of at once taking the ground that the whole body of water was really in question, the English government claimed another channel, Rosario Strait, inferior in some respects, but the one most generally, and indeed only, used at the time by their vessels.  The importance of this difference of opinion lay chiefly in the fact, that the Haro gave San Juan and other small islands, valuable for defensive purposes, to the United States, while the Rosario left them to England.  Then, after much correspondence, the British government, as a compromise, offered the middle channel, or Douglas, which would still retain San Juan.  If they had always adhered to the Douglas—­which appears to answer the conditions of the treaty, since it lies practically in the middle of the great channel—­their position would have been much stronger than it was when they came back to the Rosario.  The British representatives at the Washington conference of 1871 suggested the reference of the question to arbitration, but the United States’ commissioners, aware of their vantage ground, would consent to no other arrangement than to leave to the decision of the Emperor of Germany the question whether the Haro or the Rosario channel best accorded with the treaty; and the Emperor decided in favour of the United States.  However, with the possession of Vancouver in its entirety, Canada can still be grateful; and San Juan is now only remembered as an episode of skilful American diplomacy.  The same may be said of another acquisition of the republic—­insignificant from the point of view of territorial area, but still illustrative of the methods which have won all the great districts we have named —­Rouse’s Point at the outlet of Lake Champlain, “of which an exact survey would have deprived” the United States, according to Mr. Schouler in his excellent history.

During this period the fishery question again assumed considerable importance.  The government at Washington raised the contention that the three miles’ limit, to which their fishermen could be confined by the convention of 1818, should follow the sinuosities of the coasts, including the bays, the object being to obtain access to the valuable mackerel fisheries of the Bay of Chaleurs and other waters claimed to be exclusively within the territorial jurisdiction of the maritime provinces.  The imperial government sustained the contention of the provinces—­a contention practically supported by American authorities in the case of the Delaware, Chesapeake, and other bays on the coast of the United States—­that the three miles’ limit should be measured from a line drawn from headlands 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 only shut out 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 by the reciprocity treaty of 1854 (see p. 96), which lasted until 1866, when it was repealed by the action of the United States, in accordance with the provision bringing it to a conclusion after one year’s notice from one of the parties interested.