MISCELLANEOUS. 1289 



a verdict shall be found for the claimant thereof, and the judge or court 

 before whom the cause shall have been tried shall certify on the record 

 that there was probable cause of seizure, the claimant shall not be en- 

 titled to any costs of suit, nor shall the person who made such seizure be 

 liable to any action, indictment, or other suit or prosecution, on account 

 of such seizure; and if any action, indictment, or other suit or prosecu- 

 tion, shah 1 be brought to trial against any person on account of such 

 seizure, wherein a verdict shall be given against the defendant, the 

 plaintiff, besides the thing seized, or the value thereof, shall be entitled 

 to no more than twopence damages, nor to any costs of suit, nor shall 

 the defendant in such prosecution be fined more than one shilling." 

 No American citizen can speak of this infamous law with calmness. 

 Well did Mr. Forsyth* say that some of its provisions were "violations 

 of well-established principles of the common law of England and of 

 the principles of all just powers and all civilized nations, and seemed 

 to be expressly designed to enable her Majesty's authorities, with 

 perfect impunity, to seize and confiscate American vessels, and to em- 

 bezzle, almost indiscriminately, the property of our citizens employed 

 in the fisheries on the coasts of the British possessions." Well, too, 

 did Mr. Everett t stigmatize it as possessing "none of the qualities of 

 the law of civilized States but its forms;" and Mr. Davis, J as being "a 

 law of a shameful character," and "evidently designed to legalize 

 marauding upon an industrious, enterprising class of men, who have 

 no means to contend with such sharp and unwarrantable weapons of 

 warfare. " 



These are strong expressions; but they were uttered by gentlemen 

 who measure their words, and are entirely true. Nay, more; for I 

 shall presume to add that the politicians of Nova Scotia remind us of 

 the theory of Hobbes, who maintained that the natural state of man is 

 a state of war against all; since these very loyal gentlemen are in con- 

 tinual dispute with one another, with the government of the mother 

 country, with British subjects in other colonies, and with the people of 

 the United States. In fact, these persons, in their various contests, 

 have succeeded in making Nova Scotia the Barbary power of this hem- 

 isphere. It was contended in England, as late as the opening of the 

 present century, that the capture and sale of an English ship by Al- 

 gerines was a piratical seizure. I am disposed to regard the proceed- 

 ings against American fishing vessels, under the authority derived 

 from the act of 1836, as open to the same objection. When, in 1824, 

 young Howard and his associates rescued the Ruby and the Rein- 

 deer from the possession of the captors, the British government as 

 we have seen made formal and repeated demands for reparation; 

 but it may be difficult to show what other or greater right to interpret 

 the convention of 1818 can possibly belong to a British colony than 

 was exercised by this party of American youth. If Nova Scotia may 

 lawfully interfere with, and legislate upon, a matter which is entirely 

 national, so may Massachusetts and Maine. That colony is but a 

 dependency of the British crown; the colonial armed cutters are mere 

 corsairs, and their seizures of our property are acts of piracy. The 

 sea-robbers hold our vessels at their mercy. The act or 1836 places 



* Despatch to Mr. Stevenson, February 20, 1841. 



t Letter to Lord Aberdeen, April 2, 1845. 



I Letter of Hon. John Davis, to the fishermen of Massachusetts, September 1, 1852. 



