MISCELLANEOUS. 1207 



rights of fishing in British America, inasmuch as it would annul the 

 stipulations of the treaty of 1783.* 



The event which so many of our banished countrymen anticipated 

 with complacency, occurred in 1812. In the year following, a deter- 

 mination was manifested to exclude us from the colonial fishing- 

 grounds on the return of peace. It was represented in memorials, 

 that the American fishermen abused their privileges to the injury of 

 his Majesty's subjects; that the existence of Great Britain as a power 

 of the first rank, depended mainly upon her sovereignty of the seas; 

 and that sound policy required the exclusion of both France and the 

 United States from any participation in the fisheries. * It was, further- 

 more, insisted that fifteen hundred American vessels had been engaged 

 in the Labrador fishery alone, in a single season; that these vessels 

 carried and dealt out teas, coffee, spirits, and other articles, on which 

 no duty was paid; that these smugglers and interlopers exercised a 

 ruinous influence upon the British fishery and the morals of British 

 fishermen; that men, provisions, and outfits were cheaper in the 

 United States than elsewhere, and that of consequence British fisher- 

 men on the coast could buy what they needed on better terms of the 

 American vessels than of the colonial merchants; and hence the 

 memorialists expressed the hope that foreigners would no longer be 

 permitted to visit the colonial waters for the purpose of fishing. 

 These representations created a sensation in Massachusetts, and were 

 the topic of comment there and in other parts of the country. The 

 Boston Centinel pithily said, that they were "alarmingly interesting;" 

 and as far south as Baltimore the New England sentiment of "no 

 peace without the fisheries," was echoed and approved. 



In 1814, Mr. Canning, in the British Parliament, urged upon the 

 government the necessity of giving due consideration to the question 

 of the fisheries, in the adjustment of terms of peace. In our treaty 

 of 1783, said he, "we gave away more than we ought; and we never 

 now hear of that treaty but as a trophy of victory on the one hand, 

 or the monument of degradation and shame on the other. We ought 

 to refer, in questions with America, to the state in which we now 

 stand, rather than that in which we once stood." 



The principle asserted by the American commissioners at Ghent, Mr. 

 Russell alone accepted, has been stated and need not be repeated here. 

 It was assumed in England, and in the colonies, that that principle was 

 in contravention of public law, and British statesmen and British 

 colonists claimed to exclude our vessels from the fishing-grounds, and 



*A highly respectable gentleman, of loyalist descent, related to me the following 

 incident, which will serve to illustrate the temper of the time:^"! went," said he, 

 "to see my uncle, who, as I entered the house, accosted me thus, in great glee: ^Vell, 

 Willie, there'll be war, and I shall die on the old farm after all.' 'How so?' rejoined 

 my informant. 'How does it follow that, if a war really occurs, you will die on the 

 old farm?' 'How!' petulantly replied the uncle; "why, won't England whip the blasted 

 rebels, and shan't we all get our lands back again?'" This loyal old gentleman is now 

 dead. He was a native of New York, and lost his property the "old farm" under 

 the Confiscation act of that State. At the close of the Revolution he settled on the 

 British side of the St. Croix, where many persons of his lineage etill live. This is by 

 no means a solitary instance of the hopes entertained as to the result of a conflict 

 between the two nations. In 1807 many of our banished countrymen were not only 

 alive, but in full vigor; and the expectation was common among them that, in the 

 event of hostilities, their interest would be promoted, either by stipulations in their 

 favor in the treaty of peace, or by the abrogation of our fishing rights, as stated in 

 the text. 



