1264 MISCELLANEOUS. 



by the citizens of the United States of the fishery convention of 1818, 

 induced me to despatch, for the protection of their interests, a class of 

 vessels better adapted to the service than those which had been pre- 

 viously employed. This step has led to discussion with the govern- 

 ment of the United States; and while the rights of my subjects have 

 been firmly maintained, the friendly spirit in which the question has 

 been treated induces me to hope that the ultimate result may be a 

 mutually beneficial extension and improvement of our commrecial 

 intercourse with the great republic." 



The President of the United States, in his message to Congress, in 

 the following month, refers to the subject with less brevity. He 

 said: "In the course of the last summer, considerable anxiety was 

 caused, for a short time, by an official intimation from the govern- 

 ment of Great Britain that orders had been given for the protection 

 of the fisheries upon the coasts of the British provinces in North 

 America against the alleged encroachments of the fishing vessels of 

 the United States and France. The shortness of this notice and the 

 season of the year, seemed to make it a matter of urgent importance. 

 It was at first apprehended that an increased naval force had been 



on the imperial government. It was believed the time had long passed when a ques- 

 tion could be raised on either of these points. To stimulate imperial aid in protecting 

 and maintaining acknowledged rights was all, it was imagined, that was required of 

 the colonies, and they fondly trusted this consummation had been attained, when, 

 in the present season, your Majesty's war steamers came commissioned on this service. 



Little, may it please your Majesty, was it anticipated these were to be the precursors 

 of a transfer alike injurious and humiliating to your loyal colonial subjects, or for this 

 aid that so large a price would be demanded. 



May it please your Majesty, when the -United States, by the treaty of 1818, solemnly 

 renounced forever the right to fish within three marine miles of the coasts, bays, 

 creeks, or harbors of certain portions of your North American territory, the stipula- 

 tion was neither extraordinary nor extravagant. It is matter of common history, 

 that sea-girt nations claim peculiar rights within a league of their shores ; and equally 

 plain that, according to the maxims of international law, this claim is defined by lines 

 drawn not only between the formations of bays, but from the headlands of indentations 

 of the coast. 



But had it been otherwise, the stipulation was part of a general treaty, in which 

 concession on one side may be presumed to have been compensated by concession on 

 the other, and loss in one particular by gain in another; and the engagement was made 

 in language too explicit, and in terms too well understood, to admit the possibilty of 

 misapprehension. 



Shall nations, may it please your Majesty, be absolved from the obligation of their 

 contracts, and complaints be respected when made by a people, which, between indi- 

 viduals, would be treated as puerile? 



If conciliation, irrespective of right, be the principle on which is to be withdrawn 

 the restriction against the entry of Americans into the bays and indentations of the 

 coast to fish, limiting them alone to the distance of three miles from the shore, the 

 concession of the privilege to fish within this latter distance must equally be granted 

 as, indeed, has been already urged in the American Congress: the restriction in both 

 cases rests on the same authority; and the concession in each would be demanded 

 by the same principle. It may not be the province of your Majesty's colonial sub- 

 jects to suggest how far such a principle is consistent with national honor and inde- 

 pendence: they have a right to pray that it be not carried out at their expense. 



When the welfare of the empire is supposed to demand extensive alterations in the 

 laws of trade and navigation, the peculiar interests of the colonies are not permitted 

 to disturb the general system by the continuance of conflicting regulations, however 

 necessary, from long usage and the competition of foreigners more powerful and more 

 fostered by their own government. 



In the present case, the possession to surrender is no offspring of artificial arrange- 

 ments, falling with a complicated policy of which it formed a part. 



No, may it please your Majesty, your loyal subjects in Nova Scotia raise their voice 

 against the injury of an inheritance conferred upon your North American subjects by 



