CORRESPONDENCE 415 



an Act of Parliament was wanted, it would be obtained in a week's time and without 

 opposition. If the subject was not arranged, immediate collision must ensue, and, 

 Great Britain proceeding imder legal forms to condemn our vessels, no resource 

 remained for us but to acquiesce or commence hostilities. With much reluctance 

 I yielded to those considerations, rendered more powerful by our critical situation 

 with Spain, and used my best endeavors to make the compromise on the most advan- 

 tageous terms that could be obtained. After a thorough examination of the com- 

 munications on the subject which you transmitted to us, I think that substantially 

 we have lost very little, if anything; and I only wish that it had been practicable to 

 give to the agreement the form of an exchange in direct terms; that is to say, that we 

 give fishing rights in certain quarters in consideration of the rig^t of curing fish on 

 a part of Newfoundland and of the abandonment of the British claim to the naviga- 

 tion of the Mississippi. This, however, could not be done in a positive manner, the 

 British plenipotentiaries disclaiming any right to that navigation, Eftid objecting, there- 

 fore, to a renunciation of what they did not claim. The article which they proposed 

 on this last subject was only, as they said, an equivalent for what they pretended to 

 concede in agreeing that the boundary west of the Lake of the Woods should be fixed 

 at the 49th degree of north latitude. 



The renewal of the commercial convention and the propositions relative to the 

 colonial intercourse will make the subject of a distinct dispatch. 



I have the honor to be, with great respect, sir, your most obedient servant. 



II. Correspondence Concerning the Right of Great Britain to 



Regulate American Fishing Rights Secured by the Treaty 



OE Washington, May 8, 1871 



NOTE FROM SECRETARY OF STATE EVARTS TO SIR E. THORNTON, 

 BRITISH MINISTER AT WASHINGTON, MARCH 2, 18781 



Department of State, Washington, March 2, 1878 

 Sir: I have the honor to bring to your notice the fact that complaints have 

 been recently made to this Department of interference with American fishermen 

 engaged in the herring fishery on the coast of Newfoundland. In some instances 

 these complaints have been forwarded to the Department through the United States, 

 Consuls at St. John's and other ports of that Colony. The representations made 

 by the Consuls are, however, of a general nature based upon statements made to them 

 by the fishermen immediately interested, and consequently the of&cers in question 

 have been instructed to collect and forward more detailed and specific information, 

 and such further information I will do myself the honor to transmit to you so soon 

 as the reports from the Consuls shall have been received. 



Still more recently similar complaints have been received through the collector of 

 the port of Gloucester, Massachusetts, supported by the sworn statements of the 

 masters of eight fishing schooners of that port, and from the statements thus forwarded 

 it appears that in January of the present year those vessels had reached the neighbor- 

 hood of Long Harbor, and were actively engaged in the herring fishery, and that most 

 of the seines were full of fish and ready for landing, when, in one instance, two seines 

 belonging to the schooners "Ontario" and "New England" respectively were cut by 

 an enraged crowd of over 200 men, and the whole catch, estimated at not less than 



^Appendix, British Case, p. 268. 



