240 BRITISH AMERICA.

of the Mediterranean coasts, the West Indies, and South America, with fish; and our ships not only engrossed the profits of carrying this article of com- merce to market, but secured the freights of the commodities which the different countries they went to eXported. It was by such eminent advantages as these that the fishery flourished, and that great gains were realized both by the merchants and shipowners.

The conclusion of the war was, however, followed by a depression more ruinous to our fisheries than had ever before been experienced. The causes that arrested their prosperity did not, by any means, arise merely from the changes necessarily produced by a sudden transition from war to peace, but from those stipulations in favour of France and America, in our last treaties with those powers.*

It is very remarkable, that in all our treaties with France, the fisheries of North America were made a stipulation of extraordinary importance. The ministers of that power, at all times able negotia- tors, well knew the value of fisheries ; not merely in a commercial View, but in respect of their being necessarily essential in providing their navy with

* The French, although we have ceded to them the exclusive right of fishing, are not permitted to become residents between Cape Ray and Cape John ; and, strange to say, we have, in our excess of kindness, agreed that no British subject shall settle along that coast. When the Americans asked our permission to fish on the west coast of Newfoundland, we were under the pitiful necessity of saying we could not grant their request, as we had no right to fish there ourselves. See Chitty's Law of Commerce, for the treaty of 1816, and convention of 1818.

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