BAIT-FISH— 'EXPANSION — AND CONFLICT 219 



sword of Damocles hung over the settlement not only at 

 St. George Bay but at the Bay of Islands, Bonne Bay, and 

 St. Barbe. Or, to use a more homely metaphor. Englishmen 

 lived in a glass house and dared not throw stones at the 

 Frenchmen, when they sent round their fleet and exercised 

 extra-territorial jurisdiction, as though the Treaty shore of 

 Newfoundland were on a par with the Treaty Ports of China. 

 The presence of their fleet was a violation of the Treaty of 

 Utrecht ; and the presence of English settlers on the Treaty 

 shore might at any moment be proved to violate the Declara- 

 tion of Versailles. Therefore England remained passive while 

 a French fleet usurped a fragment of its sovereignty, or treated 

 the Treaty shore as though it were savage, or what diploma- 

 tists call unoccupied lands. 



Oddly enough the Treaty shore resembled for a time and the 

 savage lands far more than it resembled the integral part olfisherimn 

 a colony. It was without Government. The Almanack for in what 

 1857 refers to H. H. Forest and E. Alexander as magistrates, their re- 

 and to H. H. Forest as Preventive Officer ; and the Almanack ^aval 

 for 1863 refers to J. Allery as Commissioner for issuing ^^^^^-^ 

 mesne process at St. George Bay. Otherwise there was 

 neither judge, policeman, customs officer, nor any other 

 officer or official on the shore until 1877. The very same 

 anarchy prevailed on the west, as that which had prevailed 

 two centuries ago on the east of Newfoundland, and the very 

 same remedy was applied. The naval officer became judge, 

 policeman, customs officer, and every other officer all in one. 

 He was universal ruler, not by appointment but by necessity. 

 He did not interfere with Frenchmen; nor did the French 

 naval officer interfere with Englishmen, or if he did he after- 

 wards apologized. Atavism was in the air : and we seem 

 suddenly transported back across the centuries to a time 

 when the instincts of the race provided the same salves for 

 the same sores. Indeed, the French fishing-ships, which 

 crossed the ocean in spring and autumn, shadowed by half- 



