Once more summoning to his aid his old sea-racer the _Mississippi_, Captain McCluney, Perry left New York July 31st, 1852, stopping at Eastport, Maine, to get fresh information. There was much irritation felt by British residents at the alleged depredations of American fishermen, who, instead of buying their ice, bait, fuel and other supplies, were sometimes tempted to make raids on the shores of the islands. One excited person wrote to the admiral of the fleet: “For God’s sake send a man-of-war here, for the Americans are masters of the place—one hundred sail are now lying in the harbor. They have stolen my fire-wood and burnt it on the beach.” They had also set fire to the woods and committed other spoliations. Collisions with the British cruisers were imminent, and acts easily leading to war were feared by the cabinet. Perry proceeded to Halifax. He traversed the coast of Cape Breton Island, around Magdalen, and along the north shore of Prince Edward’s Island, visiting the resorts of the Yankee fishermen, and passing large fleets of our vessels. He found by experience, and was satisfied, that there had been repeated infractions of treaty, for which seven seizures had been made by British cruisers then in command of Admiral Seymour. The question, at this issue, concerning the rights of Americans fishing in Canadian waters, was one of geographical science rather than of diplomacy. It rested upon the answer given to this, “What are bays?” The last convention between the two countries had been made in 1818, when the United States renounced her right to fish within three miles of any of the coasts, bays and harbors of Canada. Only after a number of American vessels had been seized and prosecuted in the court at Halifax, was this treaty made. Including those captured for violating the convention of 1818, the number was sixty in all. The British said to Perry that the Americans had no right to take fish within three marine miles of the shore of a British province, or within three miles of a line drawn from headland to headland across bays. Canadians in American bottoms were especially expert in evading this law. Perry found the American fishermen were intelligent and understood the treaty, but he thought that the Canadian government was too severe upon them. About 2500 vessels and 27,500 men from our ports took part in the hazardous occupation, “thus furnishing,” said the Commodore, “a nursery for seamen, of inestimable advantage to the maritime interests of the nation.” Added to the force employed in whaling in the North Atlantic, there were thirty thousand men, mostly native Americans, whose business was with salt-water fish and mammals. At one point he saw a fleet of five hundred sail of mackerel fishers.