1206 MISCELLANEOUS. 



amended from the exiled losers in the revolutionary strife, would keep 

 alive, and perpetuate for generations to come, the dissensions of the 

 past ; but their number, we may hope, is rapidly diminishing. To ex- 

 tend and strengthen the sympathies of human brotherhood is a 

 Christian duty; and to unite kinsmen, who were severed by events 

 which dismembered an empire, is a work in which all may now en- 

 gage, without incurring the reproach of disloyalty on the one hand, or 

 of the want of patriotism on the other. 



These remarks explain, and account for, the pertinacity of the colo- 

 nists, and serve to indicate that they, and not the British government, 

 are the real party opposed to us in this controversy. As we progress 

 in our inquiries, we shall find abundant evidence to show, that England 

 has moved with great, with avowed reluctance, against us ; and that 

 while the colonies of Canada, Prince Edward Island, and New Bruns- 

 wick, have remained almost indifferent, down to a very recent day, 

 Nova Scotia, on the contrary, has pressed the subject of "American 

 aggressions" upon the attention of the ministry, with hardly an inter- 

 mission, for a term of years. The last named colony, it may be per- 

 tinent to observe, maintains extreme opinions upon all political 

 questions, demanding concessions and privileges entirely inconsistent 

 with colonial dependence, and asserting and insisting on doctrines 

 which no whig or our Revolution, in his loftiest mood, even so much 

 as wrote or spoke to his most cherished friend; as the letters of the 

 Hon. Joseph Howe to Lord John Russell, in 1846, and the course of 

 the "Liberals," generally, prove beyond dispute. 



Some well-informed persons have expressed the opinion, that, until 

 within a few years, our fishermen have had no cause to complain of 

 their colonial competitors. It is not so. Those who consult our state 

 papers will find, that, as early as 1806, the inhabitants of the counties 

 of Barnstable and Plymouth, Massachusetts, who stated that they pro- 

 cured their livelihood by fishing, memorialised Congress on the subject 

 of existing grievances, and desired redress. They represented that 

 they were much injured in the sale of their fish in consequence of the 

 American market being glutted with English fish; that they were 

 fired upon and brought to by English cruisers when falling in with 

 them in going to, and coming from, the fishing grounds; that they 

 were imposed upon; that they were compelled to pay light-money 

 if they passed through the Strait of Canso; that their men were 

 imprisoned; and that if they anchored in the colonial harbors, they 

 were compelled to pay anchorage money. Thus the complaints in 

 1806 were nearly identical with those in 1852. 



In the year 1807 the colonists appealed to the British government 

 on the subject of the fisheries within colonial jurisdiction, and the 

 " aggressions " of their republican neighbors. Looking with jealous 

 eyes upon the extent of our adventures to their waters, they employed 

 a watchman to count the number of American vessels which passed 

 through the Strait of Canso in a season. This watchman reported 

 that he saw nine hundred and thirty-eight. As many passed in fogs, 

 and in the night-time, and were unseen by him, the whole number 

 was not less, probably, than thirteen hundred. Without enumerating 

 other acts of the colonists which show their hostile feelings towards us, 

 I will barely add that many of them preferred that the difficulties then 

 pending between England and the United States should terminate in a 

 war; for, as was believed and said, a war would put an end to our 



