The Canadian Reciprocity Treaty of 1854

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The Conclusion Of The Reciprocity Treaty During the last two months of the Fillmore administration nothing was done relative to effecting a settlement of either the fisheries or the reciprocity question. On March 8, 1853, William L. Marcy entered upon the duties of Secretary of State in the cabinet of President Pierce,1 and immediately began an earnest consideration of these two questions which were each day becoming more important. The new administration was determined to protect as far as possible the rights of American fishermen, and in the early part of July, 1853, James C. Dobbin, Secretary of the Navy, issued orders to concentrate a small naval force at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The purpose of such a concentration was to afford " protection to such of our citizens as are there engaged in