20 The Fishery Question. 



boundaries still continued, the English com- 

 missioners claiming that the Penobscot was 

 the western frontier of Nova Scotia. In 

 Newfoundland the question was as to the 

 location of Cape Riche. As France was 

 known at that time to be strengthening her 

 marine, Holderness, one of Her Majesty's 

 secretaries of state, recommended to the colo- 

 nial governors a confederation for mutual 

 defence. French diplomacy seemed capable 

 of retrievinor all her disasters. The Enorlish 

 attempted to detach Spain from France, 

 promising to acknowledge the Spanish claim 

 to participation in the Fisheries. ^^ Spain, forti- 

 fied by a dispensation from the Pope, replied 

 by prohibiting the importation of foreign fish. 

 The English fleet, using Halifax as a naval 

 station, occupied Placentia, and aided by the 

 ''Royal Americans" recaptured St. Johns. 

 Trade was secondary to war. The merchants 

 of the colonies who engaged in it at all 

 shipped negroes and Indians to complete the 

 crews of their vessels. By a second siege, 

 and the employment of a force, immense in 

 comparison with the former operations, Louis- 

 burg surrendered to Lord Amherst in 1758. 

 Nearly one-third of the effective men of 



