MISCELLANEOUS. 1227 



attended with differences of opinion as to what should, in 

 the progress of time, be accounted a settlement from which 

 American fishermen might be excluded. These differences in 

 fact arose, and by the year 1818 the state of things was so far 

 changed that her Majesty's government thought it necessary, in 

 negotiating the convention of that year, entirely to except the prov- 

 ince of Nova Scotia from the number of the places which might be fre- 

 quented by Americans as being in part unsettled, and to provide that 

 the fishermen of the United States should not pursue their occupation 

 within three miles of the shores, bays, creeks, and harbors of that 

 and other parts of her Majesty's possessions similarly situated. The 

 privilege reserved to American fishermen by the treaty of 1783, of 

 taking fish in all the waters, and drying them on all the unsettled por- 

 tions of the coast of these possessions, was accordingly, by the con- 

 vention of 1818, restricted as follows: 



" 'The United States hereby renounce forever any liberty hereto- 

 fore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof, to take, dry, or cure 

 fish on or within three miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or har- 

 bors of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America, not included 

 within the above-mentioned limits: provided, however, that the 

 American fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbors 

 for the purpose of sheltering and repairing damages therein, of pur- 

 chasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no other purpose what- 

 ever.' 



"The existing doubt as to the construction of the provision arises 

 from the fact that a broad arm of the sea runs up to the northeast, be- 

 tween the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. This arm of 

 the sea being^ commonly called the Bay of Fundy, though not in reality 

 possessing all the characters usually implied by the term 'bay,' has of 

 late years been claimed by the provincial authorities of Nova Scotia to 

 be included among ' the coasts, bays, creeks, and harbors' forbidden to 

 American fishermen. 



"An examination of the map is sufficient to show the doubtful na- 

 ture of this construction. It was notoriously the object of the article 

 of the treaty in question to put an end to the dial, ulties which had 

 grown out of the operations of the fishermen from the United States 

 along the coasts and upon the shores of the settled portions of the 

 country, and for that purpose to remove their vessels to a distance not 

 exceeding three miles from the same. In estimating this distance, the 

 undersigned admits it to be the intent of the treaty, as it is itself rea- 

 sonable, to have regard to the general line of the coast; and to consider 

 its bays, creeks, and harbors that is, the indentations usually so 

 accounted as included within that line. But the undersigned cannot 

 admit it to be reasonable, instead of thus following the general direc- 

 tions of the coast, to draw a line from the southwesternmost point of 

 Nova Scotia to the termination of the northeastern boundary between 

 the United States and New Brunswick, and to consider the arms of the 

 sea which will thus be cut off, and which cannot, on that line, be less than 

 sixtv miles wide, as one of the bays on the coast from which American 

 vessels are excluded. By this interpretation the fishermen of the United 

 States would be shut out from the waters distant, not three, but thirty 

 miles from any part of the colonial coast. The undersigned cannot 

 perceive that any assignable object of the restriction imposed by the 

 convention of 1818 on the fishing privilege accorded to trie citizens of 



