2lB HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



given the same right of fishery ' as they had the right 

 to enjoy that which was assigned to them by the Treaty of 

 Utrecht ', and the English king was ' maintained in his right 

 to' Newfoundland and its islets, except St. Pierre and 

 Miquelon, ' as the whole were assured to him by the Treaty 

 of Utrecht,' which enacted that ' Newfoundland with its ad- 

 jacent islands shall belong of right wholly to Great Britain . . . 

 nor shall the most Christian King . . . claim the said island or 

 islands or any part of it or them ', and forbad ' subjects of 

 France ... to erect any buildings there besides stages made of 

 boards and huts necessary and usual for drying of fish ', but with 

 power 'to catch fish and to dry them on land' along the 

 Treaty shore. The Treaty of Utrecht, as revived by the 

 Treaties of 1783 and 1814, clearly established English 

 sovereignty as sole and absolute ; and clearly limited fish to 

 things that were caught and dried during the summer. 

 But the Declaration of Versailles (1783) seems to have been 

 also revived by and incorporated in the Treaty of 1814 ; and 

 by the Declaration of Versailles the King of England 

 promised to take ' measures for preventing his subjects from 

 interrupting in any manner by their competition the fishery 

 of the French during the temporary exercise of it which is 

 granted to them upon the coasts ... of Newfoundland, but 

 he will for this purpose cause the fixed settlements which 

 shall be formed there to be removed '.* That is to say, if 

 the French fishermen chose to fish in St. George Bay in 

 large numbers, and could show that the English fishermen 

 competed with them, the English fishermen would have 

 to desist from fishing; and if the French fishermen 

 could show that the fixed settlements in St. George Bay 

 interrupted the French fishermen, every house would have to 

 be pulled down, and every settler would have to go. The 



1 The relevant parts of the Treaties and Declarations of 1713, 1763, 

 1783, 1814, and 1815 are given verbatim in Accounts and Papers, 

 1890-1, vol. xcvi (c. 6365), pp. 16, 17. The italics are my own. 



