168 THE ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



conflicting with their conventional obligations and ruinous to the 

 fortunes and subversive of the rights of an enterprising and deserv- 

 ing class of our fellow citizens, is too apparent to allow this Govern- 

 ment to doubt that the Government of Her Britannic Majesty will 

 take efficient steps for the purpose. The President's confident ex- 

 pectation of an early and satisfactory adjustment of these difficulties 

 is grounded upon his reliance on the sense of justice of the Queen's 

 Government, and on tJie fact that from the year 1818, the date of 

 the convention until some years after the enactment of the pro- 

 vincial law out of which these troubles have arisen a practical con- 

 struction has been given to the first article of that instrument which 

 is firmly relied on as settling Us meaning in favor of the rights of 

 American citizens as claimed by the United States. 



I have therefore, to request that you will present this subject 

 again to the consideration of Her Majesty's Government by ad- 

 dressing a note to the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, 

 reminding him that the letter of Mr. Stevenson to Lord Palmerston 

 remains unanswered, and informing him of the anxious desire of the 

 President that proper means should be taken to prevent the possi- 

 bility of a recurrence of any like cause of complaint. 



It is apparent from this note, not only that the United States had 

 not " practically acquiesced," but that the Government of Great Brit- 

 ain had not after mature deliberation, extending from the time of 

 the receipt of the opinion of the law officers of the Crown in August, 

 1841, until November, 1842, advised the minister of the United States 

 or the Department of State of the new interpretation put upon the 

 treaty by the authorities of Nova Scotia, and the law officers of the 

 Crown. It is manifest also from the tenor of the note of Lord Stanley 

 to the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, that the Government of 

 Great Britain was not prepared to support the new interpretation, 

 and did not intend enforcing what the authorities of Nova Scotia had 

 termed a strict construction of the treaty. 



Mr. Everett, August 10, 1843, in pursuance of his instructions, 

 transmitted to the Earl of Aberdeen, then Her Majesty's principal 

 secretary of state for foreign affairs, the papers bearing upon the 

 seizure of the Washington: 



The right therefore, of fishing on any part of the coast of Nova 

 Scotia, at a greater distance than three miles, is so plain that it would 

 be difficult to conceive on what ground it could be drawn in question, 

 had not attempts been already made by the provincial authorities of 

 Her Majesty's colonies, to interfere with its exercise. These attempts 

 have formed the subject of repeated complaints on the part of the 

 Government of the United States?, as will appear from several notes 

 addressed by the predecessor of the undersigned to Lord Palmerston. 



From the construction attempted to be placed, on former occasions, 

 upon the first article of the treaty of 1818, by the colonial authorities, 



TJ. S. Case, Appendix, 471. 



