1290 MISCELLANEOUS. 



them above responsibility, and screens them from punishment. The 

 term "preparing to fish," allows them to seize our vessels under every 

 imaginable pretence. The repairing of damages to sails, rigging, and 

 boats; the arranging or reeling of lines; the preparation of bait; the 

 eating of food; the mending of garments, are all prohibited for all are 

 performed with reference to the main objects of the voyage. An 

 American vessel, when within three miles of the coast, or when in a 

 harbor for shelter, cannot escape seizure, if the colonial cutters en- 

 force the law; for it is obvious that everything done on board may be 

 embraced in the comprehensive words ' ' preparing to fish." The act 

 is a flagrant violation of the convention, which restricts us in certain 

 particulars, when within three marine miles of the colonial shores; but 

 "preparing to fish" is not among the interdictions. The convention 

 provides, "That the American fishermen shall be admitted to entersucli 

 bays or harbors for the purpose of shelter, and of repairing damages 

 therein, of purchasing wood and of obtaining water, and for no other 

 purpose whatever; but they shall be under such restrictions as may be 

 necessary to prevent their taking, drying, or curing fish therein, or in 

 any other manner whatever abusing the privileges reserved to them." 

 What, then, is the common sense construction of these words? I re- 

 ply, that a fishing vessel at home, secured at her owner's wharf, is said 

 to be "preparing to fish" when, among other things, her crew are 

 "repairing" her, and are taking in "wood" and "water;" and that a 

 repetition of these acts, when in a colonial harbor, constitutes the same 

 preparation. If this interpretation is just, it follows that while our 

 vessels cannot take, dry, or cure fish within the colonial harbors, or 

 within three miles of certain colonial coasts, they can prepare to do one 

 and all, whenever necessity arises; responsible only for "abusing the 

 privileges reserved to them." 



The absurdity, the inhumanity, of the pretensions set up by Nova 

 Scotia, can be shown by the report of one of her own officers. "I have 

 seen," says Paul Crowell,* (Feoruary, 1852,) "instances where Ameri- 

 can vessels had been fishing the whole of the day, and towards evening, 

 a gale springing up, they were forced to run for a harbor with fifty or 

 sixty barrels of fresh mackerel on deck; and if salting those fish is un- 

 derstood curing fish which I think is the only way in which mack- 

 erel can be cured under those circumstances these people must cast 

 their fish into the sea again, or run the risk of having the vessel and 

 cargo seized." 



And again: "When cruising in the schooner Telegraph, last fall, 

 being in Little Canso, an American vessel lay near. (Deserving the 

 men busily employed on deck, I manned my ooat and boarded her; I 

 found them employed grinding bait for mackerel. The captain 

 appeared quite innocent, and said he had been so careful that he had 

 not taken a lobster while in the harbor. This might be understood 

 'preparing to fish.'" 



This gentleman, to his honor, refused to seize the vessels to which 

 he refers; but, under the new construction of the convention, they 

 were all prizes. He states truly, that mackerel caught on the eve of 

 a gale, and not dressed and salted at sea at the peril of human life, 

 cannot be "saved" in a colonial harbor resorted to for shelter, with- 

 out involving the loss of vessel and cargo ; and that confiscation also 



*The Cro wells of Cape Cod axe of the same lineage. 



