1280 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



by the Provincial Legislature appear adequate to the purpose, and 

 that being now practically acquiesced in by the Americans, no fur- 

 ther measures are required." 



Our friends from the United States say that there is no reason why 

 Lord Stanley should have indulged that idea, and I cannot say to 

 the Tribunal that we have shown anything, that justified him in 

 coining to that conclusion. I cannot say why he came to it, but I do 

 say that for some reason or other he did come to it; and that there 

 was no further communication from Mr. Stevenson or anyone else 

 on the part of the United States. Whether Lord Stanley was right 

 in thinking that it was not going to be pressed, as a matter of fact, 

 it was not pressed. I will point out, before I leave that letter of 

 Mr. Stevenson, that there is nothing in it which affords any sup- 

 port to the contentions of the United States that the proceedings in 

 1806 and the conversation of 1815 constituted some sort of an under- 

 standing between the two Governments; and that there is no sug- 

 gestion in it either that the theory or the opinion of the British Gov- 

 ernment had not always been what we now say it had always been 

 from the date of the making of the treaty. 



Nothing further happened until the seizure of the " Wash- 

 772 ington " in 1844, and then came the correspondence between 

 Mr. Everett and Lord Aberdeen. In Mr. Everett's first letter 

 of 10th August (British Case Appendix, p. 130) he made the curious 

 mistake of, if not misquoting, at all events misunderstanding the 

 language of the treaty of 1818; for he seems to have been under the 

 impression that the renunciation clause applied only to 3 miles from 

 the coast and not as well to 3 miles from the bays, creeks, and 

 harbours. I read from the second paragraph of the letter : 



" Bj 7 the first article of the convention above alluded to, the United 

 States renounce any libertj 7 heretofore enjoyed or claimed by their 

 inhabitants to take, dry, or cure fish on or within three marine miles 

 of any of the coasts of her Majesty's dominions in America, for which 

 express provision is not made in the said article." 



Omitting the next sentence, I continue: 



" The right, therefore, of fishing on any part of the coast of Nova 

 Scotip, at a greater distance than three miles, is so plain that it would 

 be difficult to conceive on what ground it could be drawn in question." 



The conception would no doubt be difficult if the language of the 

 treaty were as Mr. Everett seemed to think it was, but of course it 

 was not. Lord Aberdeen's reply did little more than point out that 

 Mr. Everett had misread the treaty. That letter appears in the 

 British Case Appendix, at p. 132. Thereupon Mr. Everett evidently 

 re-read the treaty, and his opinion underwent a very vital change. 

 His second letter is in the British Case Appendix, at p. 133, and that 



