1C66 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION 



must have meant to include snch bays as the bay in question. (Direct 

 I'nitfd States Cable Company vs. Anglo- American Telegraph Company, 

 Unglich Law Reports, Appeal Cases, part 2, p. 394.) 



This state of things brought us to the Treaty of 1854, commonly called 

 the Reciprocity Treaty. The great feature of that treaty, the only one 

 we care about now, is, that it put us back into our original condition. 

 It acknowledged our general right. It made no attempt to exclude us 

 from fishing anywhere within the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and it allowed 

 no geographical limits. And from 1854 to 1866 we continued to enjoy 

 and use the free fishery, as we had enjoyed and used it from 1820 down 

 to that hour. 



But the Treaty of 1854 was terminated, as its provisions permitted, by 

 notice from the United States. And why ? Great Britain had obtained 

 from us a general free trade. Large parts of the United States thought 

 that free trade pressed hardly upon them. I have no doubt it was a sel- 

 fish consideration. I think almost every witness who appeared upon 

 the stand at last had the truthfulness to admit that when he sustained 

 either duties or exclusion it was upon the selfish motive of pecuniary 

 benefits to himself, his section, his State, or his country; and if that 

 were the greatest offense that nations or individual politicians commit- 

 ted, I think we might well feel ourselves safe. We had received, in re- 

 turn for this advantage, a concession from Great Britain of our general 

 right to fish, as we always had fished, without geographical exclusion. 

 My learned friend Judge Foster read to you (which I had not seen 

 before, and which was very striking) the confidential report of Consul 

 Sherman, of Prince Edward Island, in 1864. I dare say my learned 

 friend the counsel from that island knows him. Now, that is a report 

 of great value, because it was written while the treaty was in existence, 

 and before notice had been given by our government of the intention to 

 repeal it. It was his confidential advice to his own country as to whether 

 our interests, as he had observed them, were promoted by it ; and he 

 said, if the Reciprocity Treaty was considered as a boon to the United 

 States, by securing to us the right to inshore fishing, it had conspicu- 

 ously failed, and our hopes had not been realized. I think these are his 

 very words. He spoke with the greatest strength to his country, writ- 

 ing from Prince Edward Island, which claims to furnish the most im- 

 portant inshore fishery of any, and declared that, so far as the United 

 States was concerned, the benefit that came from that was illusory, and 

 it was not worth while for us any longer to pay anything for it. And 

 that, as your honors have seen, and as I shall have the pleasure to pre- 

 sent still further by and by, was borne out by the general state of feel- 

 ing in America. 



The result was that in 1866 the Reciprocity Treaty was repealed. That 

 repeal revived, as my countrymen admitted, the Treaty of 1818, and it 

 revived, of course, the duties on the British importation of mackerel 

 and herring. \Ve were remitted to the antiquated and most undesira- 

 ble position of exclusion ; but we remained in that position only five 

 years, Irorn lS(i(j until 1871, until a new treaty could be made, and a 



rtl while longer, until it could be put into operation. What was the 



result of returning to the old system of exclusion ! Why, at once the 



cutters and the ships of war that were watching these coasts spread 



nails; they stole out of the harbors where they had been hidden; 



banked their fires; they lay in wait for the American vessels, and 



iey pursued them from headland to headland, and from bay to bay; 

 'times a British officer on the quarter-deck, aud then we were coin- 



arativcly safe, but sometimes a new-fledged provincial, a temporary 



