MISCELLANEOUS. 1231 



zeal which was manifested by those who managed the British side 

 of the case, and the seeming apathy of the American press and the 

 American people; the rumors from the Government House at Halifax, 

 and the want of all information from the White House at Washing- 

 ton, gave rise to much alarm. Official silence on our part was at last 

 broken; and such of our citizens as were engaged in the fisheries, or 

 were otherwise involved in the issue of the controversy, were as- 

 tounded, in June, at the following paragraph which appeared in the 

 "Union," a newspaper supposed to enjoy the confidence of our gov- 

 ernment, and said, in the popular sentiment, to be its " organ." "We 

 are gratified," said that paper, "to be now enabled to state, that a 

 despatch has been recently received at the Department of State from 

 Mr. Everett, our minister at London, with which he transmits a note 

 from Lord Aberdeen, containing the satisfactory intelligence that, 

 after a reconsideration of the subject, although the Queen's govern- 

 ment adhere to the construction of the convention which they have 

 always maintained, they have still come to the determination of 

 relaxing from it, so far as to allow American fishermen to pursue their 

 avocations in any part of the Bay of Fundy, provided they do not 

 approach except in the cases specified in the treaty of 1818 within 

 three miles of the entrance of any bay on the coast of Nova Scotia or 

 New Brunswick. 



"This is an important concession, not merely as removing an 

 occasion of frequent and unpleasant disagreement between the two 

 governments, but as reopening to our citizens those valuable fishing 

 grounds within the Bay of Fundy which they enjoyed before the war 

 of 1812, but from which, as the British government has since main- 

 tained, they were excluded by the convention of 1818." 



The assertion, from such a source, that the British government had 

 "always maintained" the construction of the convention contended 

 for in the "case" submitted to the crown lawyers by Lord Falkland, 

 in 1841; the annunciation that our vessels were no longer to fish 

 "within three miles of the ENTRANCE of any bay on the coast of Nova 

 Scotia or New Brunswick," the Bay of Fundy alone excepted; the fur- 

 ther declaration that the fishing grounds of that bay "enjoyed before 

 the war of 1812," and lost to us by that event, were now "reopened" 

 to us by "an important concession" excited the liveliest sensibility 

 and were regarded in the fishing towns of Maine and Massachusetts 

 with dismay. The colonists had pushed their claims so secretly and 

 so adroitly, that the crowning acts of their policy were hardly known 

 to our countrymen who resorted to their seas; and the fact that the 

 Bay of Fundy was in dispute, was first ascertained by many of them 

 on the seizure of the "Washington" for fishing there. It was ex- 

 pected that some more definite annunciation would be made, or that 

 the correspondence between Mr. Everett and the British government, 

 which preceded and led to the "concession," would follow the article 

 just quoted from the "Union;" but the precise terms of the arrange- 

 ment of 1845 were never stated, either in that paper or elsewhere, 

 and the citizens whose property was exposed to capture by British 

 cruisers and colonial cutters were left to pursue their business in 

 apprehension and doubt. Under these circumstances, the writer of 

 this report assumed the task of attempting to impress the public mind 

 with the probable state of affairs. He wrote for the periodical and 

 for the newspaper press; he addressed letters to persons interested 



