458 APPENDIX TO BEITISH CASE. 



should more clearly indicate whether the rights to which the citizens 

 of the United States were entitled under the Treaty were denied or 

 diminished by the pretensions and acts of the Colonial authorities, or 

 whether their infraction was accidental and temporary. As soon as 

 the violence to which citizens of the United States had been subjected 

 in Newfoundland, was brought to the attention of this Department, I 

 instructed you, on 2nd March, 1878, to represent the matter to Her 

 Britannic Majesty's Government, and upon such representation you 

 were informed that a prompt investigation would be ordered for the 

 information of that Government. On August 23, 1878, Lord Salis- 

 bury conveyed to you, to be transmitted to your Government, the 

 result of that investigation, in the shape of a Report from Captain 

 Sulivan, of Her Majesty's ship " Sirius." In furnishing you with 

 this Report, Lord Salisbury, on behalf of Her Britannic Majesty's 

 Government, said : " You will perceive that the Report in question 

 appears to demonstrate conclusively that the United States fishermen 

 on this occasion had committed three distinct breaches of the law, and 

 that no violence was used by the Newfoundland fishermen, except in 

 the case of one vessel whose master refused to comply with the re- 

 quest which was made to him, that he should desist from fishing on 

 Sunday, in violation of the law of the Colony and of the local custom, 

 and who threatened the Newfoundland fishermen with a revolver, as 

 detailed in paragraphs five and six of Captain Sulivan's Report." 



The three breaches of the law there reported by Captain Sulivan, 

 and assumed by Lord Salisbury as conclusively established, were: 

 1. The use of seines, and the use of them also at a time prohibited 

 by a Colonial Statute; 2. Fishing upon a day Sunday forbidden 

 by the same local law; and 3. Barring fish, in violation of the same 

 local legislation. In addition, Captain Sulivan reported that theUnited 

 States fishermen were, contrary to terms of the Treaty of Washing- 

 ton, " fishing illegally, interfering with the rights of British fisher- 

 men and their peaceful use of that part of the coast then occupied 

 by them, and of which they were actually in possession; their seines 

 and boats, their huts and gardens, and land granted by Government, 

 being situated thereon." Yours containing this despatch and the 

 accompanying Report was received on 4th September, 1878, and on 

 the 28th of the same month you were instructed that it was impossi- 

 ble for this Government duly to appreciate the value of Captain 

 Sulivan's Report, until it was permitted to see the testimony upon 

 which the conclusions of that Report professed to rest. And you 

 were further directed to say that, putting aside for after examination 

 the variations of fact, it seemed to this Government that the assump- 

 tion of the Report was, that the United States fishermen were fish- 

 ing illegally, because their fishing was being conducted at a time 

 and by methods forbidden by certain Colonial statutes; that the 

 language of Lord Salisbury in communicating the Report with his 

 approval, indicated the intention of Her Britannic Majesty's Gov- 

 ernment to maintain the position, that the Treaty privileges secured 

 to United States fishermen by the Treaty of 1871 were held subject 

 to such limitations as might be imposed upon their exercise by Colo- 

 nial legislation; and "that so grave a question, in its bearing upon 

 the obligations of this Government under the Treaty, makes it neces- 

 sary, that the President should ask from Her Majesty's Government 

 a frank avowal or disavowal of the paramount authority of provincial 



