TREATIES AND CONVENTIONS. 13 



property, possession, and all rights acquired by treaty, or otherwise, 

 which the Most Christian King and the Crown of France have had 

 till now over the said countries, lands ? islands, places, coasts, and 

 their inhabitants, so that the Most Christian King cedes and makes 

 over the whole to the said King, and to the Crown of Great Britain, 

 and that in the most ample manner and form, without restriction, 

 and without any liberty to depart from the said cession and guarantee 

 under any pretence, or to disturb Great Britain in the possessions 

 above mentioned. His Britannic Majesty, on his side, agrees to grant 

 the liberty of the Catholic religion to the inhabitants of Canada : he 

 will, in consequence, give the most precise and most effectual orders, 

 that his new Roman Catholic subjects may profess the worship of 

 their religion according to the rites of the Romish Church, as far 

 as the laws of Great Britain permit. His Britannic Majesty farther 

 agrees, that the French inhabitants, or others who had been subjects 

 of the Most Christian King in Canada, may retire with all safety 

 and freedom wherever they shall think proper, and may sell their 

 estates, provided it be to the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, and 

 bring away their effects as well as their persons, without being re- 

 strained in their emigration, under any pretence whatsoever, except 

 that of debts or of criminal prosecutions : The term limited for this 

 emigration shall be fixed to the space of eighteen months, to be com- 

 puted from the day of the exchange of the ratification of the present 

 treaty. 



V. The subjects of France shall have the liberty of fishing and 

 drying on a part of the coasts of the Island of Newfoundland, such 

 as it is specified in the XHIth article of the treaty of Utrecht ; which 

 article is renewed and confirmed by the present treaty, (except what 

 relates to the Island of Cape Breton, as well as to the other islands 

 and coasts in the mouth and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence) : And His 

 Britannic Majesty consents to leave to the subjects of the Most Chris- 

 tian King the liberty of fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on con- 

 dition that the subjects of France do not exercise the said fishery 

 but at the distance of three leagues from all the coasts belonging 

 to Great Britain, as well those of the continent as those of the islands 

 situated in the said Gulf of St. Lawrence. And as to what relates to 

 the fishery on the coasts of the Island of Cape Breton, out of the said 

 gulf, the subjects of the Most Christian King shall not be permitted 

 to exercise the said fishery but at the distance of 15 leagues from the 

 coasts of the Island of Cape Breton ; and the fishery on the coasts of 

 Nova Scotia or Acadia, and everywhere else out of the said gulf, shall 

 remain on the foot of former treaties. 



VI. The King of Great Britain cedes the Islands of St. Pierre and 

 Macquelon, in full right, to His Most Christian Majesty, to serve as 

 a shelter to the French fishermen; and his said Most Christian 

 Majesty engages not to fortify the said islands; to erect no buildings 

 upon them but merely for the conveniency of the fishery ; and to keep 

 upon them a guard of fifty men only for the police. 



VII. In order to re-establish peace on solid and durable founda- 

 tions, and to remove for ever all subject of dispute with regard to 

 the limits of the British and French territories on the continent of 

 America; it is agreed, that, for the future, the confines between the 

 dominions of His Britannic Majesty and those of His Most Christian 

 Majesty, in that part of the world, shall be fixed irrevocably by a 



