DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 461 



admit, what is, indeed, self-evident, that British sovereignty, as 

 regards those waters, is limited in its scope by the engagements of the 

 Treaty of Washington, which cannot be affected or modified by any 

 municipal legislation." I have never denied the full authority and 

 jurisdiction either of the Imperial or Colonial Governments over 

 their territorial waters, except so far as by Treaty that authority 

 and jurisdiction have been deliberately limited by these Governments 

 themselves. Under no claim or authority suggested or advocated 

 by me, could any other Government demand exemption from the 

 provisions of British or Colonial law, unless that exemption was 

 secured by Treaty, and if these " waters must be delivered over to 

 anarchy," it will not be in consequence of anv pretensions of the 

 United States Government, but because the British Government has, 

 by its own Treaties, to use Lord Salisbury's phrase, limited the 

 scope of British sovereignty. I am not aware of any such Treaty 

 engagements with other Powers, but, if there are, it would be neither 

 my privilege or duty to consider or criticize their consequences, where 

 the interests of the United States are not concerned. 



After a careful comparison of all the depositions furnished to 

 both Governments, the United States Government is of opinion that 

 the following facts will not be disputed : 



1. That twenty-two vessels belonging to citizens of the United 

 States, viz., Fred. P. Frye, Mary and M., Lizzie and Namari, Edward 

 E. Webster, W. E. McDonald, Crest of the Wave, F. A. Smith, Here- 

 ward, Moses Adams, Charles E. Warren, Moro Castle, Wildfire, 

 Maud and Effie, Isaac Rich, Bunker Hill, Bonanza, H. M. Eogers, 

 Moses Knowlton, John W. Bray, Maud B. Wetherell, New England, 

 and Ontario, went from Gloucester, a town in Massachusetts, United 

 States, to Fortune Bay, in Newfoundland, in the winter of 1877-78, 

 for the purpose of procuring herring. 



2. That these vessels waited at Fortune Bay for several weeks 

 (from about December 15, 1877, to January 6, 1878, for the expected 

 arrival of shoals of herring in that harbour. 



3. That on Sunday, January 6, 1878, the herring entered the Bay 

 in great numbers, and that four of the vessels sent their boats with 

 seines to commence fishing operations, and the others were proceeding 

 to follow. 



4. That the parties thus seining were compelled by a large and 

 violent mob of the inhabitants of Newfoundland to take up their 

 seines, discharge the fish already inclosed, and abandon their fishery, 

 and that in one case at least the seine was absolutely destroyed. 



5. That these seines were being used in the interest of all the United 

 States vessels waiting for cargoes in the harbour, and that the catch 

 undisturbed would have been sufficient to load all of them with profit- 

 able cargoes. The great quantity of fish in the harbour, and the fact 

 that the United States vessels, if permitted to fish, would all have 

 obtained full cargoes is admitted in the British depositions. 



If the Americans had been allowed to secure all the herrings in the Bay for 

 themselves, which they could have done that day, they would have filled all 

 their vessels, and the neighbouring fishermen would have lost all chance on the 

 follow week-days. (Deposition of James Searwell.) 



The Americans, by hauling herring that day, when the Englishmen could not, 

 were robbing them of their lawful and just chance of securing their share in 

 them; and, further, had they secured all they had barred, they would, I believe, 

 have filled every vessels of theirs in the Bay. (Deposition of John Cluett.) 



