1044 MISCELLANEOUS. 



consideration of the Report may induce your Lordship to exert your 

 influence in such a manner as to lead to the augmentation of the force 

 (a single vessel) now engaged in protecting the Fisheries on the 

 Banks of Newfoundland, and the south shore of Labrador^ and the 

 employment in addition of one or two steamers for that purpose. 



The people of this Colony have not been wanting in efforts to 

 repress the incursions of the natives of the United States upon their 

 fishing grounds, but have fitted out with good effect some small armed 

 vessels, adapted to follow trespassers into shoal water or chase them 

 on the seas (and the expediency of this measure has been corroborated 

 by the testimony of Capt. Milne, R. N., in his Report of the Fisheries 

 of Newfoundland,) but finding their own means inadequate to the 

 suppression of this evil, the Nova Scotians earnestly entreat the fur- 

 ther intervention and protection of the mother country. 



I have the honor to forward herewith, in accordance with a request 

 made to me in the same Resolutions, a case stated (raising the neces- 

 sary questions as to the right of Fishery which the people of these 

 colonies possess) for the purpose of being referred to the Crown 

 Officers in England, in order that the existing Treaties and the rights 

 of these North American Provinces under them may be more strictly 

 defined. 



I shall feel obliged by your Lordship's allowing the opinion of the 

 Crown Officers to be taken on the said case, and I am authorized by 

 the House of Assembly here to defray any expense that may be 

 incurred in obtaining such opinion. 

 I have, etc., 



(Signed) FALKLAND. 



The LORD JOHN RUSSELL, etc., etc. 



[Inclosure.] 



Case stated by the Right Honorable Lord Viscount Falkland, 

 Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, at the request of the House of 

 Assembly of that Province, for the purpose of obtaining the opinion 

 of the law officers of the Crown in England. 



At the Peace of 1783, a Treaty was entered into between the 

 United States of America and Great Britain, by which the people 

 of the former country obtained the right " To take fish on the Grand 

 Bank and all other Banks of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of Saint 

 Lawrence, and all other places in the sea where the inhabitants of 

 both countries had been used to fish before, and the liberty to fish 

 on such parts of the coast of Newfoundland as British Fishmen used, 

 but not to dry or cure fish there, and on the coasts, bays and creeks 

 of all other British Dominions in America." They also obtained 

 liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled Bays, Harbors, 

 and Creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands and Labrador, but as 

 soon as any of them were settled this liberty was to cease, unless con- 

 tinued by agreement with the inhabitants. 



The United States declared War against Great Britain in 1812; 

 peace was subsequently proclaimed, and a convention was entered 

 into between the two countries, and signed at London, October 20th, 

 1818, the first article of which is as follows 



"Whereas differences have arisen respecting the liberty claimed by 

 the United States for the Inhabitants thereof to take, dry and cure 

 fish on certain coasts, bays, harbors and creeks of His Britannic 



