INTRODUCTION cxxvii 



called a bay, gulf, or by whatever other term designated, that washed any part of the 

 coast of the British North American Provinces, with the single exception that we did 

 not come ■within a marine league of the shore. We had this right by the law of nations. 

 Its confirmation was in the treaty of •: 83. We retained it undiminished, unless we 

 gave it up by the first article of the convention of 1818. This we did not do. The 

 article warrants no such construction." ' 



In a subsequent passage of the same letter Mr. Rush says: 



"In conformity with our construction, was the practise of Britain after the con- 

 versation [convention] was ratified. Our fishermen had been waiting for the word not 

 of exclusion, but admission, to those large outer bays. They had been shut out, some 

 of them captured, and all warned away, after the treaty of Ghent. The interval was 

 an anxious and painful one to them. Accordingly as soon as the convention went into 

 operation, they eagerly hastened to their ancient resorts; reinstated by the provident 

 care of their Government. No complaint was made or whispered by any member of 

 the British Government of that day, of which I ever heard. 



"I remained minister at that court seven years after the signing of the convention. 

 Opportunities of complaint were therefore never wanting. If intimated to me, it 

 would have been my duty to transmit at once every such coinmunication to our gov- 

 ernment. Nor did I ever hear of complaint through the British Legation in Wash- 

 ington. It would have been natural to make objections when our misconstruction of 

 the instrument vias fresh, if we did misconstrue it."' 



Finally, Mr. Rush says: 



" It is impossible for me to doubt that the convention as we now construe it, and 

 have always construed it, was entirely acceptable to the British Government at the 

 time of its adoption." ' 



There does not seem to have been any controversy upon the nature 

 and extent of the renunciation until some twenty years after its negotia- 

 tion. The fishing had largely been upon the Grand Banks. About the 

 year 1828 mackerel forsook the waters of the United States and were 

 found in considerable quantities off the non-treaty coast, especially in 

 the Bay of Fundy, a bay of large size extending well into British territory. 

 The American fishermen were anxious to take mackerel wherever found, 

 and believing that they had a right to enter large bays, their vessels fre- 

 quented in considerable numbers the Bay of Fundy. The presence of 

 the American fishermen meant competition with the colonial fisher- 

 men and the Convention of 1818 was carefully examined and scruti- 

 nized in order to see if a strict and hteral interpretation of the 

 renunciatory clause would exclude American fishermen from the larger 

 bays of the non-treaty coasts. Nova Scotia took the initiative. 



In 1 841 Lord Falkland, Lieutenant Governor of the province, re- 



' Appendix U. S. Case, Vol. I, p. SS4. ' Appendix, U. S. Case, Vol. I, p. 555. 



' Appendix, U. S. Case, Vol. I, p. 555. 



