2144 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



believed, uncontested. But there appears to be some doubt what 

 are the waters described as within three miles of bays, creeks, and 

 harbors. When a bay is less than six miles broad, its waters are 

 within the three miles limit, and therefore clearly within the mean- 

 ing of the Treaty; but when it is more than that breadth, the 

 question arises whether it is a bay of Her Britannic Majesty's 



Dominions. 



1296 " This is a question which has to be considered in each par- 

 ticular case with regard to International Law and usage. 

 When such a bay, etc., is not a bay of Her Majesty's Dominions, the 

 American fishermen will be entitled to fish in it, except within thive 

 miles of the ' coast '; ' when it is a bay of Her Majesty's Dominions ' 

 they will not be entitled to fish within three miles of it. that is to say. 

 (it is presumed), within three miles of a line drawn from headhunt 

 to headland." 



Both of these communications you will perceive in stating this ques- 

 tion use as the test the question: the limit of 3 marine miles of the 

 coast ; their description of the territorial zone is of a zone within the 

 limit of 3 marine miles of the coast ; as to that there is no question ; 

 as to " bays " which may be outside of that limit there is serious 

 doubt. 



They use the expression very much as it was used by Lord Aber- 

 deen in a letter to which I will now call your attention, which appears 

 on p. 488 of the American Appendix. It was written to Mr. Everett. 

 the 10th March, 1845, from the Foreign Office. That is the letter 

 in which the British Government relaxed, even before this deter- 

 mination evinced in Lord Stanley's letter of the 19th May. 1845, the 

 application of the rule based upon the Nova Scotian construction of 

 the renunciation clause, and relieved the Bay of Fundy from the 

 application of it. In that letter Lord Aberdeen says, reading from 

 the next to the last paragraph on p. 489 : 



" The undersigned has accordingly much pleasure in announcing 

 to Mr. Everett, the determination to which Her Majesty's Govern- 

 ment have come to relax in favor of the United States fishermen that 

 right which Great Britain has hitherto exercised, of excluding those 

 fishermen from the British portion of the Bay of Fundy, and they 

 are prepared to direct their colonial authorities to allow hencefor- 

 ward the United States 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." 



That is to say, American fishermen may pursue their avocation in 

 any part of the Bay of Fundy provided they do not approach within 

 3 miles of the entrance of any bay on the coast of Nova Scotia, or on 

 the coast of New Brunswick. 



Now, insensibly Lord Aberdeen is using the term there, exactly as 

 we say it was used in the treaty. 



