438 APPENDIX 



whether such suggestion would be so favorably received by this government as to 

 justify the opening of direct negotiation, it becomes my duty to put you in posses- 

 sion of the impressions which this inquiry has made upon the Government of the 

 United States. 



As I understand the purport of Lord Granville's communication, Her Britannic 

 Majesty's Government desires to arrange the compensation due the United States 

 fishermen for the disturbances at Fortune Bay, without the formal consideration or 

 decision of any questions of treaty construction which the facts of that disturbance 

 might seem to raise, resting the right of compensation solely upon the unlawful vio- 

 lence exercised by British subjects in Newfoundland. 



The facts in this case are not complicated, and the calculations are simple. The 

 United States Government does not see in its present condition or character sufficient 

 grounds to require any very elaborate method of decision, such as a Commission, or 

 the necessity for any protracted inquiry. If Her Britannic Majesty's Government 

 will propose the submission of the computation of damages to the summary award 

 of the Secretary of State of the United States and Her Britannic Majesty's 

 representative at Washington (this function to be exercised either directly or by 

 such delegation as may seem to them judicious), the Government of the United 

 States will accept the proposition and close this controversy on the basis of that 

 award. 



But in signifying to Her Britannic Majesty's Government the willingness of the 

 United States to accede to such a proposition, you will carefully guard against any 

 admission of the correctness of those views of our treaty rights which are expressed, 

 either explicitly or by implication, in Lord Granville's communication of October 

 27th, 1880. 



The views of this government upon the proper construction of the rights of fishery 

 guaranteed by the treaty of Washington, have been fully expressed in my former 

 dispatches, and no reasons have been furnished to induce a change of opinion. The 

 delay in the settlement of the Fortune Bay case has been already too long protracted. 

 It has provoked a not unnatural feeling of irritation among the fishermen of the United 

 States at what they conceive to be a persistent denial of their treaty rights, while it 

 is to be feared that it has encouraged among the provincial fishermen the idea that 

 their forcible resistance to the exercise of these rights is not without justification in 

 their local law and the construction which Her Britannic Majesty's Government is 

 supposed to have placed upon the provisions of the treaty. 



It is now three years since twenty-two vessels belonging to the United States and 

 engaged in what by them and their Government was considered a lawful industry, 

 were forcibly driven from Fortune Bay under circumstances of great provocation 

 and at very serious pecuniary loss. And this occurred at the very time when, under 

 the award of the Halifax Commission, the Government of the United States were 

 about paying to Her Britannic Majesty's Government a very large amount for the 

 privilege of the exercise of this industry by those fishermen. In March of the same 

 year, 1878, this very grave occurrence of January was brought to the attention of the 

 British Government, in the confident hope that compensation would be promptly 

 made for the losses caused by what the United States Government was willing to 

 believe was a local misconstruction of the treaty or a temporary and, from ignorance, 

 perhaps an excusable popular excitement. 



It is unnecessary to do more than recall to your attention the long and unsatis- 

 factory discussion which followed the presentation of this claim, and especially the 



