2089.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
། ཟ། ། ། ། ། mmimmimC.O. 885
11 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
MY LORD,
No. 796. (NEWFOUNDLAND.)
LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.
We were honoured with your Lordship's commands signified in Mr. Herbert's letter of the 22nd February stating that he was directed by your Lordship to
Temple, March 6, 1873. state that Her Majesty's Government had under consideration the question of appointing magistrates to keep peace and order among the settlers on the west coast, commonly known as the French shore, of Newfoundland, and that our opinion is desired whether the establishment of such a magistracy would contravene any existing treaty between Great Britain and France.
2. That by the 18th Article of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) the sovereignty of the Island of Newfoundland and its dependencies was assured to the Queen, but by that treaty and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles (1783) certain rights of fishing on the coast of the Island were assigned to French subjects, and by the Treaty of Paris (1814) the French right of fishery upon the coasts of Newfoundland was replaced upon the footing in which it stood in 1772.
3. That those treaties and the British and French Declarations which were annexed to the Treaty of 1783, would be found in the first volume of Hertalet's Treaties, pages 237-245 and page 253, and the result of them was shortly summed up by Lord Palmerston, in a note of July 10th, 1838, to Count Sebastiani, as follows:-
"The right of fishing on the coast of Newfoundland was assigned to French sub- jects by the King of Great Britain by the Treaty of Peace of 1783, to be enjoyed by them as they had the right to enjoy that which was assigned to them by the Treaty of Utrecht."
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"That the right assigned to French subjects by the Treaty of Utrecht was 'catch fish and to dry them on land' within the district described in the said Treaty, subject to the condition not to erect any buildings' upon the Island 'besides stages
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made of boards and huts necessary and usual for drying fish,' and not to resort to
"the said Island beyond the time necessary for fishing and drying of fish."
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"That a Declaration annexed to the Treaty of 1783, by which the right assigned
'to French subjects was renewed, contains an engagement that in order that the
⚫ fishermen of the two nations may not give a cause for daily quarrels, His Britannic
Majesty would take the most positive measures for preventing his subjects from interrupting in any manner by their competition the fishing of the French during "the temporary exercise of it, which was granted to them,' and that His Majesty "would for this purpose cause the fixed settlements which should be found there to "be removed."
That "a counter declaration stated that the King of France was satisfied with the arrangement concluded in the above terms.'
That "the Treaty of Peace of 1814 declares that the French right of fishing at "Newfoundland is replaced. upon the footing upon which it stood in 1792.”
4. That it appeared that from a period as far back as 1784 British subjects and others have settled down within the limits of the so-called French shore, and Governor Musgrave reported in 1865 that the population had been growing rapidly of late years, and then amounted to nearly 3,000, and that it was believed that the number was still increasing.
5. That the question how to maintain law and order amongst these settlers had been from time to time under the consideration of the Imperial Government, and that
6. In 1838 Lord Glenelg refused to sanction the appointment of a magistrate at St. George's Bay, on the ground that, as that place was within the limits of the French. fishery, the establishment of any "permanent settlement," whether of French or English subjects, was inconsistent with treaty engagements.
7. That in 1843 Governor Harvey suggested that the senior officers of Her Majesty's ships should be made justices of the peace, with instructions to arrest and send offenders to trial in the Colonial Courts, and that
8. The matter was referred to the Queen's Advocate, Sir J. Dodson, who reported "that the British Government has of itself, and without entering into an arrangement "with the Government of France on the subject, a perfect right of bringing within
16978-893.
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