244 MISCELLANEOUS 



Fisheries. During the War which ended in 1783, and the same cir- 

 cumstances occurred during the subsequent Wars ending respectively 

 in 1801 and 1814 the Fishery was engrossed by the British; and 

 fishing establishments of a substantial nature had been fixed by them 

 in all the various harbors on the Coast on which the French were 

 assigned a right of Fishery, to such an extent as effectually to prevent 

 the fishery being carried on as it had been under the Treaty of 

 Utrecht; and hence the necessity of their removal to admit all parties 

 to the fair enjoyment of their rights. At this time we had little or no 

 fishery at the Labrador. At the close of the last war and for some 

 years afterwards, British subjects still retained exclusively their fish- 

 ing establishments, and after the lapse of about seven years, a further 

 Proclamation was found necessary and was issued accordingly. The 

 French soon resorted to the Coast in such numbers as to prevent by 

 force the British Fishermen from occupying the former locations; 

 and under these circumstances, the latter, with few exceptions, aban- 

 doned the fishery and betook themselves to the Labrador. There are 

 nevertheless, on the North East Coast, within the limits assigned for 

 the French fishery, as well as in St. George's Bay as elsewhere on the 

 West Coast, not a few British subjects who, and whose ancestors, 

 without hindrance or interruption to the French, have exercised a 

 concurrent fishery continuously, since the Treaty of Versailles. The 

 right of British Subjects to reside on the Coast, for which purpose 

 permanent habitations and buildings must be occupied, is in no man- 

 ner prohibited by the Treaty. But the assumption by the French of 

 an exclusive right of fishing in the waters off the Coast, and at such 

 distance from the Coast as they may arbitrarily prescribe, (for no 

 limit is defined in the Treaty), is still more unfounded, and it has 

 never been admitted, since it would be productive of the most in- 

 jurious consequences to British Subjects. 



My object in briefly adverting to these particulars is not for the 

 purpose of arguing a proposition which has been disposed of so con- 

 clusively by Lord Palmerston in his note above referred to, but rather 

 to shew, in reference to the arrangement which I shall presently sug- 

 gest, that British subjects are entitled to the enjoyment of valuable 

 rights on that part of the coast, and in the adjacent waters where the 

 privilege of fishery has been conceded to the French; which rights 

 ought not to be renounced on even a limited part of the coast, without 

 a commensurate equivalent. 



8. But while the British Government, from a sincere desire to carry 

 out the Treaty with the utmost advantage to the French, have dis- 

 couraged British subjects from resorting to the greater part of the 

 " French Shore " as it is called, the policy of the French has, in return, 

 been constantly aggressive, and their fishermen have been guilty of 

 incessant violations of the Treaty in various ways, and of the most 

 serious encroachments on fishing grounds to which they have no pre- 

 tence of claim; the resistance and prevention of which have involved, 

 and still involve great trouble and expense on the part of Her Ma- 

 jesty's Government. These encroachments and violations of the 

 Treaty have been the subject of reiterated complaints from the Legis- 

 lature and the Commercial Body of this Island, and are noticed in the 

 yearly reports of the Naval Officers appointed to inspect and protect 

 the fisheries. Among the more prominent of these causes of com- 

 plaint, I may mention, first, the practice of cutting and taking away 



