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the straits, passages, and .harbors of our entire coast. Thousands of 

 these vessels visit our ports annually; and the "in-shore" voyage is 

 invaluable to them during the stormy and boisterous months of the 

 5'ear. Every merchant engaged in navigation is aware that, as a class, 

 the small vessels built in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are far in- 

 ferior to our own. To say nothing of the want of skill and sobriety in 

 some of the masters, and nothing of the weak and misshapen hulls of 

 many of the colonial craft, it may be remarked that a proportion of such 

 as are employed in the transportation of wood and gypsum are fitted 

 with the cast-off sails and cordage of timber-ships. To "dodge along 

 shore" is the only safe course for these vessels to pursue, as none can 

 deny. To allow them to do so, is but an act of common humanity. 

 To deny them the "boon," would be to involve many in certain de- 

 struction. 



And now, suppose that the legislature of Maine should remonstrate 

 to our government on the subject, and insist that the people of that 

 State suffer great wrong, because colonial vessels, when bound to Port- 

 land, Boston, and other northern ports, instead of keeping broad off at 

 sea, "hug the shore" and pass through Edgemaroggin and Moosepeck 

 Reaches, over Bass-harbor bar, through Fox Island thoroughfare, and 

 between Monhegan and the main land. Suppose, too, that the legis- 

 latures of New York and Connecticut should join the frontier State 

 and demand the exclusion of British vessels from Long Island Sound ? 

 Suppose, further, that finally the Attorney General of the United States 

 should submit an opinion to the President, in which he should say that 

 no stipulations giving the right to navigate these straits and this sound 

 exist, either in the treaty of 1783, in Jay's treaty in 1794, in the treaty 

 of peace in 1814, in the treaty of commerce in 1815, in the convention 

 of 1818, in the McLane arrangement in 1830, or in the last, the treaty 

 of Washington in 1842; who w^ould fail to see the inhumanity — nay, 

 the outright wickedness— of the whole proceeding? Yet, were all this 

 to be done, they would do no more than has actually been done by the 

 political leaders of Nova Scotia and the crown lawyers of England. 

 As a matter of right, the British colonists can be treated precisely as 

 the}" require the government of England to treat us. If — as they aver, 

 and quote international law to prove — the Strait of Canso is not open 

 to our vessels under sail and passing to and from the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, then, and for the same reasons — geographical and political — 

 the "reaches," sounds, straits, and "thoroughfares" along the coast of 

 the United States, are not open to them. Can this position be denied? 



In reply to Lord Falkland's fifth query, the law officers of the crown 

 say: " With reference to the claim of a right to land on the Magdalene 

 islands, and to fish from the shores thereof, it must be observed that, 

 by the treaty, the liberty of drying and curing fish (purposes which 

 could only be accomplished by landing) in any of the unsettled bays, 

 &:c., of the southern part of Newfoundland, and of the coast of Labra- 

 dor, is specifically provided for; but such privilege is distinctly nega- 

 tived in any settled bay, &c. And it must therefore be inferred that, 

 if the liberty of landing on the shores of the Magdalene islands had 

 been intended to be conceded, such an important concession would 



