TREATY OF 1783. 171 above its ordinary level, and so suddenly, that no time was given to prepare against its effects. Some ships foundered with their whole crews ; and more than seven hundred fishing crafts perished, with a great majority of the people in them. The sea broke in upon the lands where fish-houses, flakes, &c, were erected, and occasioned vast loss and de¬ struction. By the third article of the treaty of peace signed at Paris in 1783, it was agreed that the people of the United States should enjoy, unmolested, the right to take fish on the banks of Newfoundland , and in the Gulf of Lawrence, and also at all other places in the sea where they previously used to fish, and on the coast of Newfoundland ; but not to cure their fish on that island. It was also agreed, that provi¬ sions might be imported to the British colonies in British bottoms. This was strongly opposed by the western merchants, but unsuccessfully ; and, in 1788, upon the representation of the merchants connected with Canada, it was proposed to bring a bill into Parliament for preventing entirely the supply of bread, flour, and live stock, from the United States : but this intention was abandoned, and the mode of occasional supply continued. The Board of Trade was abolished in 1782, and, for the last years of its existence, scarcely any thing appears on its records relative to Newfoundland . Mattex-s of trade and plantations were for some years afterwards managed by a committee of council, ap¬ pointed in 1784.