THE FIRST ANGLO-FRENCH DUEL 97 



Council forbad Spanish and Portuguese ships to fish or trade 



* between Cape Race and Cape Bonavista within which limits 



the English have their usual settlements and fishery V and 



the French Government, while issuing similar prohibitions 



against Spanish and other foreign ships, allowed English 



ships in times of peace to fish and trade between Cape Race 



and Cape Bonavista, and ordered them to be warned oif if 



they fished or traded elsewhere.'^ La Hontan wrote that 



Spaniards fished at Old Port-au-Choix (' Portochua ') in his 



day, and not long afterwards a Spanish ship was confiscated 



in Placentia Bay by the French, but speaking broadly Spanish 



and Portuguese fishermen had almost vanished from the 



shores of Newfoundland before the war began; and now 



their last remnants finally followed the Dutchmen into the 



limbo of forgotten things. 



The Act did not refer to Governors, The remorseless convoy' 



logic of events was interpreted in the same way by the care- ^^P*^^*^^ 



ful constitutionalists of the Revolution as it had been by the mandants 



Star Chamber, by Cromwell, and by the interested dilettanti ^^^^^^^^ 

 ^ ' "^ Governors, 



of the Restoration. They would not, nor could they, subject 

 the nomads to the settlers, the many to the few, nor the 

 amphibious to the land-animal ; and all of them joined, not 

 in dispraise of the latter, but in praise of the former. Norris's 

 Commission had appointed him ' Governor and Commander- 

 in-Chief of the forts and forces * in Newfoundland ; and his "" 

 successors bore the same title.^ During his presence the^ 

 convoy-captain was supreme in naval and military affairs by^ 

 virtue of his Commission. During his absence, the com- 

 mandant of the garrison acted as his understudy, and military 

 power was defined by the Privy Council in such a way, as to 

 confer ' no power over the planters or fishermen, except to 



* e. g. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series^ March 31, 1698. 



2 e. g. Canada^ Documents relatifs, &c., Jan. 30, 1697 ; May 28, 

 1698. 



^ Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, April 21, Nov. 13, Nov. 

 23, 1699. 



VOL. V, PT. IV H 



