QUESTION ONE. 37 



hereinabove reviewed, and again shortly afterwards by the position 

 taken by the United States in the Fortune Bay case. 



The Fortune Bay case and the position of the United States in the 

 controversy which grew out of it have already been fully reviewed in 

 the Case of the United States, and do not require further examina- 

 tion here. 



The Treasury Circulars. 



It will be found upon an examination of the surrounding circum- 

 stances and the context that the extract from the Treasury circular 

 of June 9, 1870, quoted in the British Case, refers only to laws and 

 regulations in force in the waters of the Canadian coast covered by 

 the renunciatory clause of the treaty, and has no relation whatever 

 to the enforcement of regulations in the waters of the treaty coasts 

 under the treaty of 1818, so that it has no bearing upon the issues 

 raised under Question I. 



The circular announces that the Canadian authorities had termi- 

 nated the system of granting fishing licenses under the Act of May 

 22, 1868, respecting fishing by foreign vessels, which act by its own 

 terms applied only to the waters of Canada not included in the 

 treaty coasts defined by the treaty of 1818, on which coasts licenses 

 from the Canadian Government were not necessary to entitle Ameri- 

 can fishermen to exercise their treaty liberty of fishing. The termina- 

 tion by the Canadian Government of the license system, which had 

 been in force ever since the Reciprocity Treaty expired in 1866, was 

 announced by an Order in Council of the Canadian Government 

 adopted January 8, 1870, and communicated to Mr. Fish, the Secre- 

 tary of State, by Mr. Thornton, the British Minister at Washington, 

 in his note of April 14, 1870 ; 6 and it was in consequence of this 

 change of policy that the Treasury circular of May 16, 1870, was 

 issued, as appears from the letter of April 23, 1870, from the Secre- 

 tary of State to Mr. Bout well, the Secretary of the Treasury. When 

 this circular was issued, Mr. Fish had not been informed that, in 

 addition to adopting the order in council referred to, the Canadian 

 Parliament had, by an act adopted on the 12th of May, 1870, amended 

 the Act of May 22, 1868, under which the licenses had theretofore 

 been issued, so as to authorize the immediate seizure of a foreign 



U. S. Case, p. 162. c U. S. Counted-Case Appendix, p. 187. 



6 U. S. Case Appendix, p. 580. 



