not more than six miles wide; 

 but that if the strait is more than six miles wide, no such jurisdiction can be 

 claimed. 



Now, Sir, this argument seems to me to prove too much. I think 

 it would divest the United States of the harbour of Boston, all the 

 land around which belongs to Massachusetts or the United States, 

 while the mouth of the bay is six miles wide. It would surrender 

 our dominion over Long Island Sound a dominion which I think 

 the State of New York and the United States would not willingly 

 give up. It would surrender Delaware Bay; it would surrender, I 

 think, Albemarle Sound, and the Chesapeake Bay; and I believe it 

 would surrender the Bay of Monterey, and perhaps the Bay of San 

 Francisco, on the Pacific Coast. 



Sir, it seems to me that we have been labouring for the last fort- 

 night under a strange misapprehension: that we have been arguing 

 here the freedom of the seas of open and broad seas the freedom 

 of great bays, which freedom is not now practically denied, or newly 

 brought in question. It is true that the British Government deny 

 our right to enter the great bays, but it is equally true that they have 

 done so for thirty years; and it is equally true, moreover, that, for 

 thirty years we have practically exercised the right, and that we are 

 exercising it now just as we have done throughout all that period. 



Now, how has all this confusion come into the Senate, and how is 

 it that we are alarming, perplexing, and bewildering the country 

 in so idle and cruel a manner? What ground has there been for 

 assuming that the British Government had determined to revise the 

 Convention of 1818, and to enforce its construction by arms? On 

 what did Senators base their apprehensions and build this excite- 

 ment? The honourable Senator from Michigan [Mr. CASS] quoted 

 from three newspapers, but neither of them was an organ of the 

 Imperial Government, nor even a British newspaper. He quoted 

 from merely provincial journals; and I believe that two of the three 

 journals were anti-Ministerial papers. Moreover, such as they were, 

 they did not assume to speak by authority, but only on report, and 

 by way of conjecture. Perhaps with those journals "the wish was 

 father to the thought ; " and they thought that their brethren " down 

 South " would soon take a new lesson from the presence of an as- 

 sumed extraordinary force in the fisheries. My honourable friend 

 from Louisiana based his censure on the Administration for possibly 

 negotiating away valuable national rights on what he called a " semi- 

 official announcement " of the fact in the " Telegraph" a small news- 

 paper of this city, which is not, as I understand, an organ of this 

 Administration, but can pretend to no more than a desire, perhaps, 

 if it should survive, as I fear it may not, to become the organ of a 

 future one. The honorable Senator, however, most candidly con- 

 fessed, when called upon to name the paper, that he called 

 188 the announcement " semi-official," not from any official char- 

 acter that the paper bore, but from the authoritative manner 

 which it assumed. A case may be easily made out against the 

 Administration, if you will quote from the papers, friendly or other- 

 wise, which make up their articles from telegraphic reports. Now, 



