864 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



certain waters and on certain coasts, and when these objects are 

 effected, the inhibitory features are exhausted. Everything that may 

 presumably guard against an infraction of these provisions will be 

 recognized and obeyed by the Government of the United States, 

 but should not be pressed beyond its natural force. 



By its very terms and necessary intendment, the same treaty rec- 

 ognizes the continuance permanently of the accustomed rights of 

 American fishermen, in those places not embraced in the renunciation 

 of the treaty, to prosecute the business as freely as did their fore- 

 fathers. 



No construction of the convention of 1818 that strikes at or impedes 

 the open-sea fishing by citizens of the United States can be accepted, 

 nor should a treaty of friendship be tortured into a means of such 

 offense, nor should such an end be accomplished by indirection. 

 Therefore, by causing the same port regulations and commercial 

 rights to be applied to vessels engaged therein as are enforced rela- 

 tive to other trading craft, we propose to prevent a ban from being 

 put upon the lawful and regular business of open-sea fishing. 



Arrangements now exist between the Governments of Great Britain 

 and France, and Great Britain and Germany, for the submission in 

 the first instance of all cases of seizure to the joint examination and 

 decision of two discreet and able commanding officers of the navy of 

 the respective countries, whose vessels are to be sent on duty to cruise 

 in the waters to be guarded against encroachment. Copies of these 

 agreements are herewith inclosed for reference. The additional fea- 

 ture of an umpire in case of a difference of opinion is borrowed from 

 the terms of Article 1 of the treaty of June 5, 1854, between the 

 United States and Great Britain. 



This same treaty of 1854 contains in its first article provision for a 

 joint commission for marking the fishing limits, and is therefore a 

 precedent for the present proposition. 



The season of 1886 for inshore fishing on the Canadian coasts has 

 come to an end, and assuredly no lack of vigilance or promptitude in 

 making seizures can be ascribed to the vessels or the marine police of 

 the Dominion. The record of their operations discloses but a single 

 American vessel found violating the inhibitions of the convention of 

 1818, by fishing within three marine miles of the coast. The numerous 

 seizures made have been of vessels quietly at anchor in established 

 ports of entry, under charges which, up to this day, have not been par- 

 ticularized sufficiently to allow of an intelligent defense. Not one has 

 been condemned after trial and hearing, but many have been fined 

 without hearing or judgment, for technical violations of alleged com- 

 mercial regulations, although all commercial privileges have been 

 simultaneously denied to them. In no instance has any resistance 

 been offered to Canadian authority, even when exercised with useless 

 and irritating provocation. 



It is trusted that the agreement now proposed may be readily 

 accepted by Her Majesty's ministry. 



Should the Earl of Iddesleigh express a desire to possess the text 

 of this dispatch, in view of its intimate relation to the subject-matter 

 of the memorandum and as evidencing the sincere and cordial dispo- 

 sition which prompts this proposal, you will give his lordship a copy. 

 I am, sir, your obedient servant, 



T. F. BAYARD. 



