Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1886

No. 275.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Steele.

Department of State,
Washington, October 20, 1886.

Sir: I have just received your letter of the 18th instant, inquiring of me whether American fishing vessels, registered as such, and furnished with license to touch and trade in foreign ports, can proceed to Canadian ports, there to purchase and bring home cargoes of herring, without danger of molestation by the local authorities of the Dominion.

As you are well aware, a construction has been placed by the Dominion authorities upon the language of the treaty of 1818 between the United States and Great Britain under which they have assumed to exclude American fishing vessels from entrance into certain described territorial waters of Canada for any other than the three objects in the treaty mentioned—shelter, repairs, and to obtain wood and water—and have insisted that the words—and for no other purpose whatever” were to be rigidly enforced according to the strict letter.

This position, I need not say to you, is not accepted by the United States, but is repelled and denied, and that this Department is now endeavoring to secure such a joint interpretation of the treaty in question, considered in connection with the subsequent legislation by Great Britain and the United States creating commercial rights in the citizens of both countries, as will enable our vessels, whether engaged in fishing or not, to enter the established ports of entry of British North America and purchase lawful merchandise of any character in open market.

The United States have no diplomatic intercourse with Canada, but conduct all such matters directly with the imperial Government, through its minister at this capital or through our own minister at St. James.

This creates circumlocution and delay which is unavoidable.

It is my object to relieve the question of the rights of our fishermen from all uncertainty, and to obtain such a conceded, unambiguous, and clear definition of their rights and duties in Canadian ports and waters as will enable them to pursue their legitimate business with certainty, and in this duty, I am now engaged.

It would be well for you to state whether the vessels so sent to purchase herring are to be manned and fitted out so as to be able to take fish or to trade only.

When I have received your answer on the last point I will at once endeavor to obtain a plain response to your reasonable question, and will communicate a reply at the earliest practicable moment.

Respectfully, &c.,

T. F. BAYABD.