Richard Yeomans
In July 1823, the provincial revenue cutter Elizabeth intercepted an American schooner carrying over five hundred gallons of rum that was anchored near Indian Island in Passamaquoddy Bay. George McMaster, the commander of Elizabeth, was convinced that the boat departed from Eastport, Maine and had “every reason to believe that [its cargo of] Rum was intended to be illegally Landed within the Province.” McMaster’s suspicion was corroborated by a resident of the island, which convinced him of his right to seize the rum that would be later sold by authority of the Court of Vice Admiralty. A month later, McMaster visited Eastport where he was arrested because of charges brought against him by the owners of the apprehended vessel who claimed it had not crossed the line that demarcated British or American territorial waters. McMaster was put on trial, and ultimately made to pay fees for bail, legal counsel, and a substantial fine totalling £104 “in consequence of an Act in the discharge of his Duty.”[1] In response, the New Brunswick House of Assembly compensated McMaster because the fine was incurred during service to the provincial government and his enforcement of provincial laws for the protection of revenue from illicit trade. A spectre of the revolutionary war, smuggling had become a persistent problem in the region, however, the ability of the House to legislate in defence of its political jurisdiction over open water was a more recent development. This change, as demonstrated by the operation of provincial armed cutters in the Bay of Fundy, emerged out of shifting constitutional realities and responsibilities occurring in the nineteenth-century British Atlantic.