220 MISCELLANEOUS 



that you are strictly prohibited from holding any communication with 

 any other French subject except Captain Le Fabvre, who has agreed 

 that, as the discussions are to be conducted in the French language, 

 you should have the benefit of the services of Captain Elliott (Her 

 Majesty's ship Eurydice) which he has kindly consented to afford as 

 interpreter. 



3. In addition to the information which will be found in the docu- 

 ments and correspondence which accompany this memorandum, and 

 of which a schedule is annexed, I would impress upon you to bear 

 in your constant recollection, that while it may be desirable that the 

 existing provisions of law and treaties by which the supply of bait 

 by British subjects to the fishermen of France is at present regulated, 

 should be reconsidered with a view to their revision, and perhaps 

 relaxation, yet that the protection of the rights and interests of our 

 own fishermen, and of all connected with them, must be regarded by 

 you as the primary object to be kept steadily in view. The real ques- 

 tion to be considered may therefore be stated as being " how far we 

 are in a position to make, without injury to our own coast and har- 

 bor fisheries, such concessions, with a view to the supply of bnit from 

 the British shores of Newfoundland for the use of the French vessels 

 engaged in the prosecution of the bank and deep-sea fisheries, (from 

 which, by their high bounties, they are enabled to exclude, not British 

 fishermen only, but those of all other nations, from successful compe- 

 tition), as may be regarded by them as an equivalent for their with- 

 drawing from certain parts of the north-west coast of this Island 

 within which they at present enjoy by treaty the right of taking and 

 curing fish, say from Cape Ray to Bonne Bay or Green Point," I 

 do not propose the extension of this concession to us further to the 

 eastward, because I am convinced it would be resisted. I therefore 

 proceed to state, first, the advantages which would, in my opinion, 

 result to England from the acquisition of this portion of the coasts 

 of this Island, from which, although possessing the acknowledged 

 territorial sovereignty, Her Majesty s authority and that of the law 

 is at present excluded ; and secondly, what are the equivalents I would 

 propose to offer in exchange. 1st. The climate and soil of the Dis- 

 trict to which I have referred are said to be good; it possesses fine 

 timber, and is in other respects adapted for agricultural, lumbering, 

 and shipbuilding pursuits; its coast fishery is also good, and it pos- 

 sesses several rivers, and consequently salmon fisheries, particularly 

 at the mouth of the Cod Roy River near Cape Anguille. These are 

 confessedly great advantages; but there is another consideration con- 

 nected with the acquisition of an uncontrolled possession of this dis- 

 trict, which with me has more weight than all those benefits which I 

 have enumerated. It is, that we may be placed in a position to 

 redeem from the most lamentable of all imaginable conditions a Brit- 

 ish population consisting of many thousands of the natural born sub- 

 jects of the Queen, who are at present, existing without law, without 

 religion, and setting at open defiance the restraints alike of God and 

 man, and passing from the cradle to the grave in a state of worse than 

 barbarism or heathenism. To rescue our fellow countrymen from so 

 bad a state, imposed upon them bv the unwise restrictions of imprac- 

 ticable treaties to bring them within the pale of civilized life to 

 extend to them the protection and to exact from them obedience to 

 the laws, as well as to open up the treasures of the land and of the 



