MISCELLANEOUS. 1085 



bury in this latter period, or in the Reports of Lord Cornwallis, who 

 was the British Plenipotentiary, any indication that either of them 

 gave any assurance whatever that the British Government had never 

 questioned the exclusive character of the right of fishery accorded 

 to the French under the Treaty of Utrecht. Such a statement on 

 their part would indeed have been in absolute contradiction to the 

 facts. 



The question therefore hinges mainly on the interpretation to be 

 given to the arrangements made at Versailles in 1783, and on this 

 point I must be permitted to invite special attention to paragraphs 

 29-38 of the Memorandum which I have the honour to inclose, and 

 to refer your Excellency to Lord Palmerston's note to Count Sebas- 

 tiani of the 10th July, 1838, of which your Excellency has only 

 quoted a small, and that, as it seems to me, the least significant, 

 portion. 



For you will find, on reference to the original, that certain words 

 have been omitted, in making the extract, which materially alter the 

 sense, and that the privilege which, as Lord Palmerston states, "has, 

 in practice, been treated by the British Government as an exclusive 

 right during the period of the fishing season, and within the pre- 

 scribed limits," is described by him as "a privilege which consists in 

 the periodical use of a part of the shore of Newfoundland for the 

 purpose of drying their fish;" while in the very next sentence Lord 

 Palmerston goes on to say that "the British Government has never 

 understood the Declaration to have had for its object to deprive 

 British subjects of the right to participate with the French in taking 

 fish at sea off that shore, provided they did so without interrupting 

 the French cod fishery." A perusal of this passage of the preceding 

 paragraph, and of those which succeed it, showing the grounds on 

 which Lord Palmerston based his conclusion, will, I think, convince 

 your Excellency that the arguments advanced in my previous com- 

 munications are in consonance with the views which have always 

 been expressed by Her Majesty's Government. 



To turn to the more immediate object of this correspondence, the 

 question of the injury said to be caused to the French fishery by the 

 use of cod-traps by British fishermen, I have already had the honour 

 of informing your Excellency that, pending the enforcement of the 

 Act which has been passed by the Colonial Legislature for the entire 

 suppression of these traps, special instructions have been issued to 

 the British naval authorities which Her Majesty's Government trust 

 will be effectual in preventing any undue interference by such engines 

 with the fishery of French citizens. In this and in all other respects 

 it is the earnest wish of Her Majesty's Government to do all in their 

 power to insure the enjoyment by the French fishermen of the rights 

 given to them under the Treaty and Declaration of 1783. 



But I can only repeat that the claims preferred on account of 

 Messrs. Dupuis-Robial and Besnier do not appear to Her Majesty's 

 Government to be such as they can consent to entertain. These 

 claims rest virtually on the fact that the amount of fish caught by 

 the complainants was considerably below the average of former sea- 

 sons, that they believe from hearsay evidence that British fishermen 

 who used cod-traps in the vicinity were more successful, and that they 

 attribute their own want of success to this cause, as they do not 

 know to what else it could be attributable. It is admitted by some 



