1288 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



new construction of the convention ; and the capture of the Washing- 

 ton in 1843, for an infringement of that construction, and for no other 

 offence whatever, were all calculated to impress them with the belief 

 that the contest was at an end. Such, I confess, was the inclination 

 of my own mind. My home was on the frontier; I was a dealer 

 in the products of the sea ; and was in the daily transaction of busi- 

 ness with fishermen of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and was 

 well advised of the measures which were adopted by the colonists, 

 from time to time, to induce the ministry at home to sustain their 

 pretensions. The zeal which was manifested by those who managed 

 the British side of the case, and the seeming apathy of the American 

 press and the American people; the rumours from the Government 

 House at Halifax, and the want of all information from the White 

 House at Washington, gave rise to much alarm. Official silence on 

 o.ur part was at last broken, and such of our citizens as were engaged 

 in the fisheries, or were otherwise involved in the issue of the con- 

 troversy, were astounded, in June, 



that was June, 1845 



"at the following paragraph which appeared in the ' Union,' a 

 newspaper supposed to enjoy the confidence of our government, and 

 said, in the popular sentiment, to be its ' organ.' ' We are gratified,' 

 said that paper, ' to be now enabled to state, that a despatch has been 

 recently received at the Department of State from Mr. Everett, our 

 minister at London, with which he transmits a note from Lord Aber- 

 deen, containing the satisfactory intelligence that, after a reconsidera- 

 tion of the subject, although the Queen's Government adhere to the 

 construction of the convention which they have always maintained, 

 they have still come to the determination of relaxing from it, so far 

 as to allow American fishermen to pursue their avocations in any 

 part of the Bay of Fundy, provided they do not approach except in 

 the 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.' " 



Pausing there for a moment, it is interesting to notice that those 

 last three lines are a textual reproduction of the words of Lord 

 Aberdeen's letter to Mr. Everett, and that the " Union " must, there- 

 fore, have had direct information from official quarters. The words 

 are not given in inverted commas, but they are, textually, word for 

 word with that part of Lord Aberdeen's letter. I continue to 

 read : 



777 " ' This is an important concession ' ' (that is in the news- 

 paper), " ' not merely as removing an occasion of frequent and 

 unpleasant disagreement between the two governments, but as reopen- 

 ing to our citizens those valuable fishing grounds within the Bay of 

 Fundy which they enjoyed before the war of 1812, but from which, 

 as the British Government has since maintained, they were excluded 

 by the convention of 1818.' '' 



Then Mr. Sabine continues: 



" The assertion, from such a source, that the British Government 

 had ' always maintained ' the construction of the convention con- 



