DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 715 



sanction of long practical acquiescence on the part of the United 

 States, and, we may also add, the full and cordial approval of so 

 distinguished an American law writer as Professor Pomeroy. On 

 the 12th of March. 1836, nearly one year before President Jackson 

 went out of office, there was passed the Act of Nova Scotia, the model 

 of all the legislation since enacted, at which is aimed the thirteenth 

 article of the treaty just negotiated. This act was specially vali- 

 dated by royal orders in council, and provided that local officers 

 might seize and bring into port vessels hovering on the coasts of 

 Nova Scotia, and repeated the penalty of forfeiture for those fishing 

 or " preparing to fish " within the prescribed waters. It also pro- 

 vided that no person should be admitted to claim the vessel seized 

 without first giving security for costs not exceeding 60 pounds. It 

 also threw on the owner the burden of proof in any suit touching 

 the illegality of seizure. It so hampered the right of action for 

 unjustifiable arrests of vessels as to render it substantially worthless; 

 and it was so extreme in its provisions that the vessel could not be 

 bailed without the consent of the person seizing her. All these pro- 

 visions have been continued in every statute of the Dominion from 

 that time to the present. 



In A. D. 1838, 1839, and 1840, during the administration of Mr. 

 Van Buren, and while John Forsyth was Secretary of State and 

 Levi Woodbury Secretary of the Treasury, sixteen of our vessels 

 were proceeded against at Halifax and all confiscated except one. 

 During the first year of the next administration, and while Webster 

 was Secretary of State, seven were seized and proceeded against, 

 only two of which were restored. These prosecutions were under 

 this statute of 1836. It is not certain that Mr. Forsyth knew of its 

 existence until near the close of his term of office, which he made an 

 earnest remonstrance against it. The records also fail to show that 

 Webster in any way took notice of it; although after Webster retired 

 from the Cabinet, Mr. Everett, while minister at London, under in- 

 structions from Mr. Upshur, then Secretary of State, reiterated the 

 complaints of Mr. Forsyth. When Webster again became Secre- 

 tary of State, and not long before he died, he made the famous 

 speech at Marshfield, in which he said : 



It is not to be expected the United States would submit their rights to be 

 adjudicated in the petty tribunals of the provinces, or that we shall allow our 

 own vessels to be seized by constables or other petty officials, and condemned 

 by the municipal courts of Quebec, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, or Canada. 



Notwithstanding this, from the time the statute was enacted in 

 A. D. 1836 till the present negotiations, not only was its repeal or 

 modification not secured by the United States, and not only con- 

 trary to the phrases of Webster did the United States submit the 

 rights of their vessels to be adjudicated in the tribunals of the prov- 

 inces and allow them to be seized by provincial constables and other 

 provincial petty officers, but in A. D. 1868, and afterwards in A. D. 

 1870, the Dominion, without protest from us, re-enacted and intensi- 

 fied the law of 1836 by statutes ever since in force. 



The disputes covering this first period from A. D. 1836 to A. D. 

 1854 were confined mainly to four questions : 



(1) Whether great bays, like those of Chaleur and Fundy, were 

 bays of the British dominions. 



