23 



private rompemations. Your mnduct canies with it an internal evideifice. 

 (myand all th^ legal proofs of a court (^ justice^ 



: Peace had hardly been concluded before the French were accused of 

 violations of the treaty. In 1764, a sloop-of-war carried intelligence to 

 England that they had a very formidable naval force at Newfoundland ; 

 that they intended to erect strong fortifications on St. Peter's ; and that 

 the English commodore on the ' station was without force sufficient to 

 prevent the consummation of their plans. The party opposed to the 

 ministry pronounced a war with France to be inevitable, unless the 

 British government were disposed to surrender both Newfoundland and 

 Canada. The alarm — which illustrates the spirit of the time, and the 

 sensibility of the English people — ^proved to be without cause, since the 

 French governor gave assurances that nothing had been or would be 

 done contrary to the letter of the treaty; that he had but a single small 

 cannon mounted, without a platform, designed merely to answer signals 

 to their ,fisha-men in foggy weather ; that no buildings or works had 

 been erected ; and that his guard consisted of only tbrty-seven men. 

 It appeared, however, that the French naval force was considerable, 

 consisting of one ship of fifty guns, another of twenty-six guns, and 

 others of smaller rates. 



Remarking that the French employed at Newfoundland two hundred 

 and fifty-nine vessels in 1768, and about the same number five years 

 later, we come to the war of our own Revolution. To induce France to aid 

 us in the struggle, our envoys were authorized, in 1776, to stipulate that 

 all the trade between the United States and the French West Indies 

 should be carried on either in French or American vessels : and they 

 were specially instructed to assure his Most Christian Majesty, that if, 

 by fheir joint efforts, the British should be excluded from any share in 

 the cod-fisheries of America by the reduction of the islands of New- 

 foundland and Cape Breton, and ships-of-war should be furnished, at 

 the expense of the United States, to reduce Nova Scotia, the fisheries 

 should be enjoyed equally between them, to the excluB'"'^ of all 

 other nations; and that one-half of Newfoundland should I'o.long to 

 France, and the other half, with Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, to the 

 United States. 



We may smile at — ^we can hardly commend— our fathers for claiming 

 so large a share as this notable scheme devised ; but the spirit which 

 conceived and was prepared to execute so grand an enterprise, addi- 

 tional to the main purposes of their strife with the mother country, is 

 to be placed in strotjg contrast with the indifference manifested now 

 about preserving our rights in the domains which they thus designed to 

 conquer. 



In 1778, the project was renewed.. In the instructions to Franklin, 

 he was directed to urge upon the French court the certainty of ruining 

 the British fisheries on the Banks of Newfoundland, and consea i^ntly 

 the British marine, by reducing Halifax and Quebec. Arcc r^p""y'ng 

 his instructions was a plan for capturing these places, in which the 

 benefits of their acquisition to France and the United States were dis- 

 tinctly pointed out. They were of importance to France, it was said, 

 because "the fishery of Newfoundland is justly considered the basis of a 

 good marine;" and because "the possession of these two places neces- 



