THE THIRD ANGLO-FRENCH DUEL 131 



conferred by the Treaty of Versailles. The question of the 

 fisheries became menacing soon after 1763. 



Immediately after the Treaty of Paris (1763) was signed, The Treaty 

 there was a collision, or an apprehended collision, between ^^-^jj" 

 French and English fishermen in Newfoundland. The questions 

 English home authorities strained the Act of 1699 in order %ction^and 

 to avert this danger, and instructed the Governors of New- the right to 

 foundland to prohibit ' exclusive possession ' — in other words, ^j-^fjy ^ ^^ 

 settlement by Englishmen along the Treaty shore (1764)- Coasts, 

 Nothing was said about fishing-rights, which were presumably 

 concurrent, or about jurisdiction, except that Englishmen 

 were not to interfere in disputes between Frenchmen and 

 Frenchmen.* Palliser, Byron, and Duflf, who governed the 

 island from 1764 to 1775, correctly inferred that their jurisdic- 

 tion — except between Frenchmen and Frenchmen — was sole 

 and exclusive, took French vessels which traded or shipped 

 furs along the Treaty coast before the Vice-Admiralty Court 

 at St. John's, sent French trespassers back to France, and 

 ordered their subordinates to expel any French armed force 

 which they might encounter. The French authorities disputed 

 this interpretation, and raised an additional and still more 

 unfounded claim with regard to the boundary of their fishing 

 easement on the west coast. In sustaining this claim French 

 arguments derived valuable assistance from English ignorance. 



Captain Taverner had vainly petitioned in 1726 iox which were 



a Commission to survey the north and west, even as he had ^[^^^^ 



^ ' known f tn 



already surveyed most of the south coast of Newfoundland ; spite of 

 so, in 1729, he sailed on his own account up the east coast as ^^^^^«<^^> 

 far as Belle Isle Strait (Cape De Grat), where the captain of 

 a Breton fishing-fleet turned him back, saying "^ * that I was 

 a terraw {sic) to all the coast, that they had never seen an 



1 Instructions to Palliser, and legal opinions March 21, 1764, and 

 May 6, 1765, in John Reeves' History of the Government of New- 

 foundland, i793> PP* 120, 130. 



* See Taverner's Petition and Reports, March 28, 1726, ? 8, 1729, 

 Feb. 5,.i734- 



K 2 



