1226 MISCELLANEOUS. 



ment, were announced by a note of Lord Palmerston of the 2d of April. 

 The undersigned further observed that, on the 20th of the same month, 

 Lord Palmerston acquainted Mr. Stevenson that his lordship had been 

 advised from the Colonial Office that 'copies of the papers received 

 from Air. Stevenson would be furnished to Lord Falkland, with in- 

 structions to inquire into the allegations contained therein, and to fur- 

 nish a detailed report on the subject;' but that there was not found on 

 the files of this legation any further communication from Lord Palmer- 

 ston on the subject. 



" The note of Lord Aberdeen of the 15th of April last is confined ex- 

 clusively to the case of the Washington ; and it accordingly becomes 

 the duty of the undersigned again to invite his lordship's attention 

 to the correspondence above referred to between Mr. Stevenson and 

 Lord Palmerston, and to request that inquiry may be made, without 

 unnecessary delay, into all the causes of complaint which have been 

 made by the American government against the improper interference 

 of the British colonial authorities with the fishing vessels of the 

 United States. 



"In reference to the case of the Washington, Lord Aberdeen, in his 

 note of the 15th of April, justifies her seizure by an armed provincial 

 vessel, on the assumed fact that, as she was found fishing in the Bay 

 of Fundy, she was within the limits from which the fishing vessels of 

 the United States are excluded by the provisions of the convention 

 between the two countries of October, 1818. 



"The undersigned had remarked, in his note of the 10th of August 

 last, on the impropriety of the conduct of the colonial authorities in 

 proceeding in reference to a question of construction of a treaty pend- 

 ing between the two countries, to decide the question in their own fa- 

 vor, and in virtue of that decision to order the capture of the vessels of 

 a friendly State. A summary exercise of power of this kind, the un- 

 dersigned is sure, would never be resorted to by her Majesty's govern- 

 ment, except in an extreme case, while a negotiation was in train on 

 the point at issue. Such a procedure, on the part of a local colonial 

 authority, is, of course, highly objectionable, and the undersigned can- 

 not but again invite the attention of Lord Aberdeen to this view of the 

 subject. 



"With respect to the main question of the right of American vessels 

 to fish within the acknowledged limits of the Bay of Fundy, it is neces- 

 sary, for a clear understanding of the case, to go back to the treaty of 

 1783. 



"By this treaty it was provided that the citizens of the United 

 States should be allowed ' to take fish of every kind on such part of the 

 coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use, (but not to dry 

 or cure the same on that island,) and also on the coasts, bays, and 

 creeks of all other of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America, 

 and that the American fishermen shall have liberty to dry and cure 

 fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors, and creeks of Nova Scotia, 

 Magdalene islands, and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain un- 

 settled; but so soon as the same or either of them shall be settled, it 

 shall not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such 

 settlement without a previous agreement for that purpose with the 

 inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of that ground.' 



"These privileges and conditions were in reference to a country 

 of which a considerable portion was then unsettled, likely to be 



