DESPATCHES, KEPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 787 



vincial laws within the local jurisdictions in 1818, has been abandoned 

 by Great Britain. Outside of a limit of 3 miles from the headlands 

 of such indentations of the sea-coast it was abandoned as early as 

 1815. in the case of the American fishing vessels that were warned off 

 the coast by the British man-of-war Josseur. 



Our claims could not be fairly predicated, diplomatically, on such 

 an admission by Great Britain as to the base-line from which the 

 3-mile limit is to be measured. 



That being still an open question, the claims of either side were a 

 necessary feature in the negotiation of this treaty. 



If our contention was indisputably just, a peremptory demand for 

 its allowance was the only course we could adopt. Such a demand, 

 we believe, has never been formally made by this Government. Con- 

 gress certainly has never affirmed the indisputable justice of our 

 claim. The United States have preferred to let this question, with all 

 the others that have arisen under the treaty of 1818, continue in reach 

 of discussion and negotiation. 



In that situation the present administration found this controversy. 



Mr. Bayard proposed to the British Government that the 3-mile 

 fishing limit should be measured, in the bays that were 10 miles or 

 less in width, from that point nearest the entrance where the shores 

 are 10 miles distant from each other. He found his support for 

 that offer in the arrangement between Great Britain and other 

 European nations for fishing in the bays and harbors of their respec- 

 tive coasts along the North Atlantic and the northern seas. 



It being generally conceded that the limit of local jurisdiction ex- 

 tended 3 miles from the coast out into the sea, and that this distance 

 was adopted because it measured the range of artillery in ancient 

 times, it is obvious that when the range of artillery is extended to 

 5 miles it is due to the security of bays and harbors reaching far 

 inland that treaty arrangements fixing a new measurement should 

 have some reference to the increased limits for the protection of the 

 people residing along such shores corresponding with the improved 

 range of artillery. 



This offer made no allusion to any headland theory that the British 

 Government had ever asserted ; still it was directly opposed to asser- 

 tions of that theory which Great Britain had often made, and called 

 forth the following " observation from the Marquis of Salisbury upon 

 the proffer made by Mr. Bayard : " 



A reference to the action of the United States Government, and to the admis- 

 sion made by their statesmen in regard [to] bays on the American const s, 

 strengthens this view : and the case of the English ship Grange shows that the 

 Government of the United States, in 1793, claimed Delaware Bay as being 

 within territorial waters. 



Mr. Bayard contends that the rule, which he asks to have set up, was adopted 

 by the umpire of the commission, appointed under the convention of 1853. in 

 the case of the United States fishing schooner Washington; that it was by 

 him applied to the Bay of Fundy, and that it is for this reason applicable to 

 other Canadian bays. 



It is submitted, however, that as one of the headlands of the Bay of Fundy 

 is in the territory of the United States, any rules of international law applicable 

 to that bay are not therefore equally applicable to other bays the headlands of 

 which are both within the territory of the same power. 



This provision would involve a surrender of fishing rights which have always 



been regarded as the exclusive property of Canada, and would make 



473 common fishing-grounds of the territorial waters which, by the law of 



nations, have been invariably regarded both in Great Britain and the 



