BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 245 



without stint from the Bays of the Southern Coast of the Island, the 

 most valuable timber, (a) a privilege which the}' had permission to 

 enjoy in the Bays of Fortune and Despair only, for one, or at most 

 two years, after the last Treaty of Peace; the practice of fishing on 

 that part of our coast opposite to the Islands of St. Pierre and Mi- 

 quelon, in many cases to the absolute exclusion and expulsion of our 

 fishermen; the still more injurious practice of fishing for bait in the 

 harbors and coves of Placentia and Fortune Bays, and of digging for 

 shell fish on our shores a practice which, together with the illicit 

 traffic in bait with our people, is not only absolutely destroying the 

 fishery in those Bays, but, what is worse, likely to lead to the extermi- 

 nation of the Bait itself their extensive encroachments until very 

 recently at Belle Isle and the Labrador their usurpation of the 

 Salmon fisheries in almost all the rivers and streams running into the 

 sea within the coast limits assigned to them ; the erection of build- 

 ings and establishments not authorized by Treaties the very injuri- 

 ous effects upon our shore fishery of their practice of bultow fishing 

 on the Banks, not authorized, it is contended, by the Treaty of 

 Utrecht ; and other minor matters which, although it is true we have 

 not formally complained of them, ought not to be excluded from con- 

 sideration under present circumstances. 



9. On the other hand, notwithstanding that the French Naval 

 Authorities charged with the protection of the fisheries, use the ut- 

 most vigilance in preventing any interference with their rights by 

 our people, complaints from thence against British subjects are lim- 

 ited almost entirely to occasional larcenies from the French establish- 

 ments, while their owners are absent from the coast. In fact, during 

 the fishing season, their means of preventing by force any fishing by 

 British subjects are such as effectually to discourage all attempts of 

 the kind. 



10. I can, therefore, assure Your Grace that it is the unanimous 

 feeling of the inhabitants of this Colony, that so far from the 

 French having any just ground of complaint, and from being entitled 

 upon a revision of existing treaties to ask any further concession, it 

 is rather British subjects who are entitled to indemnity for injuries 

 to our fisheries, direct and consequential, resulting from the encroach- 

 ments of the French, and their abuse of the privileges conferred upon 

 them, no less than from the forbearance of the former to exercise 

 rights to which the letter of the treaty entitled them rights which, 

 though they may have been suspended in some localities, have never 

 been surrendered. And I may add that I feel confident, that, inju- 

 rious to their interests as have been the operations of the existing 

 treaties with France, the inhabitants of this colony would deprecate 

 extremely any alteration by which their rivals might obtain privi- 

 leges of fishing upon any other parts of the shore of this Island or 

 its dependencies. Such, indeed, is the nature of the struggle which 

 they now have to maintain in their competition in foreign markets 

 with the French, owing to the effect of their bounties, that any addi- 

 tional advantage conceded to the French would effectually turn the 

 scale against us and be ruinous to the Trade and Fisheries of this 

 Colony. 



11. Whatever may be the opinions formed by Her Majesty's Gov- 

 ernment in consequence of the communications of my predecessors 

 on this subject, the current of events during late years has so devel- 



