280 MISCELLANEOUS 



habitually infringed by American fishermen. For those thirty-six 

 years the questions which have agitated these two countries were 

 constantly under discussion. It was contended by the Americans 

 that the territorial limits defined by the treaty of 1818 extended only 

 three miles beyond the shore, and that in measuring that distance 

 the sinuosities of the bays, harbors and creeks were to be followed, 

 while we contended on the other hand that the bays, etc., were not 

 to be entered at all, but that the three mile limit was to be calculated 

 from a line drawn from headland to headland of these bays, harbours 

 and creeks. This contention grew from time to time, but only 

 assumed very definite and decided proportions somewhere about 1840 

 or 1841 some twenty years after the treaty. There is no doubt 

 disputes had been constantly going on with respect to this and other 

 disputed points arising put of the treaty; and on several occasions 

 the United States had insisted on its views; but the dispute only 

 reached a definite and decided form about the period referred to. 

 At that time and afterwards, however, their pretensions as to this 

 and other points, were urged and persisted in, and formed the sub- 

 ject of frequent diplomatic correspondence between the two countries; 

 and finally the disputes reached a point where it became obviously 

 necessary that some definite decision should be arrived at upon them. 

 Seizures of vessels were again constantly made; again the same 

 exasperation was felt in the United States, especially amongst the 

 fishermen, as to what they thought were the improper restrictions 

 imposed by Canada, and as to the mode in which those restrictions 

 were enforced; until finally the difficulty was terminated by the 

 Treaty of 1854, ordinarily known as the Reciprocity Treaty. 



*,-**** 



In addition to this limitation created by the Act, there is a specifi- 

 cation of a number of bays which exceed ten miles in width, which 

 are nevertheless to be included in British waters under the delimita- 

 tion to be made by the Commissioners. 



There are ten of these bays, and they include all the important 

 bays over ten miles wide at their mouths, in the Province of Quebec, 

 Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, with the exception of Bay St. 

 George; and they also include some of the bays in Newfoundland. 

 ******* 



The fifth paragraph of the treaty contains a provision with re- 

 spect to bays which are more than 10 miles wide, but Avhich, never- 

 theless, United States vessels could not enter under the three-mile 

 limit conceded for by themselves. It is to the effect that nothing con- 

 tained in the treaty shall be held to include in common waters any 

 interior portions of any bays, creeks, or harbors that cannot be 

 reached from the sea without passing within the three miles men- 

 tioned in the first article of the treaty of 1818. That, as I under- 

 stand it, and as it has been explained to me and I think reasonably, 

 is to cover the case of a bay more than ten miles wide which has 

 an island or islands in its mouth, and which could not be entered 

 by United States vessels, independent of this treaty, under their 

 own interpretation of the law without coming within three miles of 

 the shore; because of course a British Island is the British shore 

 as much as the mainland; and a bay fifteen miles at its month, which 

 if this clause had been -omitted, could have been entered by foreign 

 vessels, though there might be an island more than three miles wide 



