546 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



Apart from the general knowledge of the offences which it was 

 claimed the master had committed, and which was furnished at the 

 time of the seizure, the most technical and precise details were readily 

 obtainable at the Registry of the Court and from the solicitors for 

 the Crown, and would have been furnished immediately on appli- 

 cation to the authority to whom the Commander of the " Lansdowne '' 

 requested the United States' Consul General to apply. No such in- 

 formation could have been obtained from the paper attached to the 

 vessel's mast. 



Instructions have, however, been given to the Commander of the 

 " Lansdowne " and other officers of the Marine Police that in the 

 event of any further seizures a statement in writing shall be given to 

 the master of the seized vessel of the offences for which the vessel 

 may be detained, and that a copy thereof shall be sent to the United 

 States' Consul General at Halifax, and to the nearest United States' 

 Consular Agent, and there can be no objection to the Solicitor for 

 the Crown being instructed likewise to furnish the Consul General 

 with a copy of the legal process in such case, if it can be supposed 

 that any fuller information will thereby be given. 



Mr. Bayard is correct in his statement of the reasons for which the 

 " David J. Adams " was seized and is now held. It is claimed that 

 that vessel violated the Treaty of 1818, and consequently the statutes 

 which exist for the enforcement of that Treaty, and it is also claimed 

 that she violated the Customs Laws of 1883. 



The undersigned recommends that copies of these Statutes be fur- 

 nished for the information of Mr. Bayard. 



326 Mr. Bayard has in the same despatch recalled the attention 



of Her Majesty's Minister to the correspondence and action 

 which took place in the year 1870, when the Fishery question was 

 under consideration, and especially to the instructions from the Lords 

 of the Admiralty to Vice Admiral Wellesley, in which that officer, 

 was directed to observe great caution in the arrest of American fisher- 

 men and to confine his action to one class of offences against the 

 Treaty. Mr. Bayard, however, appears to have attached unwar- 

 ranted importance to the correspondence and instructions of 1870 

 when he refers to them as implying an " understanding between the 

 two Governments;" an understanding which should, in his opinion, 

 at other times and under other circumstances, govern the conduct of 

 the authorities, whether Imperial or Colonial, to whom under the 

 laws of the Empire, is committed the duty of enforcing the Treaty in 

 question. 



When, therefore, Mr. Bayard points out the i; 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 condi- 

 tions specified under these instructions it is necessary to recall the 

 fact that in the year 1870 the principal cause of complaint on the 

 part of Canadian fishermen was that the American vessels were tres- 

 passing on the inshore fishing grounds and interfering with the catch 

 of mackerel in Canadian waters, the purchase of bait being then a 

 matter of secondary importance. 



It is probable that the action of the Imperial Government was in- 

 fluenced very largely by the prospect which then existed of an ar- 

 rangement such as was accomplished in the following year by the 

 Treaty of Washington, and that it may be inferred, in view of the 



