DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 797 



479 We insisted on it with the view: '(1) Of preventing any implication 

 that the fisheries secured to us were a new grant and of placing the 

 permanence of the rights secured and of those renounced precisely on the 

 same footing; (2) of its being expressly stated that our renunciation extended 

 only to the distance of three miles from the coasts. 



The reasons they assigned for the importance of this point bring 

 into serious doubt the question whether this renunciation extended 

 to the ocean coasts, or the coasts of the bays. They are as follows : 



This last point was the more important, as, with the exception of the fishery 

 in open boats icithin certain harbors, it appeared from the communications 

 above mentioned, that the fishing-ground on the whole coast 0f Nova Scotia is 

 more than three miles from the shores; whilst, on the contrary, it is almost 

 universally close to the shore on the coasts of Labrador. It is in that point of 

 view that the privilege of entering the ports for shelter is useful, and it is hoped 

 that, with that provision, a considerable portion of the actual fisheries ON THAT 

 COAST (of Nova Scotia) icill, notioithstanding the renunciation, be preserved. 



In view of these declarations of our plenipotentiaries, who nego- 

 tiated the treaty of 1818, no censure can be due to Daniel Webster for 

 having expressed the opinion, in what is termed his " proclamation " 

 to our fishermen, that " it would appear that, by a strict and rigid 

 construction of this article " (of the treaty of 1818), " the fishing ves- 

 sels of the United States are precluded from entering into the bays," 

 etc., and that "it was undoubtedly an oversight in the convention of 

 1818 to make so large a concession to England, since the United 

 States had usually considered that these vast inlets or recesses of the 

 ocean ought to be open to American fishermen, as free as the sea itself, 

 to within three miles of the shore." 



It was not until March, 1845, that the Bay of Fundy was declared 

 open to our fisheries by the British Government, on condition " that 

 they do not approach, except in cases specified in the treaty of 1818, 

 within three miles of the entrance of any bay on the coast of Nova 

 Scotia, or New Brunswick." 



On the 17th September, 1845, the governor of Nova Scotia was in- 

 structed b} 7 the British Government that the permission to fish that 

 had been conceded to us in the Bay of Fundy did not extend " to the 

 Bay of Chaleur and other large bays of similar character on the coast 

 of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick," and that they " still adhere to 

 the strict letter of the treaties" of which Mr. Webster afterwards 

 spoke in his circular letter of 1852. 



Many other disputations have occurred over the meaning of this 

 treaty, as to the extent of the renunciation of our fishing rights 

 within 3 miles of the coasts, bays, harbors, and creeks of the British 

 North American possessions, and we are not aware that any of them 

 have been definitely settled. Mr. Everett, minister to Great Britain, 

 on the 25th March, 1845, replied to the letter of Lord Aberdeen, 

 stating the action of the British Government in relation to our right 

 to fish in the Bay of Funday, in which Lord Aberdeen said : 



The undersigned will confine himself to stating that, after the most deliberate 

 reconsideration of the subject, and with every desire to do full justice to the 

 United States, and to view the claims put forward on behalf of the United 

 States citizens in the most favourable light, Her Majesty's Government are 

 nevertheless still constrained to deny the right of United States citizens, under 

 the treaty of 1818, to fish in that part of the Bay of Fundy v:hich, from its 

 geographical position, may properly be considered as included within the British 

 possessions. 



Her Majesty's Government still maintain and in this they are fortified by 

 high legal authority that the Bay of Fundy is rightfully claimed by Great 

 Britain as a bay within the meaning of the treaty of 1818, and they equally 



