1308 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ABBITRATION. 



' make up their fares ' by fishing close inshore during the two ensu- 

 ing months. 



"As Mr. Lawrence appears to have totally misunderstood the 

 tenor of my observations, it is necessary that I should inform you 

 that I did not say that seizures would not be made beyond the three 

 mile distance of the shore within bays, but I said that the President 

 of the United States had proposed to you that Her Majesty's ships 

 should abstain from making such seizures. Moreover no mention 

 was made either by Mr. Lawrence, Sir John Pakington, or myself, 

 of permission to American fishermen to ' make up their fares ' by 

 fishing close in shore for two months. 



" On the contrary I repeatedly remarked that the intimation given 

 by Her Majesty's Government to the United States left everything 

 as to rights and instructions to Commanders in statu quo; that Her 

 Majesty's Government claimed no new right, and laid down no new 

 principle, nor did they abrogate any previous relaxation; that the 

 British proceeding was in fact one merely of police ; but that we had 

 specially enjoined upon Her Majesty's Officers forbearance and judg- 

 ment in the execution of their instructions." 



But, Sirs, in order to furnish proof of the statement in support 

 of which I am supplying evidence, I have not to depend alone upon 

 what Commodore Shubrick said, or upon what Commander Camp- 

 bell said, or upon what Lord Malmesbury said. I shall now give 

 quotations from United States authorities in support of the statement 

 that I have made. 



On the 6th December, 1852, President Fillmore sent a message to 

 the Senate, which is found in the United States Case Appendix, at 

 p. 545, commencing at the paragraph a little below the middle of the 

 page : 



" The unadjusted difference, however, between the two governments, 

 as to the interpretation of the first article of the convention of 1818, 

 is still a matter of importance. American fishing-vessels, within 

 nine or ten years, have been excluded from waters to which they 

 had free access for twenty-five years after the negotiation of 

 789 the treaty. In 1845 this exclusion was relaxed so far as con- 

 cerns the Bay of Fundy but the just and liberal intention of 

 the home government, in compliance with what we think the true 

 construction of the convention, to open all the other outer bays to our 

 fishermen, was abandoned in consequence of the opposition of the 

 colonies." 



I quote from the same volume, at p. 547, in the letter which Mr. 

 Rush sent to his executors; and at the foot of the page, referring to 

 this question of the right, Mr. Rush says: 



" It was the most important and pressing of any then pending. 

 How it ever became a question, and when, I have endeavored to 

 show; but, once raised by Great Britain, she adhered to it, to the 

 extent of instructing heY ships of war to order our fishing vessels 

 away, if found on what she claimed as exclusively her fishing 

 grounds." 



