1274 MISCELLANEOUS. 



pared together. The real intention, when accurately ascertained, will 

 always prevail over the literal sense of the terms." And he says 

 further, that "When the words are not explicit, the intention is to be 

 collected from the occasion and necessity of the law, from the mischief 

 felt, and the remedy in view; and the intention is to be taken or pre- 

 sumed, according to what is consonant to reason and good discretion." 

 If such is the fact with regard to municipal law, how much more im- 

 portant is the principal in the interpretation of treaties, which affect 

 the harmony and peace of nations ? I submit, then, that we have the 

 "intention" of Messrs. Rush and Gallatin, in their renunciation of the 

 right to fish in certain bays ; that the pretension of England, that the 

 war of 1812 had abrogated our entire rights, as provided in the treaty 

 of 1783, was the "occasion and necessity" for new stipulations on the 

 subject; that the opening conference between Lord Bathurst and Mr. 

 Adams, in 1815, shows, beyond all doubt, that fishing, by our country- 

 men, within the creeks and close upon the shores of the British terri- 

 tories, was the "mischief felt;" and that the exclusion of American 

 vessels from the common three-mile jurisdiction was "the remedy in 

 view," in the renunciatory clause of the convention. Nor can it be 

 urged that the relinquishment on our part of the boat or shore fisheries 

 was too inconsiderable an object to be so strongly insisted on by the 

 British government. I understand the value of these fisheries far too 

 well to allow any force to such a suggestion. The colonists, secure in 

 these, have vast treasures at their very doors. Oftentimes they have 

 but to cast, tend, and draw seines and nets, to take hundreds of barrels 

 of mackerel and herring in a single day; and years have occurred 

 when no less than forty thousand barrels of the former fish have been 

 caught hi a season, on a portion of the coast only twelve miles long. 

 As regards the shore fishery, for the kinds usually dried, that in the 

 region of Barrington is of itself a mine of wealth. Colonial fishermen, 

 here and elsewhere along the coast, may be at home after every day's 

 toil, and look out upon their American competitors in the offing, rejoic- 

 ing in advantages of pursuing their avocation in open boats, and the 

 consequent advantages of social life, and of fishing and of attending to 

 their little farms between "slacks of the tide," in "blowy weather," 

 and when the fish "strike off." 



The Queen's advocate and her Majesty's attorney general answer 

 Lord Falkland's fourth query as follows: 



"By the treaty of 1818 it is agreed that American citizens should 

 have the liberty of fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, within certain 

 denned limits, in common with British subjects; and such treaty does 

 not contain any words negativing the right to navigate the passage of 

 the Gut of Canso, and therefore it may be conceded that such right 

 of navigation is not taken away by that convention; but we have now 

 attentively considered the course of navigation to the gulf, by Cape 

 Breton, and likewise the capacity and situation of the passage of 

 Canso, and of the British dominions on either side, and we are of opin- 

 ion that, independently of treaty, no foreign country has the right to 

 use or navigate the passage of Canso ; and attending to the terms of the 

 convention relating to the liberty of fishery to be enjoyed by the Amer- 

 icans, we are also of opinion that that convention did not, either ex- 

 pressly or by implication, concede any such right of using or navigating 

 the passage in question. We are also of opinion that casting bait to 

 lure fish in the track of any American vessels navigating the passage, 



