No. 187.
Mr. Bayard to Sir L.
West.
Washington, May 29, 1886.
Sir: I have just received an official imprint of House of Commons bill No. 136, now pending in the Canadian Parliament, entitled “An act further to amend the act respecting fishing by foreign vessels,” and am informed that it has passed the house and is now pending in the senate.
This bill proposes the forcible search, seizure, and forfeiture of any foreign vessel within any harbor in Canada, or hovering within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors in Canada, where such vessel has entered such waters for any purpose not permitted by the laws of nations, or by treaty or convention, or by any law of the United Kingdom or of Canada now in force.
I hasten to draw your attention to the wholly unwarranted proposition of the Canadian authorities, through their local agents, arbitrarily [Page 381] to enforce according to their own construction the provisions of any convention between the United States and Great Britain, and, by the interpolation of language not found in any such treaty, and, by interpretation not claimed or conceded by either party to such treaty, to invade and destroy the commercial rights and privileges of citizens of the United States under and by virtue of treaty stipulation with Great Britain and statutes in that behalf made and provided.
I have also been furnished with a copy of circular No. 371, purporting to be from the customs department at Ottawa, dated May 7, 1886, and to be signed by J. Johnson, commissioner of customs, assuming to execute the provisions of the treaty between the United States and Great Britain, concluded October 20, 1818, and printed copies of a warning, purporting to be issued by George E. Foster, minister of marine and fisheries, dated at Ottawa, March 5, 1886, of a similar tenor, although capable of unequal results in its execution.
Such proceedings I conceive to be flagrantly violative of the reciprocal commercial privileges to which citizens of the United States are lawfully entitled under statutes of Great Britain and the well-defined and publicly proclaimed authority of both countries, besides being in respect of the existing conventions between the two countries an assumption of jurisdiction entirely unwarranted and which is wholly denied by the United States.
In the interest of the maintenance of peaceful and friendly relations, I give you my earliest information on this subject, adding that I have telegraphed Mr. Phelps, our minister at London, to make earnest protest to Her Majesty’s Government against such arbitrary, unlawful, unwarranted and unfriendly action on the part of the Canadian Government and its officials, and have instructed Mr. Phelps to give notice that the Government of Great Britain will be held liable for all losses and injuries to citizens of the United States and their property caused by the unauthorized and unfriendly action of the Canadian officials to which I have referred.
I have, &c.