1272 MISCELLANEOUS. 



the Washington in 1843, ever seized an American vessel for merely 

 fishing within these bays! 



It may be answered, however, that we were occupants without 

 title and by permission. But, says Blackstone, possession of lands, 

 "by length of time and negligence of him who hath the right, by 

 degrees ripens into a perfect and indefeasible title." As upon the 

 land, so upon the sea. A nation, says Vattel, " if it has once acknowl- 

 edged the common right of other nations to come and fish there, 

 can no longer exclude them from it. It has left that fishery in its 

 primitive freedom, at least in respect to those who have been in 

 possession of it."t 



If these remarks and authorities are pertinent, what term is 

 necessary to give us a right to the common use of the bays of British 

 America by uninterrupted occupancy and possession? Lord Stanley, 

 in a despatch to Lord Falkland, as we have seen, considered that 

 we had "practically acquiesced" in the opinion of the crown lawyers, 

 because we did not protest against it in less than two years; and 

 it might seem that the "practical acquiescence" of the British 

 government for a period of twenty-five years previously was suffi- 

 cient to place us within the rule of the writers above quoted. 

 Especially since, after all, the true question in discussion is simply 

 whether we shall continue in the common use of waters to which we 

 have never ceased to resort from the peace of 1783; to which our 

 fathers resorted as British subjects before the dismemberment of the 

 empire; and to which we, as their descendants, have a claim for 

 services rendered to the British crown in the original conquest from 

 France. 



If asked how the term "bays" is to be disposed of in the treaty, I 

 answer that it applies to such arms of the sea as on some coasts are 

 called coves and creeks, and was meant to designate all sheets of 

 water which are not six miles wide, and no others. That our ministers 

 acted upon information obtained from persons engaged in the fisheries 

 is certain, for the negotiation was suspended to obtain it; and we 

 may reasonably conclude that their informants spoke of these coves 

 or creeks by the popular name of bays. Any person with a mariner's 

 chart in his hand can observe that on the colonial coasts there is a 

 multitude of "bays," some of which are more, and many less, than 

 six miles wide at their mouths, or outer headlands. In fact, I know 

 of no coast where they are so numerous. To mention all, would occupy 

 more room than can be spared in this report. Mace's, St. Mary's, 

 Barrington, Liverpool, Malaguash, Mahone, Margaret's, Blind, 

 Tenant's, Pennant s, Chisselcook, Musquidoboit, Newton Quoddy, 

 Shoal, Tom Lee's, Nicomquirque, Nicomtan, and Dover, are a part 

 (though the most considerable) between the St. Croix and Cape 

 Canso alone. That it may be fully understood in what sense the 

 word "bay" is used in speaking of indentations of the coast at the 



t Dr. Paley, in his Moral and Political Philosophy, states the principle far more 

 broadly. In chapter eleven, which is devoted to the "general rights of mankind." 

 he says: 



"If there be fisheries which are inexhaustible as, for aught I know, the cod-fishery 

 upon the Banks of Newfoundland and the herring fishery in the British seas are 

 then all those conventions by which one or two nations claim to themselves, and 

 guaranty to each other, the exclusive enjoyment of these fisheries, are so many encroach- 

 ments upon the general rights of mankind." Boston edition, 1821, p. 84. 



