No. 181.
Sir Edward
Thornton to Mr. Fish.
Sir: In compliance with an instruction which I have received from [Page 221] Earl Granville, I have the honor to state that the Government of the United States having declined to take steps with a view to the refunding of duties collected on fish-oil and fish imported into the United States from Prince Edward’s Island, his lordship has been informed by the colonial office that a telegram has been received from the governor of Prince Edward’s Island, stating that his ministers are of opinion that the privilege of fishing on the coast of Prince Edward’s Island should not be conceded to the American fishermen until the United States Government shall have carried into effect the arrangement in pursuance of which the American fishermen were provisionally admitted to the use of those fisheries during the season of 1871, namely, the refund of the duties levied during that season upon fish and fish-oil imported from the colony into the United States.
Her Majesty’s government cannot contest the justice of the position thus assumed by the governor of Prince Edward’s Island, and as that colony does not possess revenue-vessels by which its fishery laws can be enforced, they have thought it right to send instructions to the officers commanding Her Majesty’s ships as regards the protection of the Prince Edward Island fisheries, similar to those issued for the protection of the North American fisheries generally, by Admiral Wellesley, in 1870, as modified by the memorandum issued by him on the 25th of June of that year.
Such is the course which I am instructed to inform the Government of the United States Her Majesty’s government have been forced to adopt, in consequence of the non-fulfillment of the condition on which the provisional use of the fisheries was conceded by the governor of Prince Edward’s Island.
I have, &c,