1792 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



getting into a place like the Bay of Islands where he has three 

 custom-houses, where he has a cutter, and then another custom- 

 house at Lark Harbour, and has not time to enter, but must go. 

 Well, if that were the state of things, he had no business to go. 



I have continually, in the course of my experience for the last 

 thirty years, to deal with vessels that go to all kinds of ports, where 

 they are subject to every kind of detention, especially the ice-bound 

 ports of Russia continually. It is a very fine speculation, it is a 

 fine sporting voyage to see whether you can get in late and get your 

 cargo and get out again before the ice comes. But, I would like to 

 know what would happen if a captain went out without clearing, or 

 without reporting himself, and then came back the next year and 

 said: Do not tax me. What would happen if he said that to the 

 Russian authorities ? What would happen if he said : Do not punish 

 me because I am a tradesman and a poor mariner, I wanted to get 

 out before the ice came. They would say: You should have taken 

 that into account before you came. In reality it was a preposterous 

 excuse. In November I am told there is no such danger as being 

 detained by the ice, and that no vessel need hurry off like that in 

 defiance of the regulations without reporting. It was a perfectly 

 legitimate case of punishing a deliberate disobedience of the law. 

 We were not fining Captain Cosgrove. We were not fining his wife 

 and family, as Mr. Elder seemed to think. We were fining Messrs. 

 Pew and Sons, the fish dealers who had, according to Captain Cos- 

 grove's own statement said: Mind you get out, you are not to be 

 locked in the ice, you are to get out. 



That is the kind of case which is put forward as a hardship. We 

 have nothing to do with it, absolutely nothing. It does not touch 

 the treaty right, and if it did it would make no difference, or very 

 little, because equally they are bound to obey regulations like that 

 in regard to trading. 



Well now, I will pass over that class of case, because it does not 

 assist us to come to an exact or clear judgment on the merits or the 

 law. Instances of occasions like that will more likely obscure, than 

 anything else, when they have nothing to do with any conceivable 

 point of law concerned in the case. 



The Bay of Islands is an important place, and one cannot imagine 

 better facilities than there are there for complying with customs 

 regulations. The Bay of Islands is really the place where the 

 American vessels go. That is where the herrings are caught, and if 

 you want to fish, the Bay of Islands is the place to go to. If. 

 instead of fishing, you \M\UI to buy herring, equally the Bay of 

 Islands is the place to go. I believe, if an American vessel wanted to 

 go to any other bay, certainly any other bay of importance, they 



