512 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



With the return to those conditions which had existed 

 prior to 1854, the same old quarrels and encounters among 

 the fishermen reappeared. Lord Monck, the Canadian 

 Governor General, promptly issued notice to Americans that 

 inasmuch as their general fishery rights had ceased, any 

 infractions of the laws relating to them would forthwith be 

 severely punished. Trouble began to threaten even before 

 the close of the first fishing season. The Canadians there- 

 upon adopted a license system granting full fishery privi 

 leges to American schooners on payment of an annual tax. 

 New England skippers generally availed themselves of this 

 arrangement, but each succeeding year the price of licenses 

 was increased (50 cents a ton in 1866, $51.00 in 1867, and 

 $2.00 in 1868), until by the year 1869 the duty had virtually 

 become prohibitive, and American fishermen refused to pay it. 



The various provinces of Canada having consolidated into 

 the Dominion of Canada, the Parliament at Ottawa, in 1868* 

 issued in reference to the fisheries a new code of laws which 

 was thought by Americans to be needlessly severe. Canadian 

 maritime officials redoubled their vigilance ; as a result a 

 large number of New England fishing smacks were captured; 

 and they generally suffered the penalty of forfeiture. The 

 fishermen's quarrels assumed constantly increasing violence^ 

 and so much bitterness was aroused in the New England 

 States that open rupture with England again seemed prob- 

 able. In evident desperation an order was issued in 1870 

 by the Governor General of Canada to the effect "that 

 henceforth all foreign fishermen shall be prevented from 

 fishing in the waters of Canada." To enforce this question- 

 able edict, the Dominion assumed the expense of fitting out 

 cruisers to patrol the waters of Nova Scotia, especially those 

 waters in and about the Bay of Fundy, where, it was alleged, 

 American captains purchased bait and supplies in open viola- 

 tion of the law. Four hundred American vessels were 

 boarded, and of these fifteen were detained and afterward 

 condemned. When the situation had become most threaten- 

 ing, the fishery question was once more set at rest by the 

 treaty of Washington (1871). 



