ACT FOR REGULATING THE FISHERY. 167

the spirit of which was to defend and support the ship fishery carried on from England.

Its principal regulations were, that the privilege of drying fish on the shores should be limited to his

majesty’s subjects arriving at Newfoundland from Great Britain and Ireland, or any of the British

dominions in Europe. This law set at rest all that had been agitated in favour of the resident colonists.

It must, at the same time, be acknowledged, that its provisions for upholding the ship fishery, for the purpose of making it a nursery for training seamen, were Wise and judicious; and making the fish and oil liable for the payment of wages due to the people employed in and about the fisheries, was a very pro- per regulation. It extended, also, a bounty to the Newfoundland bank fishing ; and British ships might by it occupy any part of the coasts of Labrador, as well as Newfoundland, and they were not to be under any constraint as to days or hours of working.

L’Abbé Raynal observes, “ that the English fish-

ing admirals car1ied their insolence and superiority 7“ so far at this time, as to fo1bid the F1ench fishermen K to fish for cod on Sunday, upon the pietence that their own abstained from catching on that day.”

The Ame1ican levolutionary wa1, dining its con- tinuance, affected, in a very injurious degree, the affairs of Newfoundland. A bill was passed in Parlia- ment, prohibiting the people of New England from

fishing at Newfoundland.* This measure was loudly

5‘ 15 Geo. 111., cap. 10.