BRITISH, COLONIAL, AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 303 



come the difficulties arising out of the claim of Great Britain to a con- 

 current right of fishery, suggested that the question would be best 

 settled if the rights or the fishermen of the two nations were kept 

 separate and distinct. In order to carry out this suggestion, he pro- 

 posed that the French rights should be made exclusive as against Brit- 

 ish subjects from Cape St. John to some point on the western coast, 

 such as Cape Verte (Green Point, to the north of Bonne Bay) ; the 

 French, on the other hand, to renounce their right altogether on the 

 remainder of the coast, which would be that part where the British 

 had been in the habit of carrying on the herring fishery and other 

 fisheries incidental to the requirements of a fixed population. 



The French negotiator offered no objection to the plan of recogniz- 

 ing the French "exclusive right" on a diminished extent of coast; 

 but he contended for the retention of a " concurrent right " on that 

 portion of the coast on which their exclusive claim might be re- 

 nounced, and for other advantages as well, such as admission, con- 

 currently with British fishermen, to the fisheries of Labrador and 

 North Belle Isle, and to the " bait fishery " on the southern coast, all 

 of which, he maintained, were necessary, as an equivalent for admit- 

 ting British subjects to a free " concurrent right " on the lower por- 

 tion of the western coast. 



The British Commissioner was disposed to accept the demands of 

 the French so far as to extend the French fishery to North Belle Isle, 

 and also to remove all restrictions on the purchase of " bait," on 

 condition that the French should entirely renounce their rights be- 

 tween Cape Verte and Cape Ray; and in June 1855 he forwarded 

 to the Foreign Office the above suggestions in the form of a counter 

 proposal to those which had been made by France. 



Mr. Labouchere, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, 

 concurred in the adoption of the British negotiator's project of a 

 " compromise " as the basis of negotiation to be offered to the French 

 Government. It corresponded, he believed, with the views of the 

 Colonial authorities; deprived neither nation of any advantage of 

 real value; and there would only be a reciprocal abandonment of 

 barren rights and useless or nominal restrictions; and he prepared 

 a draft treaty which might be substituted for the whole of the exist- 

 ing engagements on the Newfoundland Fisheries question. 



The negotiations were continued in the year 1856 by Captain 

 Pigeard, who arrived in London in the month of July of that year, 

 and by Mr. Merivale, the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies. 

 The basis of these negotiations was founded upon the counter pro- 

 posals made by Sir A. Perrier, and also upon the draft of the treaty 

 proposed by Mr. Labouchere. The negotiations finally terminated 

 by the signature of a Convention in London on the 17th January 1857. 



According to the stipulations of this Convention, a printed copy 

 of which is annexed, an exclusive right of fishery and the use of the 

 strand for fishery purposes was conceded to the French from Cape St. 

 John, on the east co;ist of Newfoundland, to the Quirpon Islands, and 

 from the Quirpon Islands, on the north coast, to Cape Norman, on 

 the west coast, in and upon the following five fishery harbours, 

 namely, Port-au-Choix, Small Harbour, Port-au-Port, Red Island, 

 and Cod Roy Island, to extend, as regarded these five harbours, to a 

 radius of three marine miles in all directions from the centre of each 



