23 



privafe tompe'iisations. You7' conduct carries with it an infernal evidence 

 bcrjond all the legal proofs of a court of justice P 



Peace had hardly been concluded belbre the French were accused of 

 violations of the treaty, la ]764, a sloop-of-war carried intelligence to 

 England that they had a very formidable naval force at Newfoundland ; 

 that they intended to erect strong fortifications on St. Peter's; and that 

 the English commodore on the station was without force sufficient to 

 |wevent the consummation of their plans. The party opposed to the 

 ministry pronounced a war with France to be inevitable, unless the 

 British government were disposed to surrender both Newfoundland and 

 Canada. The alarm — which illustrates the spirit of the time, and the 

 sensibility of the English people — proved to be without cause, since the 

 French gov^ernor gave assurances that nothing had been or would be 

 done contrary to the letter of the treaty; that he had but a single small 

 cannon mounted, without a platform, designed merely to answer signals 

 to their fishermen in foggy weather ; that no buildings or works had 

 been erected ; and that his guard consisted of only forty-seven men. 

 It appeared, however, that tlje French naval force was considerable, 

 consisting of one ship of fifty guns, another of twenty-six guns, and 

 others of" smaller rates. 



K^marking that the French emplo^^ed at Newfoundland two hundred 

 and fifty-niae vessels in 17G8, and about the same number five years 

 later, we come to the war of our own Revolution. To induce France to aid 

 us in the struggle, our envoys were authorized, in 1776, to stipulate that 

 all the trade between the United States and the French West Indies 

 should be carried on either in French or American vessels: and they 

 were speciall}^ instructed to assure his Most Christian Majesty, that if, 

 by their joint efforts, the British should be excluded from any share in 

 the cod-fisheries of America by the reduction of the islands of New- 

 foundland aiid Cape Breton, and ships-of-war should be furnished, at 

 the expense of the United States, to i-educe Nova Scotia, the fisheries 

 should be enjoyed equally between them, to the exclu^^i'^'i of all 

 other nations ; and that one-half of Newfoundland should lolong to 

 France, and the other half, with Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, to the 

 United States. 



We may smile at — we can hardly commend — our fathers for claiming 

 s© large a share as this notable scheme devised ; but the spirit which 

 conceived and was prepared to execute so grand an enterprise, addi- 

 donal to the main purposes of their strife with the mother country, is 

 to be placed in strong contrast with the indifference manifested now 

 about preserving our rights in the domains which they thus designed to 

 conquer. 



In 1778, the project was renewed. In the instructions to Franklin, 

 he was directed to urge upon the French court the certainty of ruining 

 the British fisheries on the Banks of Newfoundland, and consea lently 

 the British marine, by reducing Halifax and Quebec. Acc( iT^p-^ying 

 liis instructions was a plan for capturing these places, in which the 

 benefits of their acquisition to France and the United States were dis- 

 tinctly pointed out. They were of importance to France, it was said, 

 because "die fishery of Newfoundland is justly considered the basis of a 

 good marine;" and because "the possession of these two places neces- 



