a dominion far more
valuable to England than all the trade of India or China.

He was obliged to call on a Liberal minister to undo, as far as
possible, the evil done by himself and the Tories, just as in later
days Mr. Gladstone had to settle with the United States the damage
done by the Tories in the "Alabama" question.

The death of Rockingham left the direction of the negotiations with
France and the United States in the hands of Lord Shelburne; and that
he was extremely liberal in his arrangements with both countries was
not to be wondered at. The wrong had been done by England; and the
innocent English had to suffer, as well as the guilty ones.
Unfortunately for Newfoundland, Shelburne did not cede this island to
the United States; and so it had to bear more than its share in the
misfortunes which the policy of King George had brought upon the
British empire.

Mr. Spearman (page 411) writes that "Adams, the United States envoy,
himself bred up among the New England fishermen, said 'he would fight
the war all over again' rather than give up the ancestral right of the
New Englanders to the Newfoundland fisheries"; but that Shelburne
should be able, when France and America were victorious, to take away
from the former power the concessions made to it by the Tories in 1713
and in 1763 was not to be expected.

There was a slight alteration in the shore line on which the French
might fish. They abandoned that right between Cape Bonavista and Cape
St. John, in consideration of being allowed to catch and dry their
fish along the shore between Point Riche and Cape Ray. That was all;
and that is precisely the reason why the Beaconsfield-Salisbury
cabinet, in 1878, refused their sanction to the Bay St. George
Railroad.

The only advantage that the poor Newfoundlanders gained from the war
which caused them so much distress was the fact that the English
government was _whipped_ into conceding to their Roman Catholic
population some of the rights which for many years afterwards it
obstinately withheld from their brethren in Ireland.

In 1784 Vice-Admiral John Campbell, a man of liberal, enlightened
spirit, was appointed governor, and issued an order that all persons
inhabiting the island were to have full liberty of conscience, and the
free exercise of all such modes of religious worship _as were not
prohibited by law_.

In the same year the Rev. Dr. O'Donnell came out to Newfoundland as
its prefect apostolic. But the