174 The Frederick Gerring, Jr. 



ditions named, on the ground that the schooner had become worth- 

 less by the want of care of the Canadian Authorities in keeping 

 the vessel. 



The Canadian Government traversed Captain Morris' state- 

 ment as to the alleged injury the vessel had suffered in its keep- 

 ing, but it declined to appoint, at the request of the Department of 

 State, a joint commission to make a survey of its condition. The 

 negotiations, with a view to a mutually satisfactory adjustment, 

 were thus ended in an apparently hopeless impasse; and the Depart- 

 ment of State, with the hope that an appeal might still lie from the 

 decision of the Supreme Court, made inquiries with regard to the 

 conditions and the time limit for an appeal to the Privy Council, and 

 ascertained that the appeal would be barred by time. 



The Department was not a little embarrassed by the unex- 

 pected turn of the affair through the refusal of the restitution 

 by Captain Morris, and appreciated the delicacy of a complete 

 change of its attitude in the treatment of the case, especially after 

 having invoked the exercise of executive clemency in the remis- 

 sion of the forfeiture. But my Government never intended for 

 a moment to concede the right of Her Majesty's Government to 

 seize the vessel for fishing outside of the three-mile limit. Cap- 

 tain Morris has at all times contended that the Gerring, at the 

 time of her seizure, was outside the three-mile limit from the Nova 

 Scotia shore. This contention raised two principal issues, to wit, 

 whether the ship, when seized, was inside the three-mile limit ; 

 and whether she was. while engaged in bailing fish from the seine 

 aboard the ship, engaged in "fishing," within the contemplation 

 of the treaty. 



My Government has exhaustively studied the entire case, 

 and it does not seem to it that the evidence, when dispassionately 

 considered and weighed, establishes a case against the defendant. 

 At least, it can be most candidly and most earnestly maintained 

 that the case was not made out with sufficient clearness on the 

 evidence to justify a forfeiture, odious to the law. 



Captain Knowlton testified at the trial that the Gerring was 

 seized less than 1-14 miles oft' "Gull Ledge"; that this ledge is 

 134 miles long and about % mile wide; that the distance from Gull 

 Ledge to Barren Island, which is exactly north, is less than 1^ 

 miles ; that the distance from where the Gerring was seized to 



