1702 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



of the royal navy said upon the stand the other day, immensely ex- 

 pensive to Great Britain to keep up this armament and this watch 

 along the coast by British ships, and more particularly by the small 

 provincial cruisers. It was perilous to confide to these men, the new- 

 born oflicers of the provincial cruisers, the right to decide questions of 

 international law, questions of the construction of the treaty, at their 

 discretion, upon the quarter-deck, with a deep interest to secure what 

 they were in search of, that is, vessels that could be seized. Then there 

 was a guard of police to be maintained along the shore and information 

 to be conveyed from point to point. The result was irritation, collision, 

 honest difference of opinion ; the American fisherman saying : " I am 

 more than three miles from that coast, I know," and the British commander 

 paying, with perhaps equal honesty, " you are less," and neither able to 

 determine it ; and the vessel is seized and carried into port, and nobody 

 ever can determine where that vessel was when she was seized. And 

 then we had pretty burdensome duties laid upon us by the legislatures 

 of these provinces. The burden of proof was thrown upon every ship 

 to prove that she was not subject to conviction, and she was liable to 

 threefold costs if she failed ; she could not litigate the question without 

 bonds for costs, and it seems to have been left to the discretion of the 

 captor when he should bring his captured ship into port, until we hear 

 at last a judge in one of the provinces calling for an explanation why it 

 was that an American ship, unjustly seized and discharged by him, had 

 not been brought before him for months, until the voyage was destroyed, 

 the men scattered^ the cargo ruined, and the vessel greatly deteriorated; 

 and no answer was given, nor did their majesties, the commanders of 

 the cutters, think it necessary to give any, and I do not suppose it was. 

 The whole subject became a matter of most serious diplomatic corre- 

 spondence, and, as I had the honor to suggest (and it was too painful a 

 suggestion to repeat), a very little change in the line of a shot might 

 have brought these two nations into war; because, when passion is 

 roused, when pride is hurt, when sympathies are excited, it is hard to 

 keep peace between even the best governments and most highly edu- 

 cated peoples. They feel the point of honor, they feel the sentiment 

 that the riag has been insulted, that blood has been shed. The whole 

 subject became too perilous to allow it to stand any longer. Great 

 Britain was also led into difficulties with her provinces, by reason of 

 their efforts to make the most of their three-mile exclusion, to which she 

 was utterly indifferent. The provinces saw fit to make their lines as 

 they pleased, and when they could not bring their great capes or head- 

 lands of the bays near enough together to exclude us, then they in- 

 creased the line of separation which the law established. If "the 

 mountain would not go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mount- 



f the bay persisted in being no more than six miles wide, then 



e provincials met it by a statute that it would do if it was ten miles 



; and they were telegraphed instantly from England, "That will 



; you must not treat the American people in that way. Go back 



jur six-mile line," and they obeyed at once. Then they attempted 



cile the whole matter by the aid of a suggestion from Great 



give us licenses to lish within the three miles upon a norni- 



1 hey have always fished there," she said; "we cannot have 



Pft 01688 they do. We have tried to exclude them, and it is in vain. 



t give up this exclusion ; but we do not want to give it up and 



ider it for nothing. We do not care for their money, but let them 



pa : i nominal license-fee as a recognition of our right to exclude." 



II ; they put the fee at fifty cents a ton, and many Americans 



