PERIOD FROM 1841 TO 1854. 121 



Conditions immediately preceding the Reciprocity Treaty of 185 4. 



The questions presented in this Case do not require an examina- 

 tion either of the causes which brought about or the steps wliich led 

 up to the adoption of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. It will be 

 sufficient for the purposes of the present discussion to note that as 

 a result of the repeal by Great Britain of the corn duties in 1846 and 

 of the adoption in that year and in the following years of other free 

 trade legislation, which threw open the British markets to the world, 

 the trade relations between the British North American Colonies and 

 the United States began to develop along new and more important 

 lines. In May, 1846, the Canadian Parliament adopted an address 

 to the Queen, asking that negotiations be undertaken with the 

 United States with a view to arranging for the reciprocal admission 

 into the United States and Canada of the products of those countries 

 upon equal terms, and in December of that year the British ]Minis- 

 ter, Mr. Pakenham, took up the subject with the United States 

 Government.'* 



The fisheries dispute was not directly involved in these negotia- 

 tions, but the British colonies urged that the United States should 

 remit the tariff duties on their fish, proposing in exchange for such 

 remission to admit the American fishermen to all the coast fisheries 

 from which they were excluded under the treaty of 1818. 



Tliis plan of settlement met with very decided opposition in the 

 United States for several years, and while the subject was still under 

 consideration an incident occurred wliich led to some further discus- 

 sion of the British position on the "bays" question, and requires brief 

 attention here. 



On July 5, 1852, Mr. Crampton, the British Charge at Washington, 

 wrote to Mr. Webster, the Secretary of State, referring to complaints 

 which had been made of encroachments by American and French 

 fisliing vessels upon the fisliing grounds reserved to Great Britain 

 by the treaty of 1818, and informed him that — 



Urgent representations having been addressed t»j her Majesty's 

 government by the governors of the British North American prov- 

 inces in regard to these encroachments, whereby the colonial fisheries 

 are most seriously prejudiced, directions have been given by the 

 lords of her Majesty's admiralty for statioiiing ofi" New Brunswick, 

 Nova Scotia, Prince Edward's Island, and in the Gulf of St. Uaw- 



" Appendix, pp. 1049-1055. 



