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approach within sixty miles from the coast of Ncwroiindland, and that it was in 

 consequence of (this that the negotiations were begun which led to the Convention 

 of 1818 ; and the Convention of 1818, in the opinion of Mr. Adams, conceded to the 

 United States all that they desired. He believed, and asserted, that Great Hritain 

 had claimed, and intended to claim, exclusive jurisdiction over the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence, and over the Banks of Newfoundfand, and he considered, and stated that the 

 Treaty of 1818, in setting at rest for ever those pretensions, obtained for the United 

 States substantially what they desired. A passage is quoted in the " Reply of Her 

 Majesty's Government to the United States' Answer," from this Ihm)!*, in which 

 Mr. Adams says: "The Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Gulf of St. Lawrence, and 

 Labrador fisheries, are in nature, and in consideration both ot their value and of the 

 right to share in them, one fishery. To be cut off from the enjoyment of that right 

 would be, to the people of INlassachusetts, similar in kind, and comiiarable in degree, 

 with an interdict to the people of Georgia and Louisiana to cultivate cotton or 

 sugar. To be cut off, even from that portion of it which was within the exclusive 

 British juri.sdiction, in the xlrictent .vpnse, within the (Julf of St. Lawrence and on the 

 coast of Labrador, would have been like an interdict upon the people of Georgia or 

 Louisiana to cultivate cotton or sugar in three-fourths of those respective States." 

 But he goes on to speak of the warning off of American vessels sixty miles from 

 Newfoundland, and then says: " It was this incident which led to the negotiations 

 which terminated in the Convention of the 20th October, 1818. In that instrument 

 the United ,ates rniounced for ever that part of the fisliing liberties which they had 

 enjoyed or claimed in certain parts of the exclusive jurisdiction of the British Pro- 

 vinces, and within three marine miles of the shores. This pririlege, without being of much 

 use to our fishermen, had been found very inconvenient to the Kritish ; and in return, 

 we have acquired an enlarged liberty, both of fishing and drying fish, within other 

 parts of tlie British jurisdiction, for ever." 



P'ishing for maciscrel in ten fathoms of water, od' the bight of Prince Edward 

 Island, was not the thing then taken into consideration. There was no mackerel 

 fisliery till many years after. This controversy was caused by a claim on the one 

 hand, and ;i resistance on the other, with reference to the ocean fisheries, to the 

 cod-fishery, the wliale-fishery, the deep-sea fishery, throe leagues, fifteen leagues, 

 sixty miles from the shore ; and after the Convention of 1818 had been formed, if 

 it had been construed as the British (iovernment construe it to-day, there would 

 have been no more controversy on the subject. The controversy that arose after 

 the Convention of 1818, sprang from the unwarrantable and extravagant preten- 

 sions, not so much of Her Majesty's Home Government, as of the Colonial autho- 

 rities. In order to understand the importance that has been attributed to this 

 subject, it is indispensably ■"cessary that you should know what was claimed to 

 be the interpretation of the »..'onvention of 1818. down to a very recent day. The 

 Provincial authorities claimed, in the first place, to exclude United Slates' vessels 

 from navigating the Gut of Canso. Nobody makes that claim now. In tiie second 

 place, they claimed the right to exclude tliem from fisliing anywhere in the Bay of 

 Kundy. That claim was insisted upon until, on arbitration, it was decided against 

 Her Majesty's Government. Not only was the headland doctrine asserted as to the 

 great bays, but under its guise, the Provincial authorities elainu'd the right to 

 draw a straight line from Kast Point to Nortli Cape of Prince Kdw.w<l Island, and 

 make the exclusion three miles from that point. 1 lifive had marked on the map 

 aimexed to the British case, two or three of the principal lines of exclusion as they 

 were then insisted upon, that you may know what it was that our people regarded 

 as important. The claim to treat Kast Point and North Cape as headlands, and to 

 exclude us a distance of three miles from a line drawn between them, is a notion 

 that has not departed from the popular mind to the present day. 



The aflidavits from Prince Kdward Island were drawn upon the theory that 

 that is the rule, and in two or three of them 1 have found it expressly stated, 

 "that all the mackerel were caught within the three mile line; that is to say, 

 within a line three miles from a straight line drawn from Kast Point to North Cape." 

 Now, those aflidavits are all in answer to one set of (piestions ; tiiey are all upon 

 one model, and it is quite obvious that they were all of them coloured by that view 

 of the three mile limit, as two of them expressly say that they were. .\t all events, 

 that was the claim that was made down to a very recent period. The claim also 

 was made to exclude United States" fishermen from Northumberland Strait. In 

 the case of the " Argus," seized by British cruizers, the ground of seizure was, that u 

 line was to be drawn from North Cape to the northern line of Cow Bay in Cano 



