PERIOD FROM 18*71 TO 1905. 851 



Captain Quigley on our fishing vessels. On October 19, 1886, I had 

 also to bring to the British minister's notice the fact that Captain 

 Quigley had, on September the 10th, arbitrarily arrested the Everett 

 Steele, a United States fishing vessel, at the outer port of Shelburne. 

 To these notes I have received no reply. Copies are transmitted, with 

 the accompanying papers, to you in connection with the present in- 

 struction, so that the cases, as part of a class, can be presented by 

 you to Her Majesty's Government. 



Were there no treaty relations whatever between the United States 

 and Great Britain, were the United States fishermen without any 

 other right to visit those coasts than are possessed by the fishing craft 

 of any foreign country simply as such, the arrest and boarding of the 

 Grimes,, as above detailed, followed by forcing her into the port of 

 Shelburne, there subjecting her to fine for not reporting, and de- 

 taining her until her bait and ice were spoiled, are wrongs which I 

 am sure Her Majesty's Government will be prompt to redress. No 

 Governments have been more earnest and resolute in insisting that 

 vessels driven by stress of weather into foreign harbors should not 

 be subject to port exactions than the Governments of Great Britain 

 and the United States. So far has this solicitude been carried that 

 both Governments, from motives of humanity, as well as of interest 

 as leading maritime powers, have adopted many measures by which 

 foreigners as well as citizens or subjects arriving within their terri- 

 torial waters may be protected from the perils of the sea. For this 

 purpose not merely light-houses and light-ships are placed by us at 

 points of danger, but an elaborate life-saving service, well equipped 

 with men, boats, and appliances for relief, studs our seaboard in order 

 to render aid to vessels in distress, without regard to their nationality. 

 Other benevolent organizations are sanctioned by Government which 

 bestow rewards on those who hazard their lives in the protection of 

 life and property in vessels seeking in our waters refuge from storms. 

 Acting in this spirit the Government of the United States has been 

 zealous, not merely in opening its ports freely, without charges to 

 vessels seeking them in storm, but in insisting that its own vessels, 

 seeking foreign ports under such circumstances, and exclusively for 

 such shelter, are not under the law of nations subject to custom- 

 house exactions. 



" In cases of vessels carried into British ports by violence or stress 

 of weather [said Mr. Webster in instructions to Mr. Everett, June 28, 

 1842] we insist that there shall be no interference from the land with 

 the relation or personal condition of those on board, according to the 

 laws of their own country; that vessels under such circumstances 

 shall enjoy the common laws of hospitality, subjected to no force, 

 entitled to have their immediate wants and necessities relieved, and 

 to pursue their voyage without molestation." 



In tb incase, that of the Creole, Mr. Wheaton, in the Revue Fran- 

 gaise et Etrangere (IX, 345), and Mr. Legare (4 Op. At. Gen., 98), 

 both eminent publicists, gave opinions that a vessel carried by stress 

 of weather or forced into a foreign port is not subject to the law of 

 such port; and this was sustained by Mr. Bates, the umpire of the 

 commission to whom the claim was referred (Rep. Com. of 1853, 244, 

 245): 



" The municipal law of England [so he said] cannot authorize a 

 magistrate to violate the law of nations by invading with an armed 



