420 APPENDIX 



In the opinion of this Government, it is essential that we should at once invite 

 the attention of Lord Salisbury to the question of Provincial control over the fisher- 

 men of the United States, in their prosecution of the privilege secured to them by the 

 treaty. So grave a question, in its bearing upon the obligations of this Government 

 under the treaty, makes it necessary that the President should ask from Her Majesty's 

 Government a frank avowal or disavowal of the paramount authority of Provincial 

 legislation to regulate the enjoyment by our people of the inshore fishery, which seems 

 to be intimated, if not asserted, in Lord SaUsbury's note. 



Before the receipt of a reply from Her Majesty's Government, it would be pre- 

 mature to consider what should be the course of this Government should this Hmita- 

 tion upon the treaty privileges of the United States be insisted upon by the British 

 Government as their construction of the Treaty. 



You will communicate this dispatch to Lord Salisbury, by reading the same to him, 

 and leaving with him a copy. 



I am, etc. 

 (Signed) Wm. M. Evaets 



NOTE FROM MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY, 

 TO MR. WELSH, NOVEMBER 7, 18781 



FoEEiGN Opfice, November 7, 1878 



Sir: Her Majesty's Government have had under their consideration the de- 

 spatch from Mr. Evarts, dated the 28th September, and communicated to me on 

 the 12th ultimo, respecting the complaints made by the Government of the United 

 States of the injuries sustained by American fishermen in Fortune Bay in January 

 last. 



This despatch is in reply to my letter of the 23rd August, in which I forwarded a 

 copy of the Report furnished by Captain Sulivan, of Her Majesty's ship "Sirius," 

 on the occurrences in question. Mr. Evarts now remarks that the United States' 

 Government have not been put in possession of the depositions which form the basis 

 of that Report, and are unable, therefore, to say whether, upon their consideration, 

 the view which the Government of the United States takes of these transactions upon 

 the sworn statements of their own citizens would be at all modified. 



Her Majesty's Government have not had the opportunity of considering the state- 

 ments in question; but the depositions which accompanied Captain Sulivan's Report, 

 and which I now have the honor to forward, appeared to them, in the absence of other 

 testimony, to be conclusive as regards the facts of the case. 



Apart, however, from the facts, in respect to which there appears to be a material 

 divergence between the evidence collected by the United States' Government and that 

 collected by the Colonial authorities, Mr. Evarts takes exception to my letter of the 

 23rd on the ground of my statement that the United States' fishermen concerned have 

 been guilty of breaches of the law. From this he infers an opinion on my part that 

 it is competent for a British authority to pass laws, in supersession of the Treaty, 

 binding American fishermen within the three-mile limit. In pointing out that the 

 American fishermen had broken the law within the territorial limits of Her Majesty's 

 dominions, I had no intention of inferentially laying down any principles of inter- 

 national law; and no advantage would, I think, be gained by doing so to a greater 

 extent than the facts in question absolutely require. 



'Appendix, British Case, p. 271; Appendix, U. S. Case, p. 657. 



