Canada under British Rule by Sir John George Bourinot (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📕

In the one case, it will be seen, there was a recognised right, but in the other only a mere "liberty" or privilege extended to the fishermen of the United States. At the close of the war of 1812 the British government would not consent to renew the merely temporary liberties of 1783, and the United States authorities acknowledged the soundness of the principle that any privileges extended to the republic in British territorial waters could only rest on "conventional stipulation." The convention of 1818 forms the legal basis of the rights, which Canadians have always maintained in the case of disputes between themselves and the United States as to the fisheries on their own coasts, bays, and harbours of Canada. It provides that the inhabitants of the United States shall have for ever the liberty to take, dry, and cure fish on certain parts of the coast of Newfoundland, on the Magdalen Islands and on the southern shores of Labrador, but they "renounce for ever any liberty, heretofore enjoyed" by them to take, dry, and cure fish, "on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays or creeks or harbours of his Britannic Majesty's other dominions in America"; provided, however, that the American fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays and harbours, for the purpose of shelter, and of repairing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and "for no other purpose whatever."

In April, 1817, the governments of Great Britain and the United States came to an important agreement which ensured the neutrality of the great lakes. It was agreed that the naval forces to be maintained upon these inland waters should be confined to the following vessels: on Lakes Champlain and Ontario to one vessel, on the Upper Lakes to two vessels, not exceeding in each case a hundred tons burden and armed with only one small cannon. Either nation had the right to bring the convention to a termination by a previous notice of six months. This agreement is still regarded by Great Britain and the United States to be in existence, since Mr. Secretary Seward formally withdrew the notice which was given for its abrogation in 1864, when the civil war was in progress and the relations between the two nations were considerably strained at times.

The next international complication arose out of the seizure of the steamer _Caroline_, which was engaged in 1837 in carrying munitions of war between the United States and Navy Island, then occupied by a number of persons in the service of Mr. Mackenzie and other Canadian rebels. In 1840 the authorities of New York arrested one Macleod on the charge of having murdered a man who was employed on the _Caroline_. The Washington government for some time evaded the whole question by throwing the responsibility on the state authorities and declaring that they could not interfere with a matter which was then within the jurisdiction of the state courts. The matter gave rise to much correspondence between the two governments, but happily for the peace of the two countries the American courts acquitted Macleod, as the evidence was clear that he had had nothing to do with the actual seizing of the _Caroline_; and the authorities at Washington soon afterwards acknowledged their responsibility in such affairs by passing an act directing that subjects of foreign powers, if taken into custody for acts done or committed under the authority of their own government, "the validity or effect whereof depends upon the law of nations, should be discharged." The dissatisfaction that had arisen in the United States on account of the cutting out of the _Caroline_ was removed in 1842, when Sir Robert Peel expressed regret that "some explanation and apology for the occurrence had not been previously made," and declared that it was "the opinion of candid and honourable men that the British officers who executed this transaction, and their government who approved it, intended no insult or disrespect to the sovereign authority of the United States[9]."


[9: Hall's _Treatise on International Law_ (3rd ed.), pp. 311--313]


In the course of time the question of the disputed boundary between Maine and New Brunswick assumed grave proportions. By the treaty of 1783, the boundary was to be a line drawn from the source of the St. Croix, directly north to the highlands "which divide the rivers which fall into the Atlantic ocean from those which fall into the river St. Lawrence;" thence along the said highlands to the north-easternmost head of the Connecticut River; and the point at which the due north line was to cut the highlands was also designated as the north-west angle of Nova Scotia. The whole question was the subject of several commissions, and of one arbitration, from 1783 until 1842, when it was finally settled. Its history appears to be that of a series of blunders on the part of England from the beginning to the end. The first blunder occurred in 1796 when the commissioners appointed to inquire into the question, declared that the Schoodic was the River St. Croix mentioned in the treaty. Instead, however, of following the main, or western, branch of the Schoodic to its source in the Schoodic Lakes, they went beyond their instructions and chose a northern tributary of the river, the Chiputnaticook, as the boundary, and actually placed a monument at its head as a basis for any future proceeding on the part of the two governments. The British government appear to have been very anxious at this time to settle the question, for they did not take exception to the arrangement made by the commissioners, but in 1798 declared the decision binding on both countries.

Still this mistake might have been rectified had the British government in 1835 been sufficiently alive to British interests in America to have accepted a proposal made to them by President Jackson to ascertain the true north-western angle of Nova Scotia, or the exact position of the highlands, in accordance with certain well-understood rules in practical surveying which have been always considered obligatory in that continent. It was proposed by the United States to discard the due north line, to seek to the west of that line the undisputed highlands that divide the rivers which empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to find the point in the 'watershed' of these highlands nearest to the north line, and to trace a direct course from it to the monument already established. "If this principle had been adopted," says Sir Sandford Fleming, the eminent Canadian engineer, "a straight line would have been drawn from the monument at the head of the Chiputnaticook to a point which could have been established with precision in the 'watershed' of the highlands which separate the sources of the Chaudière from those of the Penobscot,--this being the most easterly point in the only highlands agreeing beyond dispute with the treaty. The point is found a little to the north and west of the intersection of the 70th meridian west longitude and the 46th parallel of north latitude." Had this proposal been accepted England would have obtained without further difficulty eleven thousand square miles, or the combined areas of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

For several years after this settlement was suggested a most serious conflict went on between New Brunswick and the state of Maine. The authorities of Maine paid no respect whatever to the negotiations that were still in progress between the governments of Great Britain and the United States, but actually took possession of the disputed territory, gave titles for lands and constructed forts and roads within its limits. Collisions occurred between the settlers and the intruders, and considerable property was destroyed. The legislature of Maine voted $800,000 for the defence of the state, and the legislature of Nova Scotia amid great enthusiasm made a grant of $100,000 to assist New Brunswick in support of her rights. Happily the efforts of the United States and British governments prevented the quarrel between the province and the state from assuming international proportions; and in 1842 Mr. Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton, was authorised by the ministry of the Earl of Aberdeen to negotiate with Mr. Daniel Webster, then secretary of state in the American cabinet, for the settlement of matters in dispute between the two nations. The result was the Ashburton Treaty, which, in fixing the north-eastern boundary between British North America and the United States, started due north from the monument incorrectly placed at the head of the Chiputnaticook instead of the source of the true St. Croix, and consequently at the very outset gave up a strip of land extending over some two degrees of latitude, and embracing some 3000 square miles of British territory. By consenting to carry the line due north from the misplaced monument Lord Ashburton ignored the other natural landmark set forth in the treaty: "the line of headlands which divide the waters flowing into the Atlantic from those which flow into the St. Lawrence." A most erratic boundary was established along the St. John, which flows neither into the St. Lawrence nor the Atlantic, but into the Bay of Fundy, far east of the St. Croix. In later years the historian Sparks found in Paris a map on which Franklin himself had marked in December, 1782, with a heavy red line, what was then considered the true natural boundary between the two countries. Mr. Sparks admitted in sending the map that it conceded more than Great Britain actually claimed, and that "the line from the St. Croix to the Canadian highlands is intended to exclude [from the territory of the United States] all the waters running into the St. John." Canadians have always believed with reason that that portion of the present state of Maine, through which the Aroostook and other tributaries of the St. John flow, is actually British territory. If we look at the map of Canada we see that the state of Maine now presses like a huge wedge into the provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec as a sequence of the unfortunate mistakes of 1796, 1835, and 1842, on the part of England and her agents. In these later times a "Canadian short line" railway has been forced to go through Maine in order to connect Montreal with St. John, and other places in the maritime provinces. Had the true St. Croix been chosen in 1796, or President Jackson's offer accepted in 1835, this line could go continuously through Canadian territory, and be entirely controlled by Canadian legislation.

Another boundary question was the subject of much heated controversy between England and the United States for more than a quarter of a century, and in 1845 brought the two countries very close to war. In 1819 the United States obtained from Spain a cession of all her rights and claims north of latitude forty-two, or the southern boundary of the present state of Oregon. By that time the ambition of the United States was not content with the Mississippi valley, of which she had obtained full control by the cession of the Spanish claims and by the Louisiana purchase of 1803, but looked to the Pacific coast, where she made pretensions to a territory stretching from 42° to 54° 40' north latitude, or a territory four times the area of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the present province of Ontario. The claims of the two nations to this vast region rested on very contradictory statements with respect to priority of discovery, and that occupation and settlement which should, within reasonable limits, follow discovery; and as the whole question was one of great perplexity, it should have been settled, as suggested by England, on principles of compromise. But the people of the United States, conscious at last of the importance of the territory, began to bring their influence to