624 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



of 1818 ; and in 1843 the schooner Washington was arrested 

 for fishing in the Bay of Fundy at a distance of ten miles 

 from shore, taken to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and sold. In 

 the diplomatic correspondence which followed these seizures, 

 the two Governments took up the position as to the inter- 

 pretation of the treaty which is referred to above; but 

 eventually, in March 1845, Lord Aberdeen intimated that 

 the British Government, while adhering to their interpretation, 

 would as a matter of courtesy relax the rule with regard to 

 the Bay of Fundy, and allow "the United States fishermen 

 to pursue their avocations in any part of it, provided they 

 should not approach, except in cases specified in the treaty 

 of 1818, within three miles of the entrance of any bay on 

 the coast of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick." The Bay of 

 Fundy (fig. 17) is a very large but typically landlocked inlet of 

 the sea, passing between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for 

 a distance of about 140 miles from its mouth. As with many 

 other bays, there is more than one cape or projection of land 

 that might be taken as its headlands, but one of them is 



o 



clearly in the United States ; and the distance from it to 

 the opposite coast is from forty to fifty -five nautical miles, 

 while the bay itself at sixty or seventy miles from the entrance 

 is over twenty-five miles in width. Chaleur Bay, between 

 New Brunswick and Quebec, is a little over sixteen miles in 

 width and over sixty miles long (fig. 18). 



The United States declined to receive the above-mentioned 

 privilege as a favour, and the colonists made a strong repre- 

 sentation to London as to the injurious results that would 

 ensue if the proposed policy were adopted ; and in 1849 the 

 British law officers of the Crown gave their opinion on the 

 provisions of the treaty, " that the prescribed distance of three 

 miles is to be measured from the headlands or extreme points 

 of land next the sea of the coasts, or of the entrance of the 

 bays, and not from the interior of such bays or inlets of the 

 coast ; and consequently that no right exists on the part of 

 American citizens to enter the bays of Nova Scotia, there to 

 take fish, although the fishing, being within the bay, may be at 

 a greater distance than three miles from the shore of the bay." 



In terms of the convention of February 8, 1853, the case 

 of the Washington, above described, came before referees in 



