266 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



This memorandum recites the convention of 1818, quotes the 

 renunciation clause, and proceeds: 



"The right of Great Britain to exclude American fishermen from waters 

 within three miles of the coast is miambiguous, and it is beheved, uncontested. 

 But there appears to be some doubt what are the waters described as within 

 three miles of bays, creeks, and harbors. When a bay is less than six miles 

 broad, its waters are within the three rmles hmit, and therefore clearly within 

 the meaning of the Treaty; but when it is more than that breadth, the ques- 

 tion arises whether it is a bay of Her Britannic Majesty's Dominions. 



"This is a question which has to be considered in each particular case 

 with regard to International Law and usage. When such a bay, etc., is not 

 a bay of Her Majesty's Dominions, the American fishermen wUl be entitled 

 to fish in it, except within three miles of the 'coast'; 'when it is a bay of Her 

 Majesty's Dominions' they will not be entitled to fish within three miles of 

 it, that is to say (it is presumed), within three miles of a Mne drawn from 

 headland to headland." 



Both of these communications you will perceive in stating this 

 question use as the test the question: the limit of 3 marine miles 

 of the coast; their description of the territorial zone is of a zone 

 within the limit of 3 marine miles of the coast; as to that there is 

 no question; as to "bays" which may be outside of that limit 

 there is serious doubt. 



They use the expression very much as it was used by Lord 

 Aberdeen in a letter to which I will now call your attention, which 

 appears on p. 488 of the American Appendix. It was written to 

 Mr. Everett, the loth March, 1845, from the Foreign Office. That 

 is the letter in which the British Government relaxed, even before 

 this determination evinced in Lord Stanley's letter of the 19th 

 May, 1845, the application of the rule based upon the Nova Scotian 

 construction of the renunciation clause, and reheved the Bay of 

 Fundy from the application of it. In that letter Lord Aberdeen 

 says, reading from the next to the last paragraph on p. 489: 



"The undersigned has accordingly much pleasure in announcing to Mr. 

 Everett, the determination to which Her Majesty's Government have come 

 to relax in favor of the United States fishermen that right which Great Britain 

 has hitherto exercised, of excluding those fishermen from the British portion 

 of the Bay of Fundy, and they are prepared to direct their colonial authorities 

 to allow henceforward the United States fishermen to pursue their avocations 

 in any part of the Bay of Fundy, provided they do not approach except in 



