ADMINISTRATION OF THE LA‘VS. 181

There is no doubt but that so arbitrary an assump— tion and practice of misrule produced the conse- quences that severity always generates ; and that the planters soon reconciled themselves to the principles of deceit and falsehood, or to the schemes that would most effectually enable them to elude their engage- ments with the adventurers. The resident fishermen, also, who were driven from time to time out of Newfoundland, by the statute of William and Mary, generally turned out the most hardened and depraved characters Wherever they went.

The measures adopted for the administration of the affairs of Newfoundland, during the government of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Hamilton, and since the appointment of his successor, will likely lead in time to whatever is necessary for the better distribution of justice. But the peculiar circumstances of Newfound- land as a great fishing colony, the greater part of the proceeds of which are remitted to England in pay- ment of British manufactures, and the depressed state of the fisheries, imperatively demand that no burden whatever shall be laid upon those fisheries, either for the support of the executive or judicial powers, or for any other purpose whatever. Should his majesty’s ministers decide on laying an ad valor-em duty on imports into Newfoundland, it will most assuredly, with the advantages that the Americans and French possess, annihilate the British fisheries at Newfoundland. This is not my opinion alone, but the opinion of the oldest and best acquainted with that colony. If public buildings are necessary, or