THE FISHERY CONVENTIONS 615 



should be precisely fixed, but the selection of so narrow a 

 strip of the adjacent sea was in some respects unfortunate, 

 and has probably acted injuriously on the interests of the 

 sea fisheries. It was imposed, no doubt, partly because it 

 was the limit already recognised in England and America 

 as bounding the territorial seas for the purposes of neutrality, 

 and because it was deemed sufficient to afford protection to 

 the breeding fishes and fish -spawn, one of the objects the 

 Parliamentary Committee had in view in recommending it. 



The disputes between the fishermen of the two nations 

 were not set at rest by the convention. Numerous infringe- 

 ments of the new boundary of exclusive fishing occurred, 



l/ CJ 



and the difficulty of causing it to be respected was for many 

 years considerable. 1 As many as twenty-one French vessels 

 were seized and taken into Berwick at one time for trans- 

 gressing the limit, and the convention was naturally not 

 looked upon with favour in certain French seaports. 2 Nor 

 was it generally regarded among the fishery classes in this 

 country as a triumph of diplomacy. In Scotland it was 

 thought that the British Government had made a very bad 

 bargain in parting with the exclusive right to fish for herrings 

 beyond a limit of only three miles instead of three leagues, 

 the boundary maintained to be the " legal " and just dis- 

 tance, for the sake of obtaining, as it was supposed, some 

 fancied advantage for the English oyster fishermen. 3 



The convention, moreover, was binding only on French 

 and British subjects. It left unsettled the limit in relation 

 to other nations, and the inconvenience of this was shown 

 by the action of Belgian fishermen. While the French were 

 excluded from the three - mile zone, the Belgians not only 

 fished within it, but in many cases they anchored their vessels 

 in the Scottish harbours and bays and fished in the neigh- 

 bouring waters from their small boats. In 1848 the commis- 



1 Reports of the Commissioners for the Herring Fishery, 1839, 1840, 1841. 



2 It was denounced in the Boulogne Chamber of Commerce as the greatest 

 blunder the French Government had ever made, and many complaints were 

 received from French fishermen of their boats having been captured or pursued 

 by British cruisers. Deseille, Histoire de la Peche it Boulogne -sur-Mer, 229. The 

 French cruisers were no less active in apprehending British transgressors. Part. 

 Papers, Sess. 1854-5, 459. 



3 Mitchell, The Herriny : Its Natural History and National Importance, 243. 



