BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 237 



themselves an authority In certain 

 cases to prevent encroachments, but 

 under such limitations as shall not 

 prejudice our rights of sovereignty, 

 or our claim to consider the existing 

 duty of removal as applicable to fish- 

 ing establishments only. 



We think it politic, also, to provide 

 that an acquiescence on the part of the 

 French, for a specified period, in any 

 erection made to the prejudice of their 

 fishery rights, shall cast upon them the 

 payment of compensation in case of the 

 subsequent removal at their instance 

 of any such erection. 



In the same manner we think it ad- 

 visable to give the French a certain 

 authority to protect their rights 

 against British vessels or boats tres- 

 passing on the fishing grounds as- 

 signed to the French. 



The general effect of the authority 

 we thus propose to confer on the 

 French by land and water, would sim- 

 ply be to legalize and regulate an 

 Irregular interference of the French 

 with our settlements and vessels which 

 already exists in practice, and which, 

 iu the absence of police arrangements 

 on the part of the British Govern- 

 ment, obviously cannot be prevented. 

 It, will, probably, not be convenient to 

 Introduce such arrangements on the 

 greater part of the coast assigned to 

 the French within any given time. 



But according to our plan such ar- 

 rangements, whenever made by the 

 British Government, would at once 

 and entirely supersede, within their 

 range, the authority otherwise con- 

 ferred on the French. 



We believe then an authorized sys- 

 tem of this kind would be far less 

 productive of collision than the con- 

 tinuance of a practice of French con- 

 trol, which British subjects have a 

 legal right to resist, but of which the 

 British Government, so long as it gives 

 the French no active protection of its 

 own, has no just ground to complain. 



For the terms we would propose, see 

 articles 4, 5, and 6, of the separate 

 paper. 



