MISCELLANEOUS. 1239 



another evil, perhaps more serious in its results the illicit traffic 

 carried on under the cover of fishing in which not only the revenue is 

 defrauded, and the fair dealer discountenanced, but the coasts and re- 

 mote harbors are rilled with noxious and useless articles, as the 

 poisonous rum and gin and manufactured teas, of which already too 

 much is introduced into the country, in exchange for the money and 

 fish of the settlers; and from this intercourse, when habitual and es- 

 tablished from year to year, the moral and political sentiments of our 

 population cannot but sustain injury. 



In the argument of the American minister his excellency appears 

 to assume that the question turns on the force of the word 'bay,' and 

 the peculiar expression of the treaty in connexion with that word; 

 but although it was obviously the clear intention of its framers to 

 keep the American fishermen at a distance of three marine miles from 

 the 'bays, creeks, and harbors,' there does not, therefore, arise any just 

 reason to exclude the word coasts, used in the same connexion in the 

 treaty, from its legitimate force and meaning; and if it be an admitted 

 rule of general law that the outline of a coast is to be defined, not by 

 its indentations, but by a line extending from its principal headlands, 

 then waters, although not known under the designation, nor having 

 the general form of a bay, may yet be within the exclusion designed 

 by the treaty. 



"His excellency the American minister complains of the 'essential 

 injustice' of the law of this province under which the fisheries are 

 attempted to be guarded, and is pleased to declare that it 'possesses 

 none of the qualities of the law of civilized states but its forms. 



"His excellency, in using this language, possibly supposed that the 

 colonial act had attempted to give a construction to the treaty of 1818, 

 or had originated the penalty and mode of confiscation which he 

 deprecates. But had his excellency examined the act of the province 

 he has so strongly stigmatized, he would have discovered that, as re- 

 gards the limits within which foreign fishermen are restricted from 

 fishing, the colonial legislature has used but the words of the treaty 

 itself, and a comparison of the provincial act with an act of the impe- 

 rial Parliament, the 59 George III, ch. 38, would have shown him that, 

 as regards the description of the offence, the confiscation of the vessel 

 and cargo, and the mode of proceeding, the legislature of Nova Scotia 

 has, in effect, only declared what was already, and still is, the law of 

 the realm under imperial enactments. 



"Mr. Everett adverts to what he considers 'the extremely objectionable 

 character of the course pursued by the provincial authorities in presuming 

 to decide for themselves a question under discussion between the two 

 governments.' 



"But it is submitted, that if the American government controverted 

 the construction given to the treaty, the course pursued on the part of 

 Nova Scotia, which made confiscation dependent on a judicial trial and 

 decision, was neither presumptuous nor inexpedient; nor could the 

 necessity of security for 60, or the risk of costs, in case of failure, 

 offer any serious impediment to the defence in a matter which, as Mr. 

 Everett declares, the government of the United States deems of great 

 national importance. 



"Upon the other hand, if the American fishermen could only seek a 

 relaxation of the construction given to the treaty in England and 

 Nova Scotia, as a matter of favor, 'presumption' would rather seem to 



