PERIOD FROM 1811 TO 1905. 687 



Her Majesty's Government have no wish to insist on any illiberal 

 construction of the language of the treaty, and would not consider it 

 necessary to make any formal complaint on the subject of a casual in- 

 fringement of the letter of its stipulations which did not involve any 

 substantial detriment to British interests and to the fishery in general. 



An excess on the part of the United States fishermen of the precise 

 limit of the rights secured to them might proceed as much from 

 ignorance as from wilfulness; but the present claim for compensa- 

 tion is based on losses resulting from a collision which was the direct 

 consequence of such excess, and Her Majesty's Government feel bound 

 to point to the fact that the United States fishermen were the first 

 and real cause of the mischief, by overstepping the limits of the 

 privileges secured to them in a manner gravely prejudicial to the 

 rights of other fishermen. 



For the reasons above stated, Her Majesty's Government are of 

 opinion that, under the circumstances of the case as at present within 

 their knowledge, the claim advanced by the United States fishermen 

 for compensation on account of the losses stated to have been sus- 

 tained by them on the occasion in question is one which should not be 

 entertained. 



Mr. Evarts will not require to be assured that Her Majesty's Gov- 

 ernment, while unable to admit the contention of the United States 

 Government on the present occasion, are fully sensible of the evils 

 arising from any difference of opinion between the two governments 

 in regard to the fishery rights of their respective subjects. They have 

 always admitted the incompetence of the colonial or the imperial 

 legislature to limit by subsequent legislation the advantages secured 

 by treaty to the subjects of another power. If it should be the opin- 

 ion of the Government of the United States that any act of the 

 colonial legislature subsequent in date to the Treaty of Washington 

 has trenched upon the rights enjoyed by the citizens of the United 

 States in virtue of that instrument, Her Majesty's Government will 

 consider any communication addressed to them in that view with a 

 cordial and anxious desire to remove all just grounds of complaint. 

 I have, etc., 



SALISBURY. 



Appendix A. Collected affidavits of American fishermen sub- 

 mitted to the British Government. 



Appendix B. Statutes of Newfoundland applicable to the fisheries. 

 (See ante, pp. 161-200.) 



APPENDIX A. 



(1.) 



Deposition of Alfred Noel. 



NEWFOUNDLAND, CENTRAL DISTRICT, ST. JOHN'S, to wit: 



The examination of Alfred Noel, of St. John's aforesaid, master 



mariner, taken upon oath, and who saith : 



I am master of the schooner Nautilus of this port, and on the 19th 



day of December last I was at Long Harbour, in Fortune Bay, in the 



Nautilus, which was anchored off Woody Island. I had a crew of 



