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the fishermen of the United States should not pursue their oc(.upation 

 within three miles of the shores, bays, creeks, and harbors of that 

 and other parts of her Majesty's possessions similarly situated. The 

 privilege reserved to American fishermen by the treaty of 1783, of taking 

 fish in all the waters, and drying them on all the unsettled portions of 

 the coast of these possessions, was accordingly, by the convention of 

 1818, restricted as follows : 



" ' The United States hereby renounce forever any liberty heretofore 

 enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof, to take, dry, or cure fish 

 on or within three miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of 

 his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America, not included within the 

 above-mentioned limits : provided, however, that the American fisher- 

 men shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbors for the purpose of 

 sheltering and repairing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and of 

 obtaining water, and for no other purpose whatever.' 



" The existing doubt as to the construction of the provision arises from 

 the fact that a broad arm of the sea runs up to the northeast, between the 

 provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. This arm of the sea 

 being commonly called the Bay of Fundy, though not in reality pos- 

 sessing all the characters usually implied by the term 'bay,' has of 

 late years been claimed by the provincial authorities of Nova Scotia to 

 be included among ' the coasts, bays, creeks, and harbors' forbidden to 

 American fishermen. 



" An examination of the map is sufficient to show the doubtful nature 

 of this construction. It was notoriously the object of the article (jf the 

 treaty in question to put an end to the difficulties which had grown out 

 of the operations of the fishermen from the United States along the 

 coasts and upon the shores of the settled portions of the country, and 

 for that purpose to remove theii* vessels to a distance not exceeding 

 three miles from the same. In estimating this distance, the undersigned 

 admits it to be the intent of the treaty, as it is itself reasonable, to have 

 regard to the general line of the coast ; and to consider its ba3's, creeks, 

 and harbors — that is, the indentations usually so accounted — as included 

 within that line. But the undersigned cannot admit it to be reasonable, 

 instead of thus following the general directions of the coast, to draw a 

 fine from the southwesternmost point of Nova Scotia to the terinination 

 of the northeastern boundary between the United States and New 

 Brunswick, and to consider the arms of the sea which will thus 

 be cut off, and which cannot, on that line, be less than sixty miles 

 wide, as one of the bays on the coast from which American vessels are 

 excluded. By tliis interpretation the fishermen of the United States 

 would be shut out from the waters distant, not three, but thirty miles 

 from any part of the colonial coast. The undersigned cannot perceive 

 that any assignable object of the restriction imposed by the convention 

 of 1818 on the fishing privilege accorded to the citizens of the United 

 States by the treaty of 1783, requires such a latitude of construction. 



"It is obvious that (by the terms of the treaty) the farthest distance to 

 which fishing vesselsof the United States are obliged to hold themselves 

 from the colonial coasts and bays, is three miles. But, owing to the 

 peculiar configuration of these coasts, there is a succession of bays in- 

 denting the shores both of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, witliin the 



