324 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



which disagreed. Then the case was given to Mr. Joshua 

 Bates, an American financier connected with the house of 

 Baring Brothers in London, who allowed to the owners 

 of the Washington the sum of $3,000 damages, on the 

 ground ''that the Bay of Fundy is not a British bay, nor 

 a bay within the meaning of the word as used in the treaties 

 of 1783 and 1818. " 1 On the fourth of August, 1844, the 

 American schooner Argus was seized while fishing off the 

 coast of Cape Breton at a distance of twenty-eight miles 

 from shore. The same umpire, Mr. Bates, found no case 

 of violation of the treaty, and awarded to the owners of 

 the Argus the sum of $2,000 for the loss of their vessel 

 and its stores. The "headland" rule as applied to the 

 Bay of Fundy was relaxed by the British Government in 

 1845. 



As early as 1847 England proposed a reciprocity treaty 

 governing the fisheries of the two countries, but no agree- 

 ment was reached by the two governments and the rela- 

 tions' between the two became more and more critical. 

 When the excitement had reached a high pitch and war 

 was talked of, the British Government, in 1854, sent Lord 

 Elgin to Washington for a conference with Mr. Marcy, 

 Secretary of State. The result of the conference was the 

 Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, a treaty in relation to the fish- 

 eries, commerce and navigation. In the first Article of 

 the Treaty it was 



"agreed by the high contracting parties, that, in addition to the 

 liberties secured to the United States fishermen by the above- 

 mentioned Convention of October 20, 1818, of taking, curing, 

 and drying fish on certain coasts of the British North American 

 colonies therein defined, the inhabitants of the United States 

 shall have, in common with the subjects of Her Britannic Maj- 

 esty, the liberty to take fish of every kind, except shell fish, 

 on the seacoasts and shores, and in the bays, harbors and creeks 



i Moore, I, pp. 785-87. 



