106 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



Under the 

 Treaty of 

 Utrecht 

 France 

 ceded New- 

 foundland, 

 but re- 

 served fish- 

 ing rights 

 on the 

 Treaty 

 shore, 1713 



Bonavista, Carbonear, and four other islands 1 under their 

 nine respective ' Governors '. The colony, which had coalesced 

 from six or seven civil governments into one government, 

 under one paramount Governor, resolved itself once more into 

 nine military governments more or less subject to one Gover- 

 nor at St. John's. Collins, as before, was to be commandant 

 and Governor at St. John's. Judicial grievances of the old 

 familiar nature were also redressed. This was the first 

 Witenagemot or Grand Inquest of the nation in Newfound- 

 land, and a similar assembly met next year under the auspices 

 of the then captain of the Convoysf after which the institution 

 lapsed. No new soldiers arrived, nor did any military or 

 constitutional events of importance occur until the Treaty of 

 Utrecht was concluded in 1713. 



The existence of two Powers in one island, which had 

 proved intolerable in ancient Sicily and modern St. Kitts, 

 was deemed intolerable here ; and henceforth the whole 

 island passed under the exclusive sovereignty of England. 

 England became sole owner in fee-simple of the land. But 

 fishing easements, which had preceded fishing settlements, 

 were still preferred by the philosophers of England to more 

 permanent and progressive kinds of colonization, and French 

 subjects were allowed during the fishing-season a right to 

 catch fish, and dry what they caught, in that part only of 

 Newfoundland, which lies north of Cape Bonavista on the east 

 coast and of Point Rich on the west coast. It was clear that 

 this right was not exclusive, still less could it be construed as 

 authorizing interference with the English settlers who had 

 occupied Bonavista Bay north of Cape Bonavista since 1698 ; 

 but considering that England had spent a century in 

 illustrating its inability to hold the balance between nomadic 

 English fishermen, who had fishing easements, and actual 

 English settlers, who owned land and fished, it seemed unwise 



1 Dildo and Fox Islands in Trinity Bay, Bell Island in Conception 

 Bay, Gull Island between St. John's and Ferryland. 



