UNITED STATES AND CANADA 3 



tween this country and America of 1818 were again 

 brought to life, and under the terms of that Treaty, 

 as interpreted by Her late Majesty's Government, 

 American fishermen were only warranted in using 

 the bays and harbours of Canada for wood, water, 

 shelter and repairs, and for no other purpose what- 

 soever. America did not, however, interpret this 

 Treaty eye to eye with us, and thought we took it 

 too much au pied de la lettre. Sir Charles Tupper, 

 in the course of an exhaustive resume of the question 

 in the Dominion Parliament in April 1888, made the 

 pertinent observation that " fishermen, perhaps, are 

 the most intractable and uncontrollable people in 

 the world, and when a fisherman gets on board his 

 little smack he thinks he is monarch of all he sur- 

 veys and he can go where he pleases and do what he 

 pleases." So, regardless of the restrictions of the 

 Treaty of 18 18, the Massachusetts fishermen still 

 plied their calling in 1886 and after, with the result 

 that one after another of their vessels were captured 

 and confiscated by the Canadians under the pro- 

 visions of their Customs and Municipal laws. 

 These incidents provoked no little indignation in 

 America, especially in the New England States. 

 With each seizure and confiscation the tension be- 

 came more and more acute between the two coun- 



