PEEIOD FEOM 1871 TO 1905. 719 



judicious), the Government of the United States will accept the 

 proposition and close this controversy on the basis of that award. 



But in signifying to Her Britannic Majesty's Government the will- 

 ingness of the United States to accede to such a proposition, you will 

 carefully guard against any admission of the correctness of those 

 views of our treaty rights which are expressed, either explicitly or by 

 implication, in Lord Granville's communication of October 27, 1880. 



The views of this government upon the proper construction of the 

 rights of fishery guaranteed by the treaty of Washington have been 

 fully expressed in my former dispatches, and no reasons have been 

 furnished to induce a change of opinion. The delay in the settlement 

 of the Fortune Bay case has been already too long protracted. It 

 has provoked a not unnatural feeling of irritation among the fisher- 

 men of the United States at what they conceive to be a persistent 

 denial of their treaty rights, while it is to be feared that it has encour- 

 aged among the provincial fishermen the idea that their forcible re- 

 sistance to the exercise of these rights is not without justification in 

 their local law and the construction which Her Britannic Majesty's 

 Government is supposed to have placed upon the provisions of the 

 treaty. 



It is now three years since twenty-two vessels belonging to the 

 United States, and engaged in what by them and their government 

 was considered a lawful industry, were forcibly driven from Fortune 

 Bay under circumstances of great provocation and at very serious 

 pecuniary loss. And this occurred at the very time when, under the 

 award of the Halifax commission, the Government of the United 

 States was about paying to Her Britannic Majesty's Government a 

 very large amount for the privilege of the exercise of this industry by 

 these fishermen. 



In March of the same year, 1878, this very grave occurrence of Jan- 

 uary was brought to the attention of the British Government in the 

 confident hope that compensation would be promptly made for the 

 losses caused by what the United States Government was willing to 

 believe was a local misconstruction of the treaty or a temporary and, 

 from ignorance perhaps, an excusable popular excitement. 



It is unnecessary to do more than recall to your attention the long 

 and unsatisfactory discussion which followed the presentation of this 

 claim, and especially the fact that in its progress the Government of 

 the United States was compelled to express with emphatic distinctness 

 the impossibility of accepting the subordination of the treaty rights to 

 the provisions of local legislation, which was apparently put forward 

 by Her Majesty's Government as a sufficient ground for the rejection 

 of the claim. And it was not until April, 1880 (a delay of two years, 

 during which the importance of an early settlement was urged upon 

 Her Majesty's Government) , that, after what this government under- 

 stood and accepted at least as a satisfactory modification of the as- 

 sumption, we were informed by Lord Salisbury that 



" Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that, under the cir- 

 cumstances of the case as at present within their knowledge, the claim 

 advanced by the United States fishermen for compensation on ac- 

 count of the losses stated to have been sustained by them on the occa- 

 sion in question is one which should not be entertained." 



This decision of Her Majesty's Government terminated any further 

 discussion, and the Government of the United States found itself com- 



