1790 NOETH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



1807, New Brunswick, to the same effect. " Every master of any 

 ship or vessel .... shall within twenty-four hours after his ar- 

 rival .... make report .... under oath." 



Then the United States, 1789 and 1790: " Masters of every foreign 

 vessel to report and deliver manifests within forty-eight hours of 

 arrival." The manifest is a list or statement of the cargo and of all 

 the goods that are on board. A very useful thing upon which to 

 insist, because that gives an opportunity of punishing the master if 

 he has got alcoholic liquors or things of that kind on board on which 

 he ought to pay duty, and does not state them. 



Then it also provides that revenue officers are to have power to go 

 on board and search. 



They do sometimes discriminate between fishing-vessels and other 

 vessels, and between British fishing-vessels and colonial fishing-ves- 

 sels, but I believe I am right in saying that in every case you have 

 the obligation to report generally and clear. If you can report you 

 can equally well clear. That is done in every case in order to pro- 

 tect the revenue. 



So that it would be a very remarkable thing if in 1783, when the 

 Americans were accepting this right, this concession with regard to 

 fishing, they supposed that the whole body of legislation relating to 

 customs duties was to be suspended or abrogated in their favour, and 

 in 1818 still less likely they could have supposed it, because since 1783 

 they had peacefully and cheerfully submitted to that legislation. In 

 fact, one only has to put the proposition plainly to see how absurd 

 it would be to imagine that England, in order to comply with the re- 

 quest of Mr. John Adams that this liberty should be allowed to 

 American fishing, was going to abrogate its revenue law. 



Now, there are a few points with regard to the danger of smug- 

 gling that I think I should draw special attention to. 



Mr. Elder gave one or two cases of very hard taxation. The cases 

 he gave I am not going to deal with at length, but certainly they 

 might very easily lead to some misunderstanding on the part of the 

 Tribunal. He gave one case, I think I noted it as the case of Captain 

 Cosgrove of the " Columbia." That was his strongest case, in fact 

 it was very nearly his only case. The others were just lightly referred 

 to. He said: Now here is a man who comes with his vcs>el into the 

 Bay of Islands. The Tribunal will remember he went up to the mid- 

 dle arm, and he took a cargo of salted herring. Well, Mr. Elder 

 stated that with perfect fairness of course, but it was rather calculated 

 to make one pause for a moment. This was not the case of the poor 

 fisherman. It was the case of the ordinary trader taking a cargo of 

 salted herring, and apparently he was rather late in the season. He 

 looked about for a custom-house. There are three there in fact. 

 there are four custom-houses and a revenue cutter at the island. He 



