ndise whatever, except such as may be
necessary for the prosecution of their voyages to and from the said
fishing grounds; and any vessel of the United States which shall
contravene this regulation may be seized, condemned, and confiscated,
with her cargo."

This proposition, which is identical with the construction now put
upon the language of the convention, was emphatically rejected by the
American commissioners, and thereupon was abandoned by the British
plenipotentiaries, and Article I, as it stands in the convention, was
substituted.

If, however, it be said that this claim is founded on provincial or
colonial statutes, and not upon the convention, this Government can not
but regard them as unfriendly, and in contravention of the spirit, if
not of the letter, of the treaty, for the faithful execution of which
the Imperial Government is alone responsible.

Anticipating that an attempt may possibly be made by the Canadian
authorities in the coming season to repeat their unneighborly acts
toward our fishermen, I recommend you to confer upon the Executive the
power to suspend by proclamation the operation of the laws authorizing
the transit of goods, wares, and merchandise in bond across the
territory of the United States to Canada, and, further, should such an
extreme measure become necessary, to suspend the operation of any laws
whereby the vessels of the Dominion of Canada are permitted to enter the
waters of the United States.

A like unfriendly disposition has been manifested on the part of Canada
in the maintenance of a claim of right to exclude the citizens of the
United States from the navigation of the St. Lawrence. This river
constitutes a natural outlet to the ocean for eight States, with an
aggregate population of about 17,600,000 inhabitants, and with an
aggregate tonnage of 661,367 tons upon the waters which discharge into
it. The foreign commerce of our ports on these waters is open to British
competition, and the major part of it is done in British bottoms.

If the American seamen be excluded from this natural avenue to the
ocean, the monopoly of the direct commerce of the lake ports with the
Atlantic would be in foreign hands, their vessels on transatlantic
voyages having an access to our lake ports which would be denied to
American vessels on similar voyages. To state such a proposition is
to refute its justice.

During the Administration of Mr. John Quincy Adams Mr. Clay unanswerably
demonst