466 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



time from October to April covers the only season in which frozen 

 herring can be procured, while the prohibition of the seines would 

 interfere with the vessels, who, occupied in cod-fishing during the 

 summer, go to Fortune Bay in the winter, and would consequently 

 have to make a complete change in their fishing gear, or depend 

 entirely upon purchase from the natives for their supply. The pro- 

 hibition of work on Sunday is impossible under the conditions of the 

 fishery. The vessels must be at Fortune Bay at a certain time, and 

 leave for market at a certain time. The entrance of the shoals of 

 herring is uncertain, and the time they stay equally so. Whenever 

 they come they must be caught, and the evidence in this very case, 

 shows that after Sunday, the 6th of January, there was no other 

 influx of these fish, and that prohibition on that day would have been 

 equivalent to shutting out the fishermen for the season. 



If I am correct in the views hitherto expressed, it follows that the 

 United States Government must consider the United States fisher- 

 men as engaged in a lawful industry, from which they were driven 

 by lawless violence, at great loss and damage to them; and that as 

 this was in violation of rights guaranteed by the Treaty of Wash- 

 ington between Great Britain and the United States, they have 

 reasonable ground to expect, at the hands of Her Britannic Majesty's 

 Government, proper compensation for the loss they have sustained. 

 The United States Government, of course, desires to avoid an exag- 

 gerated estimate of the loss, which has actually sustained, but thinks 

 you will find the elements for a fair calculation in the sworn state- 

 ment of the owners, copies of which are herewith sent. 



You will find in the printed pamphlet which accompanies this, and 

 which is the statement submitted to this Department on behalf of 

 twenty of the vessels, the expense of each vessel in preparation for 

 the fishery and her estimated loss and damage. The same state- 

 ment with regard to the two vessels, " New England " and " Ontario," 

 not included in this list of twenty, you will find attached hereto, thus 

 making a complete statement for the twenty-two vessels which were 

 in Fortune Bay on the 6th January, 1878, and the Government of 

 the United States sees no reason to doubt the accuracy of these esti- 

 mates. I find upon examining the testimony of one of the most in- 

 telligent of the Newfoundland witnesses called before the Halifax 

 Commission by the British Government, Judge Bennett, formerly 

 Speaker of the Colonial House, and himself largely interested in the 

 business, that he estimates the Fortune Bay business in frozen her- 

 ring, in the former years of purchase, at 20 to 25,000 barrels for the 

 season, and that it was increasing, and this is confirmed by others. 

 The evidence in this case shows that the catch which the United 

 States fishing fleet had on this occasion actually realized was excep- 

 tionally large, and would have supplied profitable cargoes for all 

 of them. When to this is added the fact that the whole winter was 

 lost, and these vessels compelled to return home in ballast, that this 

 violence had such an effect upon this special fishery, that in the 

 winter of 1878-79, it has been almost entirely abandoned, and the 

 former fleet of twenty-six vessels has been reduced to eight, none of 

 whom went provided with seines, but were compelled to purchase 

 their fish of the inhabitants of Newfoundland, the United States 

 Government is of opinion that $105,305.02 may be presented as an 

 estimate of the loss as claimed, and you will consider that amount 



