774 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



donment now would be inadmissible and adhered to now would re- 

 lieve hardship and exasperation caused by summary arrest of vessels. 

 Present action of Canadian authorities is calculated to obstruct 

 settlement. 



Mr. Bayard to Sir L. West. 



DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 



Washington, May 29, 1886. 



SIR : I have just received an official imprint of House of Commons 

 bill No. 136, now pending in the Canadian Parliament, entitled "An 

 act further to amend the act respecting fishing by foreign vessels," 

 and am informed that it has passed the house and is now pending in 

 the senate. 



This bill proposes the forcible search, seizure, and forfeiture of any 

 foreign vessel within any harbor in Canada, or hovering within three 

 marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors in Canada, 

 where such vessel has entered such waters for any purpose not per- 

 mitted by the laws of nations, or by treaty or convention, or by any 

 law of the United Kingdom or of Canada now in force. 



I hasten to draw your attention to the wholly unwarranted propo- 

 sition of the Canadian authorities, through their local agents, arbi- 

 trarily to enforce according to their own construction the provisions 

 of any convention between the United States and Great Britain, and, 

 by the interpolation of language not found in any such treaty, and, 

 by interpretation not claimed or conceded by either party to such 

 treaty, to invade and destroy the commercial rights and privileges of 

 citizens of the United States under and by virtue of treaty stipulation 

 with Great Britain and statutes in that behalf made and provided. 



I have also been furnished with a copy of circular No. 371, pur- 

 porting to be from the customs department at Ottawa, dated May 7, 

 1886, and to be signed by J. Johnson, commissioner of customs, 

 assuming to execute the provisions of the treaty between the United 

 States and Great Britain, concluded October 20, 1818, and printed 

 copies of a warning, purporting to be issued by George E. Foster, 

 minister of marine and fisheries, dated at Ottawa, March 5, 1886, of a 

 similar tenor, although capable of unequal results in its execution. 



Such proceedings I conceive to be flagrantly violative of the 

 reciprocal commercial privileges to which citizens of the United 

 States are lawfully entitled under statutes of Great Britain and the 

 well-defined and publicly proclaimed authority of both countries, 

 besides being in respect of the existing conventions between the two 

 countries an assumption of jurisdiction entirely unwarranted and 

 which is wholly denied by the United States. 



In the interest of the maintenance of peaceful and friendly rela- 

 tions, I give you my earliest information on this subject, adding that 

 I have telegraphed Mr. Phelps, our minister at London, to make 

 earnest protest to Her Majesty's Government against such arbitrary, 

 unlawful, unwarranted and unfriendly action on the part of the 

 Canadian Government and its officials, and have instructed Mr. 

 Phelps to give notice that the Government of Great Britain will be 



