The Express.
London, England, 1853-08-22 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 22.

THERE is a tenacity of purpose about certain classes
of Americans that is at times more than annoying—
it has not untrequently (in private life) been known
to teaze men into the surrender of just rights. The
question of the fisheries in the waters of the British
provinces of North America is eminently calculated
to give scope to the peculiar genius of such worthies,
and acoordingly it would be folly to look for an
early final settlement of it. They will at least keep
arguing it for years to come. But their latest device
is really a little too gross and glaring.
A semi-official manifesto on the subject will be
found in another column, extracted from the New
York Herald, for Europe, of the 10th inert. It is
very imposing—in every sense of the word.
It would appear from this document that the Ame-
rican and British Governments have all along been
in error in assuming that it was competent to them
to arrange this vexed question of the fisheries by ne-
gotiation. The fisheries, it appears, of the Gulf of
St. Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy, and, in short,
all the coasts of the British American provinces, are
not public, but private, property. They be-
long, we are told, to an individual who is
pleased to assume the designation of Earl
of STIRLING, and who claims them in vir-
tue of a grant, from JAMES VI. of Scotland, and
FIRST of England, to Sir WILLIAM ALEXANDER, first
Earl of STIRLING, whom he affirms to be his ancestor.
This person is said to have transferred his rights to,
an American company, which is about to fit out a
fishing vessel to try the question. If the British
authorities interfere with this craft, the American
Law Courts are to be appealed to, and in the event
of their deciding in favour of Lord STIRLING and his
company, the Government at Washington is to be
called upon to support the decree : and according to
the writer in the New York Herald, large conces-
sions on the part of Great Britain, or war between
the two countries, must be the result.

It is not unlikely that this intimation of
impending hostilities from the other side of the
AtlantiF will add materially to the anxiety with
which Ministers are watching the blackening cloud
that hangs over the Euxiae. It is not the first time
that claims derived from the first Earl of STIRLING
have been attempted to be made the basis
of a joint-stock company. The pretensions of
the former speculation were, however, modest
in comparison with this, which proposes to set na-
tions together by the ears. It was merely an attempt
to wrest from the colonists of Nora Bootie we ste lands
which it was proposed to confer on the red-handed
baronets who derive their title from that province ;
and ended in burning the fingers of certain High-
land Magnates who fancied that these lauds might
be made available as a bait to lure across the Atlantic
poor tenants whom they were bent upon evicting.
There is very little reason to apprehend that the soi-
disont Earl of STIRLING will ever present himself to
a Washington Government, armed with a decree
of an American wart of law in his favour. In the
first place, he will find some difficulty in making
good his claim to inherit any patrimony that may
have belonged to the first Earl of Brumuro. He is
one of a few claimants of Peerages, and many
claimants of the minor honour of Barcnetage, in
Scotland, who are allowed, without sny ekes in-
quiry, to assume titles because there are no estates
claimed along with them, and because no one
having much interest in preventing a man from
calling himself what he pleases, protests against the
assumption.
Again, it would not be easy even for an undoubted
heir of Sir WILLIAM ALEXANDER to make good a
title to whole provinces of waste lands, seeing, in the
first plum, that that wcethy never fulfilled the condi-
does of the grant ; in the second place, that Canada
wai occupied by France before the grant was made
to hiss by the English King ; in the third place, that
Nova Bootie and New Brunswick were in the unchal-
lenged possession of France for more than
a century after his claim had lapsed for non-
performance; in the fourth place, that he contrived
to extract compensation from the French Court for
agreeing not to trouble them with his representa-
tions; and, lastly, that unless the titles of every
landowner in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick who
does not derive from Bir WILLIAM ALEXANDER or
his heirs are to be declared bad, the title of the
whole public of thee* provinces to the exclusive
right of fishery on the coasts, as recognised by the
law of nations, is unassailable.

Any parties in America disposed to take shares in
the Stirling Fishery Company will do well to weigh
' '

beforehand. As to the sereeei.

big about war between England and America on
sock a plea, it is too ridiculous to deserve a moment's
consideration. It is, in the present threatening
circumstances of European politics, like the moping
and mowing of the Clown in a tragedy of SNARES-
rim or CALDERON beside the hero in whom is
concentrated the tragic interest of the piece—like the
jesting of the Fool in the face of Lear's madness.

IT has fallen to our lot several times to direct the
attention of our readers to the ill-advised attempts of
certain parties in the Church to revive the old Con-
vocation. It is to no purpose to urge, as several
most distinguished members of the High and Low '
Church clergy do urge, that a Church which has no
independent deliberative, legislative, or executive
functions, is no church at all. It matters
little that we are taunted with the Wes-
leyan Conference or the Itoman Catholic Synod.
Both the Conference and the Synod may deliberate
and legislate, and enforce the multi of their delibe-
ration and legislation, as far as they are able. But
it will be remembered that the efficiency of their
legislation depends entirely upon the voluntary con-
sent *of those over whom they claim jurisdiction.