298: 



wick,. Price Edward Island, and Canada, up to the time ot the Toronto 

 agreement in 1851, remained almost passive spectators of the belligerient 

 attitude of their sister colony of Nova Scotia. The subject of " Ameri- 

 caa aggressions" — as we have shown — has been one of profound in- 

 terest to the last mentioned dependency of the crown for a long period- 

 To find commiseration neither at home nor abroad, is a grievance hard ■ 

 to be borne. . To show, year after year, and for an entire generation, in 

 petitions to the throne, in legislative reports, and in newspaper essays, 

 that the most ruinous consequences had resulted, and would continue 

 to follow the permission to Americans to pass -through the Strait of 

 Canso, and to fish in the bays of British. America, and yet, after all, to, 

 awaken no sympathy on the part of fellow-colonists, and no determined 

 action on the part of the ministers of the Queen, is a misfortune which 

 even the aggressors themselves are bound to appreciate. 



But I may say that fishermen, without treaty stipulations to favor 

 and protect them, have sometimes fared far better than it is possible 

 for ours to do, if the views of the crown lawyers are carried out in 

 their most obvious sense. 



The fishermen of almost every civilized nation have pursued their 

 business either on implied or written sanctions. They have been per- 

 mitted to follow their calling even in war. The hostile relations be- 

 tween England and Holland — though the ocean was stained with the 

 blood of the subjects of each for several generations — did not, except, 

 in particular cases and for short periods, break up the Dutch fishery on 

 the English coast. In the war of our own Revolution, "rebels" though 

 we were, Berkeley, of the Scarborough frigate, while occupying the 

 Piscataqua, allowed the fisherrrien of that river free pass, out and in ; 

 and so, too. Admiral Digby, moved with compassion for the sufferings 

 of the people of Nantucket, gave them written permits to resume 

 whaling; and the. fact that a vessel* thus protected by his humanity 

 wa^ the first to bear our new-born flag to the Thames, and to draw 

 out all London to see it, wiU be remembered, perhaps, when the 

 records of battles shall be torn and scattered. 



Nor did the war of 1812, with all the desolation and bad feeling 

 which it caused, form an exception to the rule so commonly observed. 

 I refer for instances to the passports of Admiral Hotham to the people 

 of Nantucket; to the permissions granted by Sir George Collier to all 

 fishing-boats and vessels under thirty tons; and to the ordinary and 

 almost universal practice of British commanders along our coast, of' 

 allowing the taking offish to be carried to our towns and cities, and to 

 be consumed fresh. And yet, our public and private armed ships, as 

 these very officers knew, were manned in a good measure by the class 

 of men to whom these indulgences were granted. How many in tlie 

 same service with Digby, Hotham, and Collier are there now in comT 

 mission, who will "crowd sail alow and aloft" to hunt up and drive 

 out such of our fishermen as shall continue to visit the " bays " inter- 



*Her arrivttl was aououiiffied in Parliament. Mr. Hammet said he 'begged, leave to in.. 

 form the House of a very recent and aitraordmary oocun-ence." After stating the name-:?., 

 "the Bedford, Mooree, master" — he adds, she " wears the rebel Qolors, and belongs to th^ 

 island of Nantucket; in Massachusetts." 



