CORRESPONDENCE 425 



no British authority has a right to pass any kind of laws binding Americans who 

 are fishing in British waters; for if that contention be just, the same disability appUes 

 i fortiori to any other powers, and the waters must be delivered over to anarchy." 



I certainly cannot recall any language of mine, in this correspondence, which is 

 capable of so extraordinary a construction. I have nowhere taken any position 

 larger or broader than that which Lord Salisbury says: 



"Her Majesty's Government will readily admit, what is, indeed, self-evident, that 

 British sovereignty, as regards those waters, is limited in its scope by the engage- 

 ments of the Treaty of Washington, which cannot be affected or modified by any 

 municipal legislation." 



I have never denied.the full authority and jurisdiction either of the imperial or 

 colonial governments over their territorial waters, except so far as by treaty that 

 authority and jurisdiction have been deliberately limited by these governments 

 themselves. Under no claim or authority suggested or advocated by me, could any 

 other Government demand exemption from the provisions of British or colonial law, 

 unless that exemption was secured by treaty, and if these waters must be dehvered 

 over to anarchy, it will not be in consequence of any pretensions of the United 

 States Government, but because the British Government has, by its own treaties, 

 to use Lord SaUsbury's phrase, limited the scope of British sovereignty. I am not 

 aware of any such treaty engagements with other powers, but if there are, it would 

 be neither my privilege nor duty to consider or criticise their consequences, where the 

 interests of the United States are not concerned. 



After a careful comparison of all the depositions furnished to both govern- 

 ments, the United States Government is of opinion that the following facts will not 

 be disputed: 



1. That twenty-two vessels belonging to citizens of the United States, viz., Fred. 

 P. Frye, Mary and M., Lizzie and Namari, Edward E. Webster, W. E. McDonald, 

 Crest of the Wave, F. A. Smith, Hereward, Moses Adams, Charles E. Warren, Moro 

 Castle, Wildfire, Maud and Effie, Isaac Rich, Bunker Hill, Bonanza, H. M. Rogers, 

 Moses Knowlton, John W. Bray, Maud B. Wetherell, New England, and Ontario, 

 went from Gloucester, a town in Massachusetts, United States, to Fortune Bay, in 

 Newfoundland, in the winter of 1877-78, for the purpose of procuring herring. 



2. That these vessels waited at Fortime Bay for several weeks (from about 

 Deceinber 15, 1877, to January 6, 1878), for the expected arrival of shoals of herring 

 in that harbor. 



3. That on Sunday, January 6, 1878, the herring entered the Bay in great numbers, 

 and that four of the vessels sent their boats with seines to commence fishing operations, 

 and the others were proceeding to follow. 



4. That the parties thus seining were compelled by a large and violent mob of 

 the inhabitants of Newformdland, to take up their seines, discharge the fish already 

 inclosed, and abandon their fishery, and that in one case at least the seine was abso- 

 lutely destroyed. 



5. That these seines were being used in the interest of all the United States vessels 

 waiting for cargoes in the harbor, and that the catch undisturbed would have been 

 sufficient to load all of them with profitable cargoes. The great quantity of fish in 

 the harbor, and the fact that the United States vessels if permitted to fish would all 

 have obtained full cargoes, is admitted in the British depositions. 



"If the Americans had been allowed to secure all the herrings in the Bay for them- 

 selves, which they could have done that day, they would have filled all their vessels, 



