168 APPENDIX TO BRITISH COUNTER CASE. 



and had communicated the last propositions to them; they, every 

 one of them, unanimously condemned that respecting the tories, so 

 that that unhappy affair stuck, as he foresaw and foretold that it 

 would. 



The affair of the fishery too, was somewhat altered. They could 

 not admit us to dry on the shores of Nova Scotia, nor to fish within 

 three leagues of the coast, nor within fifteen leagues of the coast of 

 Cape Breton. The boundary they did not approve; they thought it 

 too extended, too vast a country, but they would not make a difficulty. 

 That if these terms were not admitted, the whole affair must be 

 thrown into Parliament, where every man would be for insisting on 

 restitution to the refugees. He talked about excepting a few, by 

 name, of the most obnoxious of the refugees. 



I could not help observing that the ideas respecting the fishery 

 appeared to me to come piping hot from Versailles. I quoted to 

 them the words of our treaty with France, in which the indefinite 

 and exclusive right to the fishery on the western side of Newfound- 

 land was secured against us, according to the true construction of 

 the treaties of Utrecht and Paris. I showed them the twelfth and 

 thirteenth articles of the treaty of Utrecht, by which the French 

 were admitted to fish from Cape Bona Vista to Cape Riche. I re- 

 lated to them the manner in which the cod and haddock came into 

 the rivers, harbors, creeks, and up to the very wharves, on all the 

 northern coast of America, in the spring, in the month of April, so 

 that you have nothing to do but step into a boat and bring in a parcel 

 of fish in a few hours ; but that in May they begin to withdraw ; we 

 have a saying at Boston, that when the " blossoms fall, the haddock 

 begin to crawl ; " that is, to move into deep water, so that in summer 

 you must go out some distance to fish. At Newfoundland it was the 

 same; the fish, in March or April, were in shore in all the creeks, 

 bays, and harbors, that is, within three leagues of the coasts or 

 shores of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia; that neither French nor 

 English could go from Europe and arrive early enough for the first 

 fare; that our vessels could, being so much nearer, an advantage 

 which God and nature had put into our hands; but this advantage 

 of ours had ever been an advantage to England, because our fish 

 had been sold in Spain and Portugal for gold and silver, and that 

 gold and silver sent to London for manufactures; that this would be 

 the course again; that France foresaw it, and wished to deprive 

 England of it, by persuading her to deprive us of it; that it would 

 be a master stroke of policy if she could succeed, but England must- 

 be completely the dupe before she would succeed. 



There were three lights in which it might be viewed: 1. As a 

 nursery for seamen ; 2. As a source of profit ; 3. As a source of con- 

 tention. As a nursery of seamen, did England consider us as worse 

 enemies than France? Had she rather France should have the sea- 

 men than America? The French marine was nearer and more 

 menacing than ours. As a source of profit, had England rather 

 France should supply the markets of Lisbon and Cadiz with fish, 

 and take the gold and silver, than we? France would never spend 

 any of that money in London; we should spend it all very nearly. 

 As a source of contention, how could we restrain our fishermen, the 

 boldest men alive, from fishing in prohibited places? How could 

 our men see the French admitted to fish, and themselves excluded by 



