arrested and boarded by a boat's crew from the Canadian cruiser Terror. Captain Landry was compelled to proceed to Shelburne, about seven miles distant, to report to the collector. When the report was made, Captain Landry was informed that he was fined $400 for not reporting on the previous night. He answered that the custom-house was not open during the time that he was in the outer harbor. He further insisted that it was obvious from the storm that caused him to take shelter in that harbor, from the shortness of his stay, and from the circumstances that his equipments were exclusively for deep-sea fishing, and that he had made no effort whatever to approach the shore, that his object was exclusively to find shelter. The fine, how ever, being imposed principally through the urgency of Captain Quigley, commanding the Terror, Captain Landry was informed that he was to be detained at the port of Shelburne until a deposit to meet the fine was made. He consulted Mr. White, the United States consular agent at Shelburne, who at once telegraphed the facts to Mr. Phelan, United States consul-general at Halifax, it being of great importance to Captain Landry, and to those interested in his venture, that he should proceed on his voyage at once. Mr. Phelan then telegraphed to the assistant commissioner of customs at Ottawa that it was impossible for Captain Landry to have reported while he was in the outer harbor on the 8th instant, and asking that the deposit required to release the vessel be reduced. He was told in reply that the minister declined to reduce the deposit, but that it might be made at Halifax. Mr. Phelan at once deposited at Halifax the $400, and telegraphed to Captain Landry that he was at liberty to go to sea. On the evening of October 11 Mr. Phelan received a telegram from Captain Landry, who had already been kept four days in the port. stating that the custom-house officers and Captain Quigley' refused to let him go to sea. Mr. Phelan the next morning called on the col

lector at Halifax to ascertain if an order had issued to release the vessel, and was informed that the order had been given, ' but that the collector and captain of the cruiser refused to obey it, for the reason that the captain of the seized vessel hoisted the American flag while she was in custody of Canadian officials.' Mr. Phelan at once telegraphed this state of facts to the assistant commissioner at Ottawa, and received in reply, under date of August 12, the announcement that collector has been instructed to release the Grimes from customs seizure. This department has nothing to do with other charges.' On the same day a dispatch from the commissioner of customs at Ottawa was sent to the collector of customs at Halifax reciting the order to release the Grimes, and saying this [the customs] department has nothing to do with other charges. It is department of marine.'

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"The facts as to the flag were as follows:

"On October 11, the Marion Grimes, being then under arrest by order of local officials for not immediately reporting at the customhouse, hoisted the American flag. Captain Quigley, who, representing, as appeared, not the revenue, but the marine department of the Canadian administration, was, with his cruiser,' keeping guard over the vessel, ordered the flag to be hauled down. This order was obeyed; but about an hour afterwards the flag was again hoisted, whereupon Captain Quigley boarded the vessel with an armed crew and lowered the flag himself. The vessel was finally released under orders of the customs department, being compelled to pay $8 costs in addition to the deposit of $400 above specified.

"The seriousness of the damage inflicted on Captain Landry and those interested in his venture will be understood when it is considered that he had a crew of twelve men, with full supplies of bait, which his detention spoiled.

"You will at once see that the grievances I have narrated fall under two distinct heads.

"The first concerns the boarding by Captain Quigley of the Marion Grimes on the morning of October 8th, and compelling her to go to the town of Shelburne, there subjecting her to a fine of $400 for visiting the port without reporting, and detaining her there arbitrarily four days, a portion of which time was after a deposit to meet the fine had been made.

"This particular wrong I now proceed to consider with none the less gravity, because other outrages of the same class have been perpetrated by Captain Quigley. On August 18th last I had occasion, as you will see by the annexed papers, to bring to the notice of the British minister at this capital several instances of aggression on the part of Captain Quigley on our fishing vessels. On October 19, 1886, I had also to bring to the British minister's notice the fact that Captain Quigley had, on September the 10th, arbitrarily arrested the Everett Steele, a United States fishing vessel, at the outer port of Shelburne. To these notes I have received no reply. Copies are transmitted, with the accompanying papers, to you in connection with the present instruction, so that the cases, as part of a class, can be presented by you to Her Majesty's Government.

"Were there no treaty relations whatever between the United States and Great Britain, were the United States fishermen without any other right to visit those coasts than are possessed by the fishing craft of any foreign country simply as such, the arrest and boarding of the Grimes, as above detailed, followed by forcing her into the port of Shelburne, there subjecting her to fine for not reporting, and detaining her until her bait and ice were spoiled, are wrongs

which I am sure Her Majesty's Government will be prompt to redress. No Governments have been more earnest and resolute in insisting that vessels driven by stress of weather into foreign harbors should not be subject to port exactions than the Governments of Great Britain and the United States. So far has this solicitude been carried that both Governments, from motives of humanity, as well as of interest as leading maritime powers, have adopted many measures by which foreigners as well as citizens or subjects arriving within their territorial waters may be protected from the perils of the sea. For this purpose not merely light-houses and light-ships are placed by us at points of danger, but an elaborate life-saving service, well equipped with men, boats, and appliances for relief, studs our seaboard in order to render aid to vessels in distress, without regard to their nationality. Other benevolent organizations are sanctioned by Government which bestow rewards on those who hazard their lives in the protection of life and property in vessels seeking in our waters refuge from storms. Acting in this spirit the Government of the United States has been zealous, not merely in opening its ports freely, without charges to vessels seeking them in storm, but in insisting that its own vessels, seeking foreign ports under such circumstances, and exclusively for such shelter, are not under the law of nations subject to custom-house exactions.

"In cases of vessels carried into British ports by violence or stress of weather [said Mr. Webster in instructions to Mr. Everett, June 28, 1842] we insist that there shall be no interference from the land with the relation or personal condition of those on board, according to the laws of their own country; that vessels under such circumstances shall enjoy the common laws of hospitality, subjected to no force, entitled to have their immediate wants and necessities relieved, and to pursue their voyage without molestation.'

"In this case, that of the Creole, Mr. Wheaton, in the Revue Françase et Étrangère (IX. 345), and Mr. Legaré (4 Op. At. Gen. 98), both eminent publicists, gave opinions that a vessel carried by stress of weather or forced into a foreign port is not subject to the law of such port; and this was sustained by Mr. Bates, the umpire of the commission to whom the claim was referred (Rep. Com. of 1853, 244, 245):

“The municipal law of England [so he said] cannot authorize a magistrate to violate the law of nations by invading with an armed force the vessel of a friendly nation that has committed no offense, and forcibly dissolving the relations which, by the laws of his country, the captain is bound to preserve and enforce on board. These rights, sanctioned by the law of nations, viz, the right to navigate the ocean and to seek shelter in case of distress or other unavoidable circum

stances, and to retain over the ship, her cargo, and passengers, the law of her country, must be respected by all nations, for no independent nation would submit to their violation.'

"It is proper to state that Lord Ashburton, who conducted the controversy in its diplomatic stage on the British side, did not deny as a general rule the propositions of Mr. Webster. He merely questioned the applicability of the rule in the case of the Creole. Nor has the principle ever been doubted by either Her Majesty's Government or the Government of the United States; while, in cases of vessels driven by storm on inhospitable coasts, both Governments have asserted it, sometimes by extreme measures of redress, to secure indemnity for vessels suffering under such circumstances from port exactions, or from injuries inflicted from the shore.

"It would be hard to conceive of anything more in conflict with the humane policy of Great Britain in this respect, as well as with the law of nations, than was the conduct of Captain Quigley toward the vessel in question on the morning of October 8th.

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In such coasts, at early dawn, after a stormy night, it is not unusual for boats, on errands of relief, to visit vessels which have been struggling with storm during the night. But in no such errand of mercy was Captain Quigley engaged. The Marion Grimes, having found shelter during the night's storm, was about to depart on her voyage, losing no time while her bait was fresh and her ice lasted, when she was boarded by an armed crew, forced to go 7 miles out of her way to the port, and was there under pressure of Captain Quigley, against the opinion originally expressed of the collector, subjected to a fine of $400 with costs, and detained there, as I shall notice hereafter, until her voyage was substantially broken up. I am confident Her Majesty's Government will concur with me in the opinion that, as a question of international law, aside from treaty and other rights, the arrest and detention under the circumstances of Captain Landry and of his vessel were in violation of the law of nations as well as the law of humanity, and that on this ground alone the fine and the costs should be refunded and the parties suffering be indemnified for their losses thereby incurred.

“It is not irrelevant, on such an issue as the present, to inquire into the official position of Captain Quigley, of the Canadian cruiser Terror. He was, as the term Canadian cruiser' used by him enables us to conclude, not an officer in Her Majesty's distinctive service. He was not the commander of a revenue cutter, for the head of the customs service disavowed him. Yet he was arresting and boarding, in defiance of law, a vessel there seeking shelter, over-influencing the collector of the port into the imposition of a fine, hauling down with his own hand the flag of the United States, which was displayed over

the vessel, and enforcing arbitrarily an additional period of detention after the deposit had been made, simply because the captain of the vessel refused to obey him by executing an order insulting to the flag which the vessel bore. If armed cruisers are employed in seizing. harassing, and humiliating storm-bound vessels of the United States on Canadian coasts, breaking up their voyages and mulcting them with fines and costs, it is important for reasons presently to be specified that this Government should be advised of the fact.

"From Her Majesty's Government redress is asked. And that redress, as I shall have occasion to say hereafter, is not merely the indemnification of the parties suffering by Captain Quigley's actions, but his withdrawal from the waters where the outrages I represent to you have been committed.

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I have already said that the claims thus presented could be abundantly sustained by the law of nations, aside from treaty and other rights. But I am not willing to rest the case on the law of nations. It is essential that the issue between the United States fishing vessels and the cruiser Terror' should be examined in all its bearings, and settled in regard not merely to the general law of nations, but to the particular rights of the parties aggrieved.

"It is a fact that the fishing vessel Marion Grimes had as much right under the special relations of Great Britain and the United States to enter the harbor of Shelburne as had the Canadian cruiser. The fact that the Grimes was liable to penalties for the abuse of such right of entrance does not disprove its existence. Captain Quigley is certainly liable to penalties for his misconduct on the occasion referred to. Captain Landry was not guilty of misconduct in entering and seeking to leave that harbor, and had abused no privilege. But whether liable or no for subsequent abuse of the rights, I maintain that the right of free entrance into that port, to obtain shelter, and whatever is incident thereto, belonged as much to the American fishing vessel as to the Canadian cruiser.

"The basis of this right is thus declared by an eminent jurist and statesman, Mr. R. R. Livingston, the first Secretary of State appointed by the Continental Congress, in instructions issued on January 7, 1782, to Dr. Franklin, then at Paris, intrusted by the United States with the negotiation of articles of peace with Great Britain: "The arguments on which the people of America found their claim to fish on the banks of Newfoundland arise, first, from their having once formed a part of the British Empire, in which state they always enjoyed as fully as the people of Britain themselves the right of fishing on those banks. They have shared in all the wars for the extension of that right, and Britain could with no more justice have excluded them from the enjoyment of it (even supposing that one