508 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



tion of powers so important and involving so high and delicate a 

 discretion to any but wise and responsible officials, whose prudence 

 and care should be commensurate with the magnitude and national 

 importance of the interest involved, and I should fail in my duty if 

 I did not endeavour to impress you with my sense of the absolute 

 and instant necessity that now exists for a restriction of the seizure 

 of American vessels charged with violations of the treaty of 1818, 

 to the conditions announced by Sir E. Thornton to this Government, 

 in June, 1870. 



The charges of violating the Local Laws and Commercial Regula- 

 tions of the Ports of the British provinces (to which I am desirous 

 that due and full observance should be paid by the citizens of the 

 United States) I do not consider in this note, and I will only take 

 this occasion to ask you to give me full information of the official 

 action of the Canadian Authorities in this regard, and what Laws 

 and .Regulations having the force of Law, in relation to the protec- 

 tion of their inshore fisheries and preventing encroachments thereon, 

 are now held by them to be in force. 



But I trust you will join with me in realizing the urgent and 



essential importance of restricting all arrests of American fishing 



vessels for supposed or alleged violations of the Convention of 1818, 



within the limitations and conditions laid down by the Authorities 



of Great Britain in 1870 ; to wit, that no vessel shall be seized 



304 unless it is evident and can be clearly proved that the offence 



of fishing has been committed and the vessel itself captured 



within three miles of land. 



In regard to the necessity for the instant imposition of such re- 

 strictions upon the arrest of vessels, you will, I believe, agree with 

 me, and I will therefore ask you to procure such steps to be taken as 

 shall cause such orders to be forthwith put in force under the au- 

 thority of Her Majesty's Government. 



I have, &c., (Sd.) T. F. BAYARD. 



No. 189. 1886, May 20: Letter from Mr. Bayard to Sir L. S. S. West. 



DEPARTMENT or STATE, 



Washington, 20th May, 1886. 



MY DEAR MR. WEST, Since writing you my last note of to-day's 

 date, my attention has been called to a statement that the American 

 schooner " Jennie and Julia," of Eastport Maine, having cleared 

 from that port for Digby, N. S., made due entry at the latter port, 

 and upon attempting to purchase a lot of herring for smoking, was 

 warned that the vessel would be seized if herring were purchased for 

 any purpose whatever, whereupon the vessel left without taking in 

 cargo. 



If as it is to be inferred from the fact of the regular clearance and 

 entry, the " Jennie and Julia " was documented for a trading voyage, 

 the reported action of the Digby collector should be looked mto very 

 sharply. 



It would certainly not help an amicable adjustment of the present 

 difficulties, if the provincial authorities were to initiate a policy of 



