QUESTION FIVE. 105 



In 1852, Mr. Sabine prepared a Report, dated the 6th December, 

 1852, on the fisheries, for the United States Government, and in it 

 he clearly indicated that the United States had considered the ques- 

 tion of bays to be practically settled. The Report contained the fol- 

 lowing passage : 



" The assertion, from such a source, that the British government 

 had ' always maintained ' the construction of the convention con- 

 tended for in the ' case ' submitted to the crown lawyers by Lord 

 Falkland, in 1841 ; the annunciation that our vessels were no longer 

 to fish ' within three miles of the ENTRANCE of any bay on the coast 

 of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick? the Bay of Fundy alone excepted ; 

 the further declaration that the fishing grounds of that bay ' enjoyed 

 before the war of 1812,' and lost to us by that event, were now ' re- 

 opened ' to us by ' an important concession ' excited the liveliest 

 sensibility and were regarded in the fishing towns of Maine and 

 Massachusetts with dismay. The colonists had pushed their claims 

 so secretly and so adroitly, that the crowning acts of their policy were 

 hardly known to our countrymen who resorted to their seas; and the 

 fact that the Bay of Fundy was in dispute, was first ascertained by 

 many of them on the seizure of the ' Washington ' for fishing there. 

 Tt was expected that some more definite annunciation would be made, 

 or that the correspondence between Mr. Everett and the British gov- 

 ernment, which preceded and led to the ' concession,' would fol- 

 low the article just quoted from the ' Union ; ' but the precise 

 119 terms of the arrangement of 1845 were never stated, either in 

 that paper or elsewhere, and the citizens whose property was 

 exposed to capture by British cruisers and colonial cutters were left 

 to pursue their business in apprehension and doubt. Under these 

 circumstances, the writer of this report assumed the task of attempt- 

 ing to impress the public mind with the probable state of affairs, 

 lie wrote for the periodical and for the newspaper press; he ad- 

 dressed letters to persons interested in enterprises to the British 

 colonial seas, and to persons in official employments; he continued 

 his labors, in various other ways, for quite a year: he was unsup- 

 ported, and abandoned the design finally in despair." (United 

 States Case, App., p. 1231.) 



And referring to the despatch of Lord Stanley of the 17th Septem- 

 ber, 1845, in which the decision of Her Majesty's Government to in- 

 sist on the British view of the treaty was recorded, Mr. Sabine said 

 (United States Case, App., p. 1243) : 



' ; It is possible that, had our government seconded the efforts of 

 our minister at the Court of St. James, and had instructed him, in 

 positive and earnest terms, that the pretensions and claims of the 

 colonists, which were at last adopted by the British government, had 

 not been, and never would be, admitted as a just and proper com- 

 mentary on the convention of 1818, the despatch from which the 

 preceding extract is made would never have been written; and that 

 of consequence the excitement and difficulties of 1852 would never 

 have occurred. As it was, the children of the ' tories ' triumphed 

 over the children of the ' whigs ' of the Revolution." 



