BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 243 



mercial spirit, but with a due regard to the maintenance of the honor 

 of the Crown in the faithful observance of the treaties which guaran- 

 tee to the French the enjoyment of their privileges, I am also sensible 

 that there are involved in the consideration of the question circum- 

 stances affecting in the highest degree the prosperity of this colony, 

 whose interests have been confided to my care, and which are of hardly 

 less importance to all Her Majesty's subjects concerned in its fisheries, 

 requiring the exercise of great vigilance in the maintenance of our 

 existing rights, and of firmness in resisting the demands of our rivals 

 for further concessions to which they have no equitable claim. 



5. I do not now propose to enter into a discussion of the claim of 

 the French to an exclusive right of fishery on that part of the coast on 

 which a right of fishery was assigned to them by the Treaties of 

 Utrecht and Versailles. The absence of any foundation for such a 

 claim is so unanswerably shewn, and the true interpretation of the 

 Treaties so clearly laid down in Lord Palmerston's note of June 10th, 

 1838, to the French Ambassador, Count Sebastiani, as to render 

 unnecessary any further argument on this point. The assertion of 

 the claim is, I have reason to believe, of comparatively recent date; 

 and, from the reference made to it in the occasional correspondence 

 of the French Naval Officers on this station, appears not to be founded 

 on the words of the treaty, but rather on the proclamation of Sir 

 Charles Hamilton, of 1822. This proclamation, as well as two pre- 

 ceding ones in 1802 and 1788, were issued under an Act 28 Geo. 3, 

 Cap. 35, passed not until five years after the treaty of Versailles, (in 

 consequence, it would appear, of the lawless conduct of British sub- 

 jects) in order to give our Government power, if necessary, to enforce 

 the terms of the treaty, and to restrain by extreme measures British 

 subjects from interrupting the French fishery. For, if the Ministerial 

 Declaration on the part of Great Britain, annexed to the treaty of 

 Versailles, be relied on as the foundation of the French assumption, it 

 must be taken as a whole; and the terms " 13th Article of the Treaty 

 of Utrecht, and the method of carrying on the fishery, which has at 

 all times been acknowledged, shall be the plan upon which the fishery 

 shall be carried on there; it shall not be deviated from by either 

 party ; " must have some meaning. 



The whole history of the fishery, from the tune of the Treaty of 

 Utrecht, furnishes the construction to be put upon these terms. 

 Under that Treaty, the fishery was always concurrent. The mode in 

 which that fishery has been carried on, concurrently by the two na- 

 tions, is clearly evinced by the Proclamations of Governors Palliser, 

 Shulham, and Duff, set out in the printed papers accompanying your 

 Grace's despatch. Again, the ministerial declaration is in this respect 

 in accordance with the 5th Article of the Treaty, which is the more 

 important Document, and which declares, that " the French fishermen 

 shall enjoy the fishery which is assigned to them by this present arti- 

 cle, as they had the right to enjoy that which was assigned to them 

 by the Treaty of Utrecht." 



6. In reference to the meaning of the terms " fixed settlements ", 

 and the proper construction of the declaration that His Majesty 

 would cause them to be removed, I have derived much information 

 from two members of my Council who have been in this Island for 

 upwards of half a century, both of them, for a long period of years 

 after their arrival, and one still, largely engaged in the Trade and 



8. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 6 & 



