232 



latter, excluded from the great bays by lines drawn from headland to 

 headland, refused passage through the Strait of Canso, and deprived of 

 the right of landing on the shores of the Magdalene islands, were, in 

 effect, to be confined to the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries. 

 Assuming, as the colonial authorities did, that we were bound by a 

 private and ex parte opinion, of which our government had no official 

 knowledge, the schooner Washington, of Newburyport, was seized for 

 no reason, as appears, other than "fishing broad" (to use a term of 

 fishermen) in the Bay of Fundy. The tiict was communicated to Mr. 

 Upshur, Secretary of State, who, on the 30th June, 1843, addressed 

 Mr. Everett in the following terms :* 



*' Sir : I have the honor to transmit to you, herewith, copies of a let- 

 ter and accompanying papers, relating to the seizure, on the 10th of. 

 May last, on the coast of Nova Scotia, by an officer of the provincial 

 customs, of the American fishing schooner Washington, of Newbury- 

 port, Massachusetts, Cheney, master, lor an alleged infraction of the 

 stipulations of the convention of October 20, ISIS, between the Uni- 

 te^ States and Great Britain. 



" Upon a reference t > the files of the legation at London, you will find 

 that this complaint is not the first of a similar character which has 

 arisen out of the proceedings of the authorities of Nova Scotia under 

 their construction of the convention, and that representations upon the 

 subject have heretofore been made to the British government on behalf 

 of American citizens, but, so far as this department is advised, without 

 leading to a satisfactory result. 



*'For a full understanding of the whole question involved, I would par- 

 ticularly point your attention to the instructions of this department to 

 Mr. Stevenson, Nos. 71 and 89, of the respective dates of April 17, 

 1840, and February 20, 1S41, and to the several despatches addressed 

 by that minister to the Secretary of State, numbered 97, 99, 108, 120, 

 and 124, during the years 1840 and 1841. 



" I need not remark upon the importance to the negotiating interests of 

 the United States of having a proper construction put upon the first ar- 

 ticle of the convention of 1818 by the parties to it. That which has 

 hitherto obtained is believed to be the correct one. The obvious neces- 

 sity of an authoritative intervention to put an end to proceedings on the 

 part of the British colonial authorities, alike conflicting with their con- 

 ventional obligations, and ruinous to the fortunes and subversive of the 

 rights of an enterprising and deserving class of our fellow-citizens, is 

 too apparent to allow this government to doubt that the government ol 

 her Britannic Majesty will take efficient steps for the purpose. The 

 President's confident expectation of an early and satisfactory adjust- 

 ment of these difficulties is grounded upon his reliance on the sense of 

 justice of the Queen's government, and on the fact that from the year 

 1818, the date of the convention, until some years after the enactment 

 of the provincial law out of which these troubles have arisen, ajJTacti- 

 eal construction has been given to the first article of that instrument 

 which is firmly relied on as settling its meaning in favor of the rights 

 of American citizens as claimed by the United States. 



* Executive Document 100, p. 117. 



