colonies, Cape Breton was restored to France, and among the results of that peace was counted the alienation of the affection of the people of New England, who felt that the House of Hanover, like the Stuarts, were ready to sacrifice their victories and their interests as "equivalents" for defeats and disasters in Europe.

In 1756 came another war between Great Britain and France, and two years later the second siege of Louisbourg by twenty ships of the line, eighteen frigates, a fleet of smaller vessels, and an army of fourteen thousand men. The success of this expedition, in which Wolfe commanded a corps, caused great rejoicings in England, and the French colours were deposited at St. Paul's. In this last war Americans bore a distinguished part, and it was said in the House of Commons that of the seamen employed in the British navy ten thousand were natives of America. Among the prominent actors were many who became prominent in our revolution. With Pepperell at Louisbourg were Thornton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; Bradford, Gridley, who laid out the works on Bunker Hill; and on the frontiers of Virginia and in the West was Washington. En. gaged in one or other of the French Wars were Sears, Wolcott, Williams, and Livingston, all among the signers; Prescott, Montgomery, Gates, Mercer, Morgan, Thomas, James Clinton (the father of DeWitt Clinton), Stark, Spencer, the Putnams, Nixon, St. Clair, Gibson, Bull, Durke, Butler, Campbell, and Chief Justice Dyer of Connecticut. It was, says Sabine, in Nova Scotia and Canada and Ohio, at Port Royal, Causeam, Louisbourg, Quebec, and in the wilds of Virginia, that our fathers acquired the skill and experience. necessary for the successful assertion of our rights.

By the Treaty of Paris in 1763, when Canada and its dependencies were formally ceded to Great Britain, France received the right of fishing and drying on the coast of Newfoundland, as provided by the Treaty of Utrecht, but at a distance of fifteen leagues from Cape Breton-a concession which was viewed with great displeasure in England,

where it was said that “the fisheries were worth more than all Canada."

When in 1778 a treaty of commerce was made between the United States and France, it was provided by articles IX. and X. that neither party should interfere with the fishing rights enjoyed by the other, a provision which seems to have been forgotten by France when, in April, 1779, she secretly agreed with Spain that if she could drive the British from Newfoundland the fisheries should be shared only with Spain.

THE OLD CONGRESS ON THE FISHERIES.

The historic and memorable part born by the American colonists in securing for Great Britain the Newfoundland fisheries, added to their importance to the colonies themselves, naturally led to a just appreciation of their value.

On October 22, 1778, Congress adopted a plan which is referred to in the instructions given to Franklin "for reducing the Province of Canada," and the first reason given for declaring the reduction of Halifax and Quebec objects of the highest importance, was that "the fishery of Newfoundland is justly considered as the basis of a good Marine" (II. Secret Journal of Congress, 114). On May 27, 1779, it was recorded, on motion of Mr. Burke, seconded by Mr. Douglas, "that in no case by any Treaty of Peace the common right of fishing be given up ;" and on June 24, 1779, they voted, "that it is essential to the welfare of all the United States that the inhabitants thereof, at the expiration of the war, should continue to enjoy the free and undisturbed exercise of their common right to fish on the banks of Newfoundland and the other fishing banks and seas of North America" (Do., p. 184).

The earnestness of Congress in this view appears from a further resolution, July 1st, for an explanatory note to the Minister at the Court of Versailles, whereby such common right shall be more explicitly guaranteed. On July 17th, 1779, touching the treaty with England, and on July 29, in

a resolution of which the spirit will be approved by our harried fishermen of to-day, on motion of Mr. McKean, seconded by Mr. Huntington, it was resolved, that if after a treaty of peace with Great Britain she shall molest the citizens or inhabitants of any of the United States in taking fish on the banks and places described in the resolutions. passed on the 22d day of July instant, such molestation (being in the opinion of Congress a direct violation and breach of the peace) shall be a common cause of the said States, and the force of the Union be exerted to obtain redress for the parties injured.

Elaborate reports on the common right of the States to the fisheries, on January 8, and August 16, 1782 (III. Secret Journal of Congress, pp. 151, 161), show how thoroughly the subject had been studied.

As regards its instructions Congress, under the influence of M. Gerard and M. de la Luzerne, the French Ministers at Philadelphia, took a lower tone when, on June 15, 1781, it gave to its peace commissioners the humiliating and incredible instruction, which Madison denounced as "a sacrifice of the national dignity," to undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce without the knowledge and concurrence of the Ministers of the King of France, "and ultimately to govern yourselves by their advice and opinion" (X. Diplomatic Correspondence, 75, 76).

While no satisfactory explanation has been given for the adoption by Congress of this instruction, the reasons for its being urged by the Court of France have been recently made quite clear by the valuable confidential correspondence of the Count de Vergennes with his agents at Madrid, Philadelphia, and London, published in part by the Count de Circourt, and more largely comprised in the invaluable collection of papers relating to the peace negotiations made by Mr. B. F. Stevens, and now awaiting in the State Department at Washington the action of the Government.

M. de Circourt's third volume and the recent" Life of

Lord Shelburne," by his grandson Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, a brother of Lord Lansdowne, the Governor-General of Canada, both published in 1876, the first at Paris and the second in London, show precisely the position occupied by each of these three powers, Great Britain, France, and Spain, in opposition to the American claims to the fisheries.

THE OPPOSITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND SPAIN.

England's hostile position on the fisheries was defined by the announcement of the Shelburne Ministry to Mr. Oswald, that "the limit of Canada would, under no circumstances, be made narrower than under the Parliament of 1763, and that the right of drying fish on the shores of Newfoundland could not be conceded to the American fisherman" (III. "Life of Shelburne," p. 255).

When France, by the Treaty of Madrid, April 12, 1779, induced Spain to join in the war against Great Britain, the reluctance of Spain to assist in the independence of revolted colonies, whose power and influence she hated and feared, was overcome by an agreement on the part of France, with small regard to the interests of the United States or to her treaty obligations with the Republic, first, that if the British should be driven from Newfoundland its fisheries were to be shared only with Spain; and second, that Spain should be left free to exact, as the price of her alliance in the war, a renunciation of every part of the basin of the St. Lawrence and the lakes, and the navigation of the Mississippi, and of all the land between that river and the Alleghanies (X. Bancroft, 190, quoting authorities).

In pursuance of that agreement, and with a view to facilitate the designs of Spain against America to which France had assented, M. de Vergennes gave repeated and elaborate instructions to his diplomatic agents in America. The very ingenious argument of his Excellency against our right to the fisheries is interesting from its complete contrast to the view held by our own Commissioners, and which,

as the treaty shows, was, in that solemn instrument, recognized and adopted by the British Government. He said in a letter to M. de la Luzerne, the French Minister at Philadelphia, dated Versailles, September 25, 1777:

It is essential to remark that the fisheries belong, and have always belonged, to the Crown of Great Britain, and that it was as subjects of the Crown the Americans enjoyed them-consequently, from the moment when they shook off the English yoke and declared themselves independent, they broke the community which existed between them and the metropolis; and voluntarily relinquished all the advantages which they derived from that community, just as they despoiled England of all the advantages she derived from their union with her.

This is virtually the same argument held by Lord Bathurst in his correspondence with Mr. John Quincy Adams, and by the English Commissioners at Ghent, that "when the Americans by their separation from Great Britain became released from the duties, they became excluded also from the privileges of British subjects."

It should therefore, argued the Count de Vergennes, be well established that from the moment when the colonies published their Declaration of Independence they have ceased to own a share in the fisheries, because they have forfeited by their own act the qualification which entitled them to such a share; that consequently they can offer to the court of London neither title nor actual possession, from this comes another result, viz., that the Americans having no right to the fishing we can give them no guarantee on that head (III. de Circourt, pp. 276, 277).

This argument conveniently accords with the suggestion which closes the remarkable memoir on the principal object of negotiation for peace given by M. de Circourt (III., pp. 29, 38) from the French archives, that it would be for the interest of England to have the French as companions. at Newfoundland rather than the Americans, and agrees with the strong opinion presented to Lords Shelburne and Grantham by M. Reyneval, during his secret visit to Eng