508 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



administration would protect the fishermen, " hook and line, 

 bob and sinker." An American war vessel was sent to the 

 scene ; the relations of the two countries became most criti- 

 cal and war was again predicted. When popular excitement 

 was running high, the Governor General of Canada, Lord 

 Elgin, came to Washington (1854) for the purpose of mak- 

 ing a commercial treaty with the United States. It was a 

 most inopportune time for the success of his mission, not 

 only on account of the ill-feeling throughout the East toward 

 Canada and the decided opposition in Congress to any form 

 of reciprocal trade relations with her, but it was also the 

 moment when political parties in the United States were 

 absorbed in a desperate struggle over the Kansas-Nebraska 

 Bill, and were too deeply agitated by the threatening aspect 

 of the slavery question to give willing heed to less important 

 affairs. Notwithstanding these obstacles, Lord Elgin suc- 

 ceeded. In the short space of a fortnight, a treaty " Extend- 

 ing the Right of Fishing and Regulating Commerce and 

 Navigation between the United States and the British pos- 

 sessions in North America," was signed (June 5, 1854). 



VII 



Up to this point in the history of the fisheries, the discus- 

 sions relative to the rights and liberties of citizens of the 

 United States in Canadian waters, and all negotiations look- 

 ing toward larger British concessions, had been almost wholly 

 free from entanglement with the many concurrent diplomatic 

 questions between Great Britain and the United States. 

 With the exception of that famous dispute concerning the 

 navigation of the Mississippi River, which had been for a 

 time associated with it, the fishery question was fought out 

 alone, and upon its own merits. By the year 1854, the most 

 important of the legal points involved in the old controversy 

 had been disposed of. Although the doctrine of " inherent 

 and natural right " to the fisheries still found its supporters, 

 those notions had been practically abandoned, and the rights 

 of American citizens in Canadian waters were admittedly 



