CHAPTER III.
CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES.
It would be foreign to the purpose of this work, besides being a useless reviving of animosities and prejudices, now happily forgotten, were I to discuss the merits of the controversy between Canada and the United States; which from trifling and unimportant beginnings, gradually increased in bitterness and intensity, until it finally embroiled the two countries, and England as well, in war. The contest was long ago waged to its legitimate and final arbitrament; and its results have been acquiesced in by all the interested parties, and are a part of the history of the nineteenth century.
Nevertheless a brief sketch of the origin and progress of this controversy, seems essential to this narrative, as showing the motives which actuated Canada and England in their final action.
This sketch I will endeavor to make as brief as is consistent with a clear presentation of the subject-matter.
Long previous to the Revolutionary War, in which the American Colonies secured their independence from British domination, and founded the United States of America, the vast value of the fisheries on the George's and Grand Banks, and along the North American and Newfoundland coasts, had been fully demonstrated; and even as early as the sixteenth century, nearly all of the maritime nations of Europe sent fleets to catch the fish which were known to abound there.
The French and English, however, at length succeeded in obtaining exclusive possession of the privilege; although as late as 1783, Spain put forward a claim of the right to participate in it.
This claim was, however, not pressed. Previous to the successful revolt of the American Colonists in 1770, several wars had occurred between England and France, the final result of which had been to expel the French from Canada, and to secure to England a practical monopoly of these valuable fisheries. The fishing industry had by this time vastly increased in value and importance, and was very largely engaged in by the people of the New England Colonies.
Indeed the importance of the industry was such, that the long point of Massachusetts was christened Cape Cod; gilded codfish were largely used as weather vanes on church spires, and on the public buildings; a painted codfish hung in the State House in Boston, as a constant reminder to the law-makers of the importance of the fishing interest; and the fortunate and enterprising fishermen, who accumulated wealth sufficient to enable them to pass the autumn of their lives amid quiet and luxurious surroundings, came to be known as the "Codfish Aristocracy."
In the year 1783 a treaty of peace was finally concluded between the United States and Great Britain, which defined the rights of the citizens of the United States to these privileges, as follows: