460 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



accompanied by violence which affects the person or property of an 

 individual, and that individual may be warranted in resisting such 

 illegal violence, so far as it directly affects him, without reference to 

 the relation of the act of violence to the law which it infringes, but 

 simply as a forcible invasion of his rights of person or property. 

 But that the infraction of a general municipal law, with or without 

 violence, cm be corrected and punished by a mob, without official 

 character or direction, and who assume both to interpret and ad- 

 minister the law in controversy, is a proposition which does not re- 

 quire the reply of elaborate argument between two Governments 

 whose daily life depends upon the steady application of the sound 

 and safe principles of English jurisprudence. However this may be, 

 the Government of the United States cannot for a moment admit 

 that the conduct of the United States fishermen in Fortune Bay 

 was in any the remotest degree a violent breach of law. Grant- 

 ing any and all the force which may be claimed for the Colonial 

 Legislature, the action of the United States fishermen was the peace- 

 able prosecution of an innocent industry, to which they thought they 

 were entitled. Its pursuit invaded no man's rights, committed vio- 

 lence upon no man's person, and if trespassing beyond its lawful 

 limits could have been promptly and quietly stopped by the inter- 

 ference and representation of the lawfully-constituted authorities. 

 They were acting under the provisions of the very statute which they 

 are alleged to have violated, for it seems to have escaped the atten- 

 tion of Lord Salisbury that section 28 of the title of the Consolidated 

 Acts referred to, contains the provision that " Nothing in this chapter 

 shall affect the rights and privileges granted by Treaty to the subjects 

 of any State or Power in amity with Her Majesty." They were 

 engaged, as I shall hereafter demonstrate, in a lawful industry, guar- 

 anteed by the Treaty of 1871, in a method which was recognized as 

 legitimate by the award of the Halifax Commission, the privilege 

 to exercise which their Government had agreed to pay for. They 

 were forcibly stopped, not by legal authorities, but by mob violence. 

 They made no resistance, withdrew from the fishing grounds, and 

 represented the outrage to their Government, thus acting in entire 

 conformity with the principle so justly stated by Lord Salisbury him- 

 self, that " if it be admitted, however, that the Newfoundland Legis- 

 lature have the right of binding Americans who fish within their 

 waters by any laws which do not contravene existing Treaties, it 

 must be further conceded that the duty of determining the existence 

 of such contravention must be undertaken by the Governments, and 

 cannot be remitted to the judgment of each individual fisherman." 

 There is another passage of Lord Salisbury's despatch to which I 

 should call your attention. Lord Salisbury says, " I hardly believe, 

 however, that Mr. Evarts would in discussion adhere to the broad 

 doctrine which some portion of his language would appear to convey, 

 that no British authority has the right to pass any kind of laws 

 binding Americans who are fishing in British waters ; for if that con- 

 tention be just, the same disability applies a fortiori to any other 

 Powers, and the waters must be delivered over to anarchy." I 

 certainly cannot recall any language of mine, in this correspondence, 



which is capable of so extraordinary a construction. I have 

 274 nowhere taken any position larger or broader than that which 



Lord Salisbury says: " Her Majesty's Government will readily 



