1150 MISCELLANEOUS. 



"His Britannic Majesty will give orders that the French fishermen 

 be not incommoded in cutting the wood necessary for the repair of 

 their scaffolds, huts, and fishing-vessels. The 13th article of the 

 treaty of Utrecht, and the method of carrying on the fishery which 

 has at all times been acknowledged, shall be the plan upon which the 

 fishery shall be carried on there. It shall not be deviated from by 

 either party the French fishermen building only their scaffolds, 

 confining themselves to the repair of their fishing-vessels, and not 

 wintering there; the subjects or his Britannic Majesty, on their part, 

 not molesting, in any manner, the French fishermen during their 

 fishing, nor injuring their scaffolds during their absence. The King 

 of Great Britain, in ceding the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon to 

 France, regards them as ceded for the purpose of serving as a real 

 shelter to the French fishermen, and in full confidence that these 

 possessions will not become an object of jealousy between the two 

 nations, and that the fishery between the said islands and that of 

 Newfoundland shall be limited to the middle of the channel." 



In the "counter declaration" on the part of France, it is said that 



"The King of Great Britain undoubtedly places too much confidence 

 in the uprightness of his Majesty's intentions not to rely upon his con- 

 stant attention to prevent the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon from 

 becoming an object of jealousy between the two nations. As to the 

 fishery on the coasts of Newfoundland, which has been the object of 

 the new arrangements settled by the two sovereigns upon this matter, 

 it is sufficiently ascertained by the 5th article of the treaty of peace 

 signed this day, and by the declaration likewise delivered this day by 

 his Britannic Majesty's ambassador extraordinary and plenipoten- 

 tiary; and his Majesty declares that he is fully satisfied on this head. 

 In regard to the fishery between the island of Newfoundland and 

 those of St. Pierre and Miquelon, it is not to be carried on, by either 

 party, but to the middle of the channel; and his Majesty will give the 

 most positive orders that the French fishermen shall not go beyond 

 this line. His Majesty is firmly persuaded that the King of Great 

 Britain will give like orders to the English fishermen." 



The fishery at St. Pierre and Miquelon, at the period of the French 

 revolution, was in a prosperous condition ; but tne confusion and dis- 

 tresses of civil war soon produced a disastrous change, and the fishing- 

 grounds were in a great degree abandoned for several years. In 

 1792, the number of men employed both at Newfoundland and Ice- 

 land was less than thirty-four hundred. The hostile relations with 

 England which followed the domestic commotions caused additional 

 misfortunes, until the peace of Amiens, in 1802.* 



In the year 1800, by a treaty between the United States and France, 

 concluded at Paris, it was stipulated that "neither party will interfere 

 with the fisheries of the other on its coasts, nor disturb the other in the 

 exercise of its rights which it now holds, or may acquire, on the coast 

 of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or elsewhere on the 



* The fishing privileges which were continued to France were again the subject of 

 complaint at the peace of Amiens. The Right Hon. William Windham, in a speech in 

 Parliament, November 4, 1801, said that, by the terms of the proposed peace, "France 

 gives nothing, and, excepting Trinidad and Ceylon, England gives everything;" and 

 in the enumeration of cessions which ' ' tended only to confirm more and more the deep 

 despair in which he was plunged in contemplating the probable consequences of the 

 present treaty," he mentioned, "in North America, St. Pierre and Miquelon, with a 

 right to the fisheries in the fullest extent to which they were ever claimed." 



