PERIOD FROM 1841 TO 1854. Ill 



all the causes of complaint wliich have been made by the American 

 Government against the improper interference of the British colonial 

 authorities with the fishing vessels of the United States." "■ 



Mr. Everett further stated in this note the position of the United 

 States -with reference to the case of the Washington, and the questions 

 presented thereby as follows : 



In reference to the case of the Washington, Lord Aberdeen, in his 

 note of the 15th of April, justifies her seizure by an armed provincial 

 vessel, on the assumed fact that, as she was found fisliing in the Bay 

 of Fundy, she was witliin the limits from wliich the fishing vessels 

 of the United States are excluded by the provisions of the convention 

 between the two countries of October, 1818. 



The undersigned had remarked in his note of the 10th of August 

 last, on the impropriety of the conduct of the colonial authorities in 

 proceeding in reference to a question of construction of a treaty pend- 

 mg between the two countries, to decide the question in their own 

 favor, and in virtue of that decision to order the capture of the ves- 

 sels of a friendly State. A summaiy exercise of power of this kind, 

 the undersigned is sure would never be resorted to by her Majesty's 

 government, except in an extreme case, wliile a negotiation v,as in 

 train on the point at issue. Such a procedure on the part of a local 

 colonial authority is of course highly objectionable, and the under- 

 signed cannot but again invite the attention of Lord Aberdeen to 

 this view of the subject. 



With respect to the main question of the right of American ves- 

 sels to fish within the acknowledged hmits of the Bay of Fundy, it is 

 necessary, for a clear understanding of the case, to go back to the 

 treaty of 1783. 



By this treat}^ it was provided that the citizens of the United 

 States should be allowed "to take fish of eveiy kind on such part of 

 the coast of Ne'\\'foundland as British fishermen shall use, (but not 

 to dry or cure the same on that island) and also on the coasts, bays 

 and creeks of aU other of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in Amer- 

 ica, and that the American fishermen shall have hberty to dr}^ and 

 cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors and creeks of Xova 

 Scotia, Magdalen Islands and Labrador, so long as the same shall 

 remain unsettled ; but so soon as the same or either of them shall be 

 settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure 

 fish at such settlement without previous agreement for that purpose 

 with the inliabitants, proprietors or possessors of that ground." 



These privileges and conditions were in reference to a country 

 of which a considerable portion was then unsettled, Ukely to be 

 attended "«dth differences of opinion as to what should, in the prog- 

 ress of time, be accounted a settlement from which American fisher- 

 men might be excluded. These differences in fact arose, and by the 

 year 1818 the state of tilings was so far changed that her ^lajesty's 

 government thought it necessary in negotiatmg the convention of 

 that year, entirely to except the province of Nova Scotia from the 

 number of the places which might be frequented by Americans as 



"Appendix, p. 479. 



