X INTRODUCTION 



island was vested in Great Britain, but, to quote a competent 

 authority, "colonisation or settlement was not only not existing or 

 contemplated, but was even prohibited by Great Britain under 

 severe penalties. The fishermen of the two nations met on the New- 

 foundland fishing grounds, living on board their vessels, and prose- 

 cuting their fishing in their boats, and occupying the land, or rather 

 the beaches on the coast, only for the temporary purpose of curing 

 and drying their fish. So carefully was the very idea of anything 

 like a permanent possession, or right of possession, forbidden among 

 the English fishermen, that occupation of any particular place on 

 the shore during one season gave no priority of claim whatever to 

 that place for the next season. The beaches along the coast were 

 marked by the Fishing Admirals, as they were called, and divided 

 into separate 'rooms' or areas, one sufficient for the fishing purposes 

 of one ship's crew for one season; from which circumstances many 

 of these old areas or spaces are called 'ships' rooms' and 'ancient 

 ships' rooms' to this day. At the beginning of each season these 

 rooms were assigned by the Admiral for the time being, one to each 

 of the several ships in turn of arrival, to be used or occupied by her 

 crew for the season. The captain of the first fishing vessel that 

 arrived on the coast from England in the spring was the Admiral for 

 the season, and was clothed with full judicial and administrative 

 powers. In order to emphasize and give the fullest effect to the 

 'policy' of preventing settlement, the inhabitants (if any) of the coast 

 were by express law prohibited from taking up any beach or place until 

 all the ships arriving from England were provided for. There was then, 

 literally, no local government of any sort on the island; no courts of 

 justice, no judges, magistrates, or other ordinary tribunals, for the 

 administration of justice, or the protection of the people in their simplest 

 and most rudimentary rights and liberties." '• 



Fishing on the Grand Banks to the south of Newfoundland was 

 practically undisturbed. The island itself was an appanage of the 

 fishery and had no claims to consideration independent of the prosecu- 

 tion of the fishery. It was visited by the fishing fleets about the begin- 

 ning of June. It was forsaken by the fishing fleets in the month of 

 August, at which time it was turned over to winter and anarchy. The 

 fishery supplied not only food for England, but also trained the hardy 

 seamen for its protection. The fishery was, however, the monopoly of 

 merchant adventurers from the west of England who beheved that the 



1 The Case for the Colony, stated by the People's Delegates (Messrs; Winter, Scott and 

 Morine), quoted in U. S. Counter Case, pp. 20-21. 



