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citizens of St. John. Among the toasts proposed on the occasion were "The four Judges of the Supreme Court," and "May the City of Saint John enjoy their Rights and Privileges as British Subjects."
In March, 1804, the Supreme Court gave a decision respecting the fishery along the Portland shore adverse to the interests of Hazen, Simonds and White. It was this probably which led Hon. Edward Winslow to allude to the fishery dispute in an interesting letter of the 16th of April, 1804, addressed to Governor Carleton, who had but lately gone to England.
"Your Excellency has not forgot the bitter controversy which subsisted between a lawless rabble at St. John and the proprietors of the soil respecting the rights of fishery in front of their lots to low water mark. This dispute, many of the gentlemen of the law seem to agree, would eventually be settled in favor of the proprietors and some very strong reasons were assigned in support of their opinion, particularly, it was observed that this right was recognized in similar situations by our ancestors in America before the Revolution, and that those of them who removed to Nova Scotia carried with them that custom and privilege among others, and yet continue to enjoy it in Nova Scotia. When Hazen and Simonds originally took up their lands, the privilege of fishing in front of their lots was undoubtedly considered one of the rights and immunities secured to them by their patents, and it was undoubtedly one of the greatest temptations which the country held out to them, and they remained in the uninterrupted enjoyment until we came here."
Winslow in his letter proceeds to argue that the clause in the St. John city charter relating to the fisheries was intended to provide that the fishery along the shores in front of the city should belong to the inhabitants as owners of the soil, but was not intended to interfere with the privileges already possessed by Simonds, White and Hazen for more than twenty years.
If Ward Chipman drafted the clause in the charter of the city of St. John relative to the fisheries, it must have afterwards afforded him food for very uncomfortable reflection in the capacity of Mr. Hazen's son-in-law and legal adviser. In one of his letters he terms the