PERTAINING TO SITUATION IN 1852-1853. 163 



lomatic discussions between the Governments for a period of thirty 

 years. Finally, in 1852, the British colonies united in fitting out 

 cruisers to protect what they regarded as their exclusive rights in a 

 portion of these waters, and to prevent encroachments by citizens of 

 the United States. The home Government had now adopted the pro- 

 vincial interpretation of the treaty, and dispatched a naval squadron 

 to assist the cruisers of the Colonies. The first official intimation of 

 this course, on the part of the British Government, was received by 

 Mr. Webster in a letter from Mr. Crampton, announcing the steps 

 taken " to prevent a repetition of the complaints which have so fre- 

 quently been made of the encroachments of vessels belonging to the 

 United States and France upon the fishing-grounds reserved to 

 Great Britain by the Convention of 1818." His Government had 

 been led, he continued, by urgent representations from the governors 

 of the provinces, to give directions " for stationing, off New Bruns- 

 wick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward's Island, and the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, such a force of small sailing vessels and steamers as shall 

 be deemed sufficient to prevent the infraction of the treaty." 



The truth is, that, in 1845, during some negotiations on this subject, 

 while the two Governments maintained their opposite constructions 

 of the Convention of 1818, on the point of right, the British ministry 

 of that day instructed their colonial authorities that they had deter- 

 mined to relax the strict rule of exclusion over the fishing vessels of 

 the United States entering the bays of the sea on the British North 

 American coasts. Under this relaxation of the British claim, the 

 American fishermen had continued to the present time to enter all the 

 great bays which were more than six miles wide at their mouths, but 

 keeping at a distance of more than three miles from the shore of the 

 bay. In this attitude of things, it is now claimed that the American 

 fishermen could not approach within three miles of a line drawn 

 across the entrance of such bays from headland to headland; and a 

 squadron of nineteen vessels was sent from England to enforce this 

 exclusion, at the moment when our fishermen were about to sail on 

 their accustomed cruise. 



Mr. Crampton was directed to give notice of this exclusion to the 

 American Government. But, before Mr. Webster received the notice, 

 intelligence of what was contemplated reached him from the British 

 provinces. He at once proceeded to take the necessary steps to meet 

 a hazardous conjuncture. On the 17th of July he wrote to the Presi- 

 dent, and, on the same day, he sent for Mr. Crampton to meet him in 

 Boston or at Marshfield. 



******* 



Mr. Webster's purpose, in sending for Mr. Crampton, was to enter 

 at once upon a negotiation which should embrace a settlement of the 

 fisheries and of the trade between the British provinces and the United 

 States, as parts of one subject. Mr. Crampton arrived in Boston on 

 the 24th of July, and was to follow Mr. Webster to Marshfield. On 

 the 25th Mr. Webster left Boston, and, when he alighted from the 

 train at Kingston, nine miles from his own house, he found a great 

 gathering of his neighbors and the people of the surrounding country 

 prepared to escort him home. For miles on either side of the route, 



Dispatch from Lord Stanley, Secretary for the Colonies, to the Governor of 

 Nova Scotia, May 19, 1845. 



92909" S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 6 19 



