QUESTION FIVE. 183 



the vice-admiral on the '27th of August, and which I answered on 

 the 29th. 



The orders not to detain vessels unless found trespassing within 

 three miles of land shall be strictly attended to. a 



The Government of Great Britain having issued instructions to 

 the admiral in command on the North Atlantic station not to inter- 

 fere with American fishing vessels unless found trespassing within 

 three miles of land, no further correspondence in respect of seizures 

 occurred during this period between the two Governments. 



The revival of the controversy by the provincial authorities appears 

 to have been inseparably connected with the attempt to secure freer 

 trade relations with the United States. 



In August, 1852, Lord Malmesbury, in an instruction to Mr. 

 Oampton, the British minister at Washington, stated: 



You will read this despatch to Mr. Webster, and in leaving a copy 

 of it. with him, you will not fail to assure him and to request him to 

 assure the President of the United States that Her Majesty's Govern- 

 ment continue to feel the same anxiety that has long been felt in this 

 country for the maintenance of the best relations between the two 

 governments, and it will be to them a source of sincere satisfaction 

 if the attention which has thus been drawn to the subject of the 

 fisheries should lead to an adjustment, by amicable negotiations, upon 

 a more satisfactory footing than at present, of the system of com- 

 mercial intercourse between the United States and Her Majesty's 

 North American colonial possessions. 6 



The orders of the Government of Great Britain to the Admiralty 

 were not modified prior to the reciprocity treaty of 1854. While 

 there is to be found in the various notes and dispatches of the Brit- 

 ish Government expressions of opinion as to the rights of Great 

 Britain under the Nova Scotia interpretation of the treaty, never- 

 theless it is established beyond all controversy that it was the 

 deliberate judgment of the Government of Great Britain to regard 

 as bays " only those inlets of the sea which measure from head- 

 land to headland at their entrance the double of the distance of 

 three miles," as determined by Lord Aberdeen. The orders issued 

 from the date of the treaty, in so far as disclosed by the evidence, 

 were " not to detain vessels unless found trespassing within three 

 miles of land," and "only to prevent their fishing nearer than three 

 miles" to land. 



* In the Case of the United States the orders issued to the naval 

 forces of Great Britain in the North Atlantic which were accessible 



U. S. Case, 127 ; Appendix, 1082. 6 U. S. Case, Appendix, 522. 



