BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE. 37 



DECLARATION. 



THE king having entirely agreed with his most Christian majesty 

 upon the articles o'f the definitive treaty, will seek every means which 

 shall not only ensure the execution thereof, with his accustomed good 

 faith and punctuality, but will besides give, on his part, all possible 

 efficacy to the principles which shall prevent even the least foundation 

 of dispute for the future. 



To this end, and in order that the fishermen of the two nations 

 may not give cause for daily quarrels, his Britannic majesty will take 

 the most positive measures for preventing his subjects from inter- 

 rupting, 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 the island of Newfoundland ; and he will, for this 

 purpose, cause the fixed settlements, which shall be formed there, to 

 be removed. His Britannic majesty will give orders, that the French 

 fishermen be not incommoded, in cutting the wood necessary for the 

 repair of their scaffolds, huts, and fishing vessels. 



The thirteenth article of the treaty of Utrecht, and the method of 

 carrying on the fishery which has at all times been acknowedged, 

 shall be the plan upon which the fishery shall be carried on there ; it 

 shall not be deviated from by either party; the French fishermen 

 building only their scaffolds, confining themselves to the repair of 

 their fishing vessels, and not wintering there; the subjects of his 

 Britannic majesty, on their part, not molesting, in any manner, the 

 French fishermen, during their fishing, nor injuring their scaffolds 

 during their absence. 



The king of Great Britain, in ceding the islands of St. Pierre and 

 Miquelon to France, regards them as ceded for the purpose of serv- 

 ing as a real shelter to the French fishermen, and in full confidence 

 that these possessions will not become an object of jealousy between 

 the two nations; and that the fishery between the said islands, and 

 that of Newfoundland, shall be limited to the middle of the channel. 



With regard to India, Great Britain having granted to France 

 every thing that can ascertain and confirm the trade which the latter 

 requires to carry on there, his majesty relies with confidence on the 

 repeated assurances of the court of Versailles, that the power of sur- 

 rounding Chandernagore with a ditch for carrying off the waters, 

 shall not be exercised in such a manner as to make it become an 

 object of umbrage. 



The new state in which commerce may perhaps be found, in all 

 parts of the world, will demand revisions and explanations of the 

 subsisting treaties; but an entire abrogation of those treaties, in 

 whatever period it might be, would throw commerce into such con- 

 fusion as would be of infinite prejudice to it. 



In some of the treaties of this sort there are not only articles which 

 relate merely to commerce, but many others which ensure recipro- 

 cally, to the respective subjects, privileges, facilities for conducting 

 their affairs, personal protections, and other advantages, which are 

 not, and which ought not to be of a changeable nature, such as the 

 regulations relating merely to the value of goods and merchandize, 

 variable from circumstances of every kind. 



When therefore the state of the trade between the two nations shall 

 be treated upon, it is requisite to be understood, that the alterations 



