MISCELLANEOUS. 1063 



or even the establishment of taverns and public houses. A subsequent 

 report of the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council of Trade, 

 on the subject of the Newfoundland fishery dated 17th March, 1786, 

 accounts for it in a much more satisfactory manner when they state 

 The French give a bounty upon fish, the produce of their fishery, 

 imported into their West India Islands, of ten livres per quintal, and 

 at the same time lay a duty of five livres per quintal upon all fish 

 imported into those islands by foreign nations. This bounty and 

 duty taken together is equal to a prohibition of foreign fish; and it 

 is a clear proof that even in the opinion of their own government, 

 nothing less than an encouragement more than equal to the first cost 

 of their fish can enable their fishery to have a share of their own 

 markets in the West Indies. 



The French also give a bounty of 5 livres per quintal upon all fish, 

 the produce of their fishery, carried into Spain, Portugal and Italy. 

 This bounty is also so extravagant as clearly to evince the opinion of 

 the French Government of the low state of their fishery. If the 

 Legislature here was to give a like bounty upon the fish of Your 

 Majesty's subjects carried on in those markets, it would amount to 

 120,000 Pounds per annum. Such a measure can therefore be cal- 

 culated merely to introduce their fish into those markets, but can 

 never be intended as a permanent encouragment. 



Your Committee wish particularly to draw attention to these opin- 

 ions of the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council of Trade, 

 to show how mistaken they were in supposing that the French in- 

 tended their bounties merely as a temporary expedient. It will fur- 

 ther appear that they have not only continued them down to the 

 present time, but have extended the fishery thereby to an extent 

 greater than at any former period. 



Your Committee having shewn that it was large bounties alone 

 enabled the French to carry on the fishery on the coast of Newfound- 

 land, down to the period of 1793, have now briefly to remark, that 

 from the war which broke out in that year until the year 1814, with 

 the slight interruption of the Peace of Amiens of 1802, the British 

 had full possession of the fisheries undisturbed by the competition of 

 the French; during that period the fisheries greatly increased and 

 prospered, and the quantity of fish caught ranged from eight hun- 

 dred thousand to a million quintals per annum. It realized high 

 prices in all the foreign markets; the price at Newfoundland ad- 

 vanced to the enormous sum of 45s. sterling per quintal. The esti- 

 mated value of the exports, the produce of the fisheries of one or two 

 of the last years of the war, were stated to exceed two millions and 

 one half sterling. 



Your Committee have now to draw your attention to the violent 

 and sudden revolution, the rapid and unparalleled decline -in the 

 trade and fisheries, consequent upon the Peace, first with France, 

 and then with America. To the French were ceded the Islands of 

 St. Pierre and Miquelon, and the shores from Cape Ray to Cape 

 John. To the Americans were soon after granted equally valuable 

 fishing grounds; and in addition their respective Governments 

 granted enormous bounties to uphold their fisheries, equal almost to 

 the intrinsic value of fish. It leaves no ground to doubt the cause 

 which brought such universal ruin at that period, upon the British 

 trade and fisheries. Your Committee cannot better point out the 



