DESPATCHES, KEPOKTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 373 



Parliament in the case of any offence against the laws relating to 

 Customs, or the laws of trade and navigation. 



The statutory mode of enforcing the law against Customs' offences 

 committed in the Colonies will be found in the Act 16 and 17 Viet., 

 cap. 107, and particularly in the 2nd, 183rd, 186th, and 223rd clauses. 

 But as it v/oiild probably be held under this Act that a vessel could 

 only be seized safely by a naval officer " duly employed for the pre- 

 vention of smuggling" (section 223), it will be probably more con- 

 venient for naval officers to take advantage of the procedure author- 

 ised by the 103rd clause of the Merchant Shipping Act, which is 

 a law relating to " trade and navigation/' 



Under that clause (of which a copy is annexed) any commis- 

 sioned officer on full pay in the military or naval service of Her 

 Majesty may seize any ship subject to forfeiture, and bring her for 

 adjudication before any Court having Admiralty jurisdiction in 

 Her Majesty's dominions. 



It will probably be advisable, as a general rule, that officers of the 

 navy should proceed against vessels engaged in unlawful fishing 

 under the Act of George III and the Merchant Shipping Act, which 

 extend to all the closed waters of British North America, and do 

 not require the officer's authority to be fortified by any Colonial 

 commission or appointment. But more extended powers are con- 

 ferred by the above-mentioned local Acts of Nova Scotia, New Bruns- 

 wick, and Prince Edward Island, on persons commissioned by the 

 Lieutenant-Governors of these Colonies, and any officer who is per- 

 manently charged with the protection of the fisheries in the waters 

 of any of these Colonies may find it useful to obtain such a com- 

 mission. 



It will invest him with a special authority in the waters of the 

 Colony to which it relates, to bring into port any foreign vessel 

 which continues within these waters for twenty-four hours after 

 notice to quit them, and, in case she shall have been engaged in fishing, 

 to prosecute her to condemnation. It will also enable him to prose- 

 cute the forfeiture of the vessel, if it shall be found to have pro- 

 hibited goods on board. But this power it would be undesirable to 

 exercise, as Her Majesty's Government do not at present desire 

 officers of the navy to concern themselves with the prevention of 

 smuggling. 



These being the powers legally exercisable by officers of Her 

 Majesty's navy, it follows to consider within what limits and under 

 what conditions they should be exercised. 



Her Majesty's Government are clearly of opinion, that by the Con- 

 vention of 1818. the United States have renounced the right of fish- 

 ing, not only within three miles of the Colonial shores, but within 

 three miles of a line drawn across the mouth of any British bay or 

 creek. But the question what is a British bay or creek is one which 

 has been the occasion of difficulty in former times. 



It is, therefore, at present, the wish of Her Majesty's Government 

 neither to concede, nor, for the present, to enforce any rights in this 

 respect which are in their nature open to any serious question. Even 

 before the conclusion of the Reciprocity Treaty, Her Majesty's Gov- 

 ernment had consented to forego the exercise of its strict right to 



17 & 18 Viet, c. 104, s. 103. 



