PERIOD FROM 1841 TO 1854. 99 



fishermen of their right of fishing in the outer portions of the great 

 bays or indentations of the Nova Scotia coast, in which the American 

 fishermen had always claimed and exercised the right of fisliing 

 beyond the hmit of three miles from the shore. The United States 

 had never regarded the great bays or indentations on these coasts as 

 "bays of His Britannic Majesty's Dominions" ^^dthin the meaning of 

 the treaty; and ever since the date of the treaty the American fisher- 

 men had freely and openly resorted to such bays for the purpose of 

 fisliing outside of the three mile limit from the shore. This practical 

 interpretation of the effect of the treaty with respect to the great 

 bays and indentations had always been acquiesced in by Great 

 Britain, and no attempt had been made by the British Government 

 to interpret the treaty otherwise, until the new interpretation about 

 to be considered was brought forward, the first suggestion of which, 

 it will be noted, originated not with the British Government but with 

 the provincial authorities, w^ho had taken no part in negotiating the 

 treaty and were not even consulted about its provisions before it w^as 

 entered into. 



In further confirmation of Great Britain's assent to the practical 

 effect of the treaty as understood by the United States at that time, 

 attention is called to a statement made by Richard Rush, one of the 

 American Plenipotentiaries w^ho negotiated the treaty of 1818, in a 

 letter written by him to the Secretary of State on July 18, 1853, in 

 which, after mentioning the fact that he remained as American 

 Minister at London for seven years after signing the treaty of 1818, 

 he says : 



Opportunities of complaint were therefore never w^anting. If 

 intimated to me, it w^ould have been my duty to transmit at once 

 every such communication to our government. Nor did I ever hear 

 of complaint through the British Legation in Washington. It would 

 have been natural to make objections when our misconsti-uction of 

 the instrument was fresh, if w^e did misconstrue it. The occasion 

 would have been especially opportune wdien I was subsequently 

 engaged in extensive negotiations with England in 1823-4, which 

 brought under consideration the whole relations, commercial and 

 territorial, between the tw^o countries including our entire intercourse 

 by sea and land, with her North American colonies. Still, silence 

 was never broken in the metropoHtan atmosphere of London W'hilst 

 I remained there. Your letter informs me that for more than twenty 

 years after the convention, there was no serious attempt to exclude 

 us from those large bays; and Mr. Everett, w-riting as Secretary of 

 State, only on the 4th of December last to Mr. Ingereoll, minister in 

 England, renders more definite the time you would indicate by say- 



