QUESTION FIVE. 103 



reasonable concession they desire to act liberally and amicably 

 towards the United States. 



"The undersigned has accordingly much pleasure in announcing 

 lo Mr. Everett, the determination to which her Majesty's government 

 have come to relax in favour of the United States fishermen, that 

 right which Great Britain has hitherto exercised, of excluding those 

 fishermen from the British portion of the Bay of Fundy, and they 

 are prepared to direct their colonial authorities to allow hencefor- 

 ward the United States fishermen to pursue their avocations in any 

 part of the Bay of Fundy, provided they dp not approach, except 

 in the cases specified in the treaty of 1818, within three miles of the 

 entrance of any bay on the coast of Nova Scotia or New Bruns- 

 wick." 



Mr. Everett replied on the 25th March, 1845, saying that while he 

 desired (British Case, App., p. 143) 



" without reserve, to express his sense of the amicable disposition 

 evinced by her Majesty's government on this occasion in relaxing in 

 favor of the United States the exercise of what, after deliberate 

 reconsideration, fortified by high legal authority, is deemed an un- 

 questioned right of her Majesty s government, the undersigned would 

 be unfaithful to his duty did he omit to remark to Lord Aberdeen 

 that no arguments have at any time been adduced to shake the con- 

 fidence of the government of the United States in their own construc- 

 tion of the treaty. While they have ever been prepared to admit, 

 ihat in the letter of one expression of that instrument there is some 

 reason for claiming a right to exclude United States fishermen from 

 the Bay of Fundy, (it being difficult to deny to that arm of the sea 

 the name of ' bay,' which long geographical usage has assigned to it) , 

 they have ever strenuously maintained that it is only on their own con- 

 struction of the entire article that its known design in reference to the 



regulation of the fisheries admits of being carried into effect. 

 117 " The undersigned does not make this observation for the 



sake of detracting from the liberality evinced by her Majesty's 

 government in relaxing from what they regard as their right; but it 

 would be placing his own government in a false position to accept 

 as mere favor that for which they have so long and strenuously con- 

 tended as due to them under the convention." 



Lord Aberdeen in his answer of the 21st April, 1845, stated that 

 the relaxation was intended to refer to the Bay of Fundy only. 

 (British Case, App., p. 145.) 



This Aberdeen-Everett correspondence is important. In Mr. Ever- 

 ett's view, the liberty to fish in the Bay of Fundy was (British Case, 

 App., p. 143)- 



" the point of greatest interest in the discussions which have been 

 hitherto carried on between the two governments, in reference to the 

 United States' right of fishery on the Anglo-American coasts : " 



and his concession of the validity of the general principle of the 

 British contention had resulted in his securing a relaxation of its 

 application to the Bay of Fundy. The case of the "Argus " (British 



