claimed to be exclusively within the territorial jurisdiction of the
maritime provinces. The imperial government generally sustained the
contention of the provinces--a contention practically supported by the
American authorities in the case of Delaware, Chesapeake, and other
bays on the coasts of the United States--that the three mile limit
should be measured from a line drawn from headland to headland of all
bays, harbours, and creeks. In the case of the Bay of Fundy, however,
the imperial government allowed a departure from this general
principle when it was urged by the Washington government that one of
its headlands was in the territory of the United States, and that it
was an arm of the sea rather than a bay. The result was that foreign
fishing vessels were shut out only from the bays on the coasts of Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick within the Bay of Fundy. All these questions
were, however, placed in abeyance, for twelve years, by the Reciprocity
Treaty of 1854, which provided that the inhabitants of the United
States could take fish of any kind, except shell fish, on the sea
coasts, and shores, in the bays, harbours, and creeks of any British
province, without any restriction as to distance, and had also
permission to land on these coasts and shores for the purpose of
drying their nets and curing their fish. The same privileges
were extended to British citizens on the eastern sea coasts and
shores of the United States, north of the 36th parallel of north
latitude--privileges of no practical value to the people of British
North America compared with those they gave up in their own prolific
waters. The farmers of the agricultural west accepted with great
satisfaction a treaty which gave their products free access to
their natural market, but the fishermen and seamen of the maritime
provinces, especially of Nova Scotia, were for some time dissatisfied
with provisions which gave away their most valuable fisheries without
adequate compensation, and at the same time refused them the