G2 NATIONAL DISPUTES ABOUT THE FISHERIES. 



which the French had been accustomed to pay to England 

 for the privilege of fishing off Newfoundland was remitted, 

 and our trade began to decline, while that of France pro- 

 portionately increased. This result was necessarily dis- 

 pleasing to Englishmen, and a sturdy cod-merchant, in 

 1676, determined to give his rivals a lesson. Taking 

 with him one hundred and two twenty-gun ships, and a 

 couple of ships-of-war, he succeeded, in spite of French 

 fortifications, in capturing as many cod as yielded him 

 the noble sum of 386,400. 



What France failed to gain by open force, she next 

 attempted to win by stealthy encroachments ; and though 

 the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 had formally recognized 

 Newfoundland as a British possession, she had made such 

 progress that in 1721 she had no fewer than four hundred 

 vessels trading in cod, and had almost driven us out of 

 foreign markets. After a long series of aggressions, she 

 consummated her audacity in 1762 by seizing upon the 

 island ; only, however, to be driven out of it in the fol- 

 lowing year. For another century the fishery continued 

 to be a source of contention between the two nations ; but 

 in 1857 the English and French Governments executed a 

 convention by which certain privileges were surrendered 

 and given on both sides, and the French obtained per- 

 mission to cure their fish on the small islands of St. Pierre 

 and Miquelon, with the understanding that they should 

 erect no fortifications. 



All about the cod-fishery at Newfoundland, we may 

 learn from the elaborate pages of Lacepede, who begins 

 by informing the reader that nets were first employed till 

 it was found that these were liable, not only to be rent 



