A HALF-CENTURY OF PROGRESS, 1713-63 in 



that claimed Newfoundland eliminated one another one by 



one until only one claimant was left ; and the thing claimed 



was for the first time clearly conceived. Two centuries of 



labour were required to bring to the birth these crude and 



elemental ideas. Even then these ideas were not expressed subject to 



the vested 

 whole-heartedly, for the eighteenth century at which we \i'A:^^ fishing 



arrived was an age not of chivalry but of sophisters and econo- ^^l^^^^^^j^ 



mists and calculators, not of martyrdom but of self-interest settling 



and good-humoured tolerance ; and laissez-faire^ laissez-aller *^^^^on. 



was its characteristic motto. Truth was clear, but the fight 



for truth was tiring, error had its uses, and 'private vices 



were public benefits '. Difficulties if left to themselves would 



resolve themselves, and incongruities had better be ignored ; so 



statesmen who believed in the permanence and progress of 



English settlers upheld the vested rights of the vagrants, and 



perpetuated for another eighty years dual control by residents 



and fishing admirals, and allowed for the next two centuries j 



French as well as English fishermen to haunt the northern and ( 



western shores of an English island. The shadow of French' 



dominion survived its substance and hovered banefully over \ 



the remoter districts. The conflicting rights of English \ 



fishing admirals and settlers in the settled districts, and the \ 



prospect of a similar conflict between French fishing admirals \ 



and Englishmen in the yet unsettled districts, made political, I 



economic, and social progress slow. \ 



The third century of the history of Newfoundland began Domestic 

 with a treaty (17 13) and ended with a treaty (181 8), and was ^/Z^^-^^'^. 

 divided into two half-periods by a treaty (1763), but it had cussed first, 

 already begun to display microscopic germs of constitutional ^7i3-o3- 

 development, and its domestic history must be narrated 

 before its foreign relations are discussed. y 



The jurisdiction of the fishing admirals over fishing ^\^\iistice was 



putes rested on immemorial custom, upon which the Star \^P^^^^<^ 

 '^ ^ nominally 



Chamber (1634) and Parliament (1699) only set a legislative /jz/^/z/w^ 



seal. But custom limited their jurisdiction to fishing-ships'r^^^'''^^'^ 



