DESPATCHES, EEPOETS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 783 



ties to vex and harass American fishing and other vessels so as to produce such 

 a state of embarrassment and inconvenience with respect to intercourse with the 

 provinces as to coerce the United States into arrangements of general reci- 

 procity with the Dominion. 



But Congress did not follow up this bold declaration of that com- 

 mittee with a demand for redress, or with any provision of law that 

 was based upon the fact that the treaty of 1818 had been violated by 

 Great Britain. It was our commercial rights that Congress under- 

 took to protect. 



The committee did not ask the Senate to pass a bill that would 

 commit the country, if it should become a law, to a state of 

 470 actual hostility towards Great Britain, or even to a firm decla- 

 ration that Great Britain had violated the treaty of 1818 in 

 the manner and with the motives stated in the foregoing extract from 

 their report. 



Congress was either satisfied that no occasion had arisen which 

 would justify decisive measures, such as retaliation, reprisals, or war, 

 in resentment for any actual violation of the treaty, or else it sought 

 to evade its just responsibility to the country by increasing the 

 powers of the President to retaliate on British commerce, and by 

 throwing upon him the responsibility of deciding whether the " re- 

 cent" conduct of that Government and of the provinces demanded 

 of the United States that any retaliation should be proclaimed and 

 enforced. 



The House of Representatives demanded broader powers for the 

 President than the Senate would agree to, but both houses hastened 

 to devolve upon him the decision of the whole question of our treaty 

 relations with Great Britain, and gave him the discretion to employ 

 all necessary means to put his decision in force. 



This is the law that Congress enacted to meet that aggravated 

 state of affairs, as described in the report of the Senate committee: 



AN ACT to authorize the President of the United States to protect and defend the 

 Rights of American Fishing-vessels, American Fishermen, American Trading and other 

 Vessels, in certain cases and for other purposes. 



Be it enacted 'by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 

 States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever the President of the 

 United States shall be satisfied that American fishing vessels or American fish- 

 ermen, visiting or being in the waters or at any ports or places of the British 

 dominions of North America, are or then lately have been denied or abridged 

 in the enjoyment of any rights secured to them by treaty or law, or are or then 

 lately have [been] unjustly vexed or harassed in the enjoyment of such rights 

 or subjected to unreasonable restrictions, regulations, or requirements in 

 respect of such rights; or otherwise unjustly vexed or harassed in said waters, 

 ports, or places ; or whenever the President of the United States shall be 

 satisfied that any such fishing vessels or fishermen, having a permit under the 

 laws of the United States to touch and trade at any port or ports, place or 

 places, in the British dominions of North America, are or then lately have been 

 denied the privilege of entering such port or ports, place or places, in the 

 same manner and under the same regulations as may exist therein applicable 

 to trading vessels of the most favoured nation, or shall be unjustly vexed or 

 harassed in respect thereof, or otherwise be unjustly vexed or harassed 

 therein, or shall be prevented from purchasing such supplies as may 

 there be lawfully sold to trading vessels of the most favoured nation ; or 

 whenever the President of the United States shall be satisfied that any other 

 vessels of the United States, their masters or crews, so arriving at or being 

 in such British waters or ports or places of the British dominions of North 

 America, are or then lately have been denied any of the privileges therein 

 accorded to the vessels, their masters or crews, of the most favoured nation, 

 or unjustly vexed or harassed in respect of the same, or unjustly vexed or 

 harassed therein by the authorities thereof, then, and in either or all of such 



