1421 Exhibit with Appendix (/). 



SELECT CASF FROM THE RECORDS OF THE SUPREME COURT OF NEWFOUND- 

 LAND. 



(Argued and determined in the Supreme Court, St. Johns, New- 

 foundland.) 



From the year 1817 to the year 1822. 

 JENNINGS AND LONG against HUNT AND BEARD. 



October 26, 1820. 



On this daj^ the Chief Justice delivered the following judgment: 

 The defendants. Phillip Beard and Co., are engaged in an exten- 

 sive salmon fisherv at Sandwich Bay on the Labrador, where thev 

 have a fixed establishment. 



The plaintiffs, Jennings and Long, are British subjects, and reside 

 at Halifax, in the province of Nova Scotia, from which place they 

 have, for a few years past, resorted to Sandwich Bay for the purpose 

 of a salmon fishery likewise. In the pursuit of their common occu- 

 pation, the parties appear to have been brought into contact upon 

 disputed points of right ; the defendants claiming exclusive property 

 in all the rivers in Sandwich Bay, as well as the circumjacent coves 

 within 3 miles of the mouths of the rivers ; and the plaintiffs con- 

 tending for the right to place their nets in any vacant spot not actu- 

 ally indispensable to the others fishery. While the parties were 

 in difference, the Surrogate, Captain Robinson, of His Majesty's ship 

 " Favourite," arrived at the Labrador, and the defendants Beard 

 and Co. immediately brought their case before him, alleging their 

 rights, and complaining of the trespass which had been committed by 

 Jennings. 



******* 



In looking into the proceedings which took place before the Sur- 

 rogate at Labrador, it does appear that he had received certain rules 

 and regulations, in the form of a proclamation, expressly applying 

 to the case before him, and that his decision was founded upon those 

 regulations; but it is then offered in explanation of this circumstance, 

 that the Governor's proclamation necessarily formed part of the 

 Surrogate's proceedings, and was, in fact, the law upon which he 

 founded his judgment. In support of which position, a bundle of 

 orders and other acts of the local Government has been handed into 

 Court, containing a series of regulations and observances for the trade 

 and fisheries of this island, and variously affecting the persons and 

 property of its inhabitants, from which I am to infer that a legis- 

 lative authority in this Government, unknown to the laws of Eng- 

 land, but claimed under a prescriptive exercise in Newfoundland, is 

 2356 



