No. 341.
Mr. Evarts to Sir Edward
Thornton.
Washington, May 25, 1880.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 21st of January last, transmitting for the information of this government [Page 515] a copy of a letter and of its Inclosures, addressed by the inspector of fisheries of British Columbia to the Canadian commissioner of fisheries, in relation to an alleged trespass committed on certain of the inshore fishing grounds of that province by an American vessel, the schooner Emily Stephenson.
In reply I have to inform you that I have communicated the contents of your note to my colleague, the Secretary of the Treasury, with the suggestion that the attention of shipmasters on the Pacific coast be called to the fact that the privilege of fishing cannot be claimed by citizens of the United States under the treaties between the United States and Great Britain.
I may add with regard to the incident to which your note relates, that the circumstances set forth in its inclosures do not show that the Emily Stephenson, on the occasion in question, interfered with any private rights or fishing industry. It is, therefore, thought by this Department that a casual instance of fishing like that referred to in your note, without raising any claim of right on the part of citizens of the United States, or conflict of authority with the officials of British Columbia, should be considered, upon the mere fact of the halibut having been swimming within the shore line of jurisdiction, as quite a pardonable liberty. Probably the Emily Stephenson regarded the fishing as open in the sense that it was at the time wholly unoccupied and unclaimed as exclusive.
I have, &c.,