MISCELLANEOUS. 1229 



"Meantime Lord Aberdeen will allow that this is a question, however 

 doubtful, to be settled exclusively by her Majesty's government and 

 that of the United States. No disposition has been evinced by the lat- 

 ter to anticipate the decision of the question ; and the undersigned must 

 again represent it to the Earl of Aberdeen as a matter of just complaint 

 and surprise on the part of his government, that the opposite coarse 

 has been pursued by her Majesty's colonial authorities, who have pro- 

 ceeded (the undersigned is confident without instructions from Lon- 

 don) to capture and detain an American vessel on a construction of 

 the treaty which is a matter of discussion between the two govern- 

 ments, and while the undersigned is actually awaiting a communica- 

 tion on the subject promised to his predecessor. 



"This course of conduct, it may be added, objectionable under any 

 circumstances, finds no excuse in any supposed urgency of the case. 

 The Washington was not within three times the limit admitted to be 

 prescribed in reference to the approach of American vessels to all other 

 parts of the coast, and in taking a few fish, out of the abundance which 

 exists in those seas, she certainly was inflicting no injury on the inter- 

 ests of the colonial population which required this summary and vio- 

 lent measure of redress. 



"The undersigned trusts that the Earl of Aberdeen, on giving a 

 renewed consideration to the case, will order the restoration of the 

 Washington, if still detained, and direct the colonial authorities to 

 abstain from the further capture of the fishing vessels of the United 

 States under similar circumstances, till it has been decided between 

 the two governments whether the Bay of Fundy is included among 

 'the coasts, bays, creeks, and harbors/ which American vessels are 

 not permitted to approach within three miles. 



'The undersigned requests Lord Aberdeen to accept the assurances 

 of his distinguished consideration." 



On the 6th September, 1844, Mr. Calhoun (who had succeeded Mr. 

 Upshur as Secretary of State) called the attention of Mr. Everett to 

 the seizure of the American fishing schooner Argus, by the British 

 cutter Sylph, off the coast of Cape Breton. From the representation 

 which accompanied the Secretary's despatch, it appears that the 

 Argus, when captured, was at a distance of "fifteen miles from any 

 land." This was the second case of seizure under the new construction 

 of the convention of 1818. Mr. Everett, in presenting the matter to 

 Lord Aberdeen, on the 9th of October of that year, stated that "The 

 grounds assigned, for the capture of this vessel are not stated with great 

 distinctness. 1 hey appear to be connected partly by the construction 

 set up by her Majesty's provincial authorities in America, that the line 

 within which vessels of the United States are forbidden to fish is to be 

 drawn from headland to headland, and not to follow the indentations 

 of the coast, and partly with the regulations established by those 

 authorities, in consequence of the annexation of Cape Breton to Nova 

 Scotia." That, "with respect to the former point, the undersigned 

 deems it unnecessary, on this occasion, to add anything to the obser- 

 vations contained in his note to Lord Aberdeen, of the 25th of May, on 

 tho subject of limitations of the right secured to American fishing ves- 

 sels by the treaty of 1783 and the convention of 1818, in reply to the 

 note of his lordship of the 15th of April on the same subject. As far 

 as the capture of the Ai made under the authority of the act 



annexing Cape Breton to Nova Scotia, the undersigned would observe 



