g to devices for delay. Circumstances
all pointed in that direction. The Government of the United States
had submitted the names of six Ministers, representing countries of
which at least four held more intimate relations with Great Britain
than with the United States. Specific reasons had been given for not
mentioning others. After a totally unreasonable delay (from July 11
to August 19) the English Government responded, _proposing the very
name that had originally been objected to by the United States--proposing
it with the urgency of a personal request from Lord Granville_. When
it was found that our Government would not accept Mr. Delfosse, the
intelligence came within a week that the Canadian Government objected
to any foreign Minister, who had been residing in Washington, as third
Commissioner. Of course this objection excluded Mr. Delfosse with all
the others, for Mr. Delfosse had resided in Washington several years
longer than the majority of those who had been proposed by the United
States.

Mr. Fish very justly and sharply rebuked this interposition of the
Government of Canada. On September 6 he wrote to Sir Edward that "the
reference to the people of the Dominion of Canada seems to imply a
practical transfer to that Province of the right of nomination which
the treaty gives to her Majesty." He informed Sir Edward that "in the
opinion of the President, a refusal on his part to make a nomination,
or to concur in the conjoint nomination contemplated by the treaty, on
the ground that some local interest (that for instance of the
fishermen of Gloucester) objected to the primary mode of filling the
commission intended by the treaty, might well be regarded by her
Majesty's Government as a departure from the letter and spirit of the
treaty." Mr. Fish went still farther: "In the President's opinion,
such a course on his party might justify the British Government in
remonstrating, and possibly in hesitating as to its future relations
to the Commission." The rebuke was not too severe, because if the
matter was to be left to the judgment of the people of Canada, it
would have been far wiser to remand the negotiation originally to
the authorities of the Dominion, with whom the United States could
probably have come to an agreement much more readily than with the
Imperial Government.

On the 24th of September Sir Edward advised Mr. Fish that he was
instructed by Earl Granville to propose that "the Ministers of