QUESTION FIVE. 89 



Privy Council said, in the Conception Bay case, to which reference 

 has already been made: 



" It enacts not merely that subjects of the United States shall ob- 

 serve the restrictions agreed on by the Convention, but that all per- 

 sons, not being natural-born subjects of the King of Great 

 101 Britain shall observe them under penalties. And in particular, 

 by sec. 4, it enacts thai if ' any person ' upon being required 

 by the governor, or any officer acting under such governor, in the 

 execution of any order or instructions from His Majesty in. Council, 

 shall inter alia refuse to depart from such bays, he shall be subject 

 to a penalty of 200. 



" No stronger assertion of exclusive dominion over these bays could 

 well be framed. As has been already observed, Conception Bay is in 

 every sense of the words a bay within Newfoundland, though of 

 considerable width; and as there is nothing to justify a construction 

 of the Act limiting it to bays not exceeding any particular width, 

 this is an unequivocal assertion of the British Legislature of ex- 

 clusive dominion over this bay as part of the British territory. And 

 as this assertion of dominion has not been questioned by any nation 

 from 1819 down to 1872, when a fresh Convention was made, this 

 would be very strong in the tribunals of any nation to show that 

 (his bay is by prescription part of the exclusive territory of Great 

 Britain" (Direct United States Cable Co. v. Anglo-American Tele- 

 graph Co., L. R. 2, App. Cases, p. 421.) 



* BAY OF CHALETTBS. 



That the Bay of Chaleurs was always assumed to be British may 

 be seen by the following : 



In 1788, a statute of Lower Canada (28 Geo. Ill, cap. 6) gave 

 jurisdiction to Justices of the Peace, in cases of differences between 

 masters of fishing-ships, &c., in the Bay of Chaleurs. (British Case, 

 App, p. 592.) 



In 1807, a statute of Lower Canada (47 Geo. Ill, cap. 12) referred 

 to Mackerel Point as " in the Bay of Chaleurs." (British Case, App., 

 p. 602.) 



In 1824, a statute of Lower Canada (4 Geo. IV, cap. 1), spoke of 

 Mackerel Point as "at the entrance" of the Bay of Chaleurs; and 

 the statute provided that exportations of fish from places west of 

 that point should be marked " Baie des Chaleurs," and that exporta- 

 tions from places east of it should be marked "Gaspe." (British 

 Case, App, p. 609.) 



Evidence of the general understanding on this subject is supplied 

 by the fact that the American writer Mr. Theodore Lyman, in his 

 book " Diplomacy of the United States," written in 1828, recognised 

 that the bay had been conceded by the treaty of 1818. (British Case, 

 p. 87.) 



Until about the year 1836, United States fishermen did not attempt 

 to fish in the bay, for it was not until about that time that the change 



