1254 MISCELLANEOUS. 



pose of enforcing, at the mouth of the cannon, the construction which 

 Great Britain has determined to place on that convention." 



Mr. Mason said: "I had supposed, in this civilized age and between 

 two such countries as Great Britain and the United States, that were 

 it the purpose of England to revive her construction of the convention 

 and require that it should be enforced, ordinary national courtesy 

 would have required that notice should have been given of that deter- 

 mination on the part of Great Britain. But, sir, when no such notice 

 is given when, on the contrary, the first information which reaches us 

 is that Great Britain has ordered into these seas a large naval- force for 

 the purpose of enforcing this alleged right, I know not in what light it 

 may strike senators; for it strikes me as a far higher offence than a 

 breach of national courtesy as one of insult and indignity to the whole 

 American people. This" morning, in the first paper I took up, from 

 the North, I see extracted from one of the British colonial newspapers, 

 printed at St. John, New Brunswick, a formal statement of the actual 

 naval forces ordered by Great Britain into those seas. It consists of 

 the Cumberland, a seventy-gun ship, commanded by Sir G. F. Sey- 

 mour, who, I believe, is a British admiral, commanding on the West 

 Indian station; and then follows an enumeration of steam-vessels, 

 sloops-of-war, and schooners, and the entire number, nineteen, ordered 

 to rendezvous there, and with the utmost despatch. For what pur- 

 pose ? 



"To enforce at once, and without notice to this government, so far as 

 I am informed; and yet we have some information through the quasi 

 proclamation of the Secretary of State, at the mouth of the cannon, of 

 the construction which the British government places on that conven- 

 tion. I do not know what view has been taken by the President of this 

 extraordinary movement; but I think I do know what the American 

 people would demand of the Executive, under such circumstances. 

 If there be official or satisfactory information to the Executive that 

 this extraordinary naval armament has been ordered by Great Britain 

 into the North American seas, for the purpose of executing instantly 

 the construction which Great Britain places on the convention, I say 

 the American people will demand of their Executive that all the force 

 of the home squadron shall be ordered there instantly, to protect 

 American fishermen. Sir, we have been told by the poet who most 

 deeply read the human heart, that 



'From the nettle danger 

 We pluck the flower safely.' 



And if I may be told there is danger of collision, I would answer at 

 once, there is no danger; but if there were, it becomes the Executive 

 immediately to resent that which can only be looked on as an indignity 

 and insult to the nation. I have no fears, Mr. President, that war is to 

 follow the apparent collision which has taken place between the two 

 governments. I confess I feel deeply the indignity that has been put 

 upon the American people in the ordering of the British squadron into 

 those seas without notice ; and if I read the feelings of our people aright, 

 they will demand that a like force shall be instantly sent there in order 

 that the rights of our people may be protected. 



"Sir, I do not profess the power to construe the purposes on the part 

 of the British government. I was very much impressed by a despatch 

 which I saw in one of the late papers, but which unfortunately I have 



