Sir Edward Thornton to Mr. Fish
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 24th instant, and to assure you that as far as the action of Her Majesty’s naval officers or of those of the Canadian government is concerned, there is no cause for anxiety to citizens of the United States engaged in the fisheries in the neighborhood of the British provinces, so long as they may respect the laws upon the subject now in force. The tenor of the instructions issued to those officers both by Her Majesty’s government and by that of the Dominion are of the most liberal nature, and though they continue to hold the opinion that under the treaty of 1818 United States fishermen are prohibited from frequenting colonial ports and harbors for any other purposes but for shelter, repairing damages, purchasing wood, and obtaining water, such prohibition will not be enforced during the present season, and they will be allowed to enter Canadian ports for the purposes of trade, and of transshipping fish and procuring supplies, nor will they be prevented from fishing outside of the three-mile limit in bays the mouth of which is more than six miles wide.
It is to be hoped, however, that citizens of the United States will, on their part, contribute to the prevention of untimely collisions, by refraining from encroaching, for the purpose of fishing, upon those waters from which, by the treaty of 1818 and by the laws of Great Britain and Canada, they are excluded, until the legislation for insuring to them the privileges and immunities agreed upon by the treaty of the 8th ultimo shall have been carried out.
I have the honor, &c.,