Fourth, once permanent settlement had been recognized, could some provision for future governance be far behind? The assumption underlay later commentators' criticism of the Act. But they had the benefit of hindsight. Like most policy makers the men of 1699 had their eyes on the past. They might recognize settlement but they need not sanction it. The failure to project into the future the implications of this compromise was of a piece with the Act's failure to stipulate penalties for infringing the Act, as in appropriating unsupervised fish flakes for fuel during the winter, for rinding, and for the indiscriminate cutting of timber. Two years later a Board of Trade official on a tour of inspection warned from St. John's of the prospect that "there would not be a stick left fit for the use of the fishery within five or six miles of that, or other harbours".

The Descent of the French on St. John's, 1762. Artist unknown. The engraving bears the inscription, "at Bassets Rue St. Jacques, Paris." The battle depicted here is probably fanciful. Courtesy of the National Archives of Canada (NAC/C-040901). with more information (52 kb).

Fifth, merchants or Adventurers were excluded from the policing provisions of ss. 14, 15, which applied only to masters, fishermen, seamen and settlers. Commentators inclined to the interest group conspiracy theory find this significant. But in 1699 there were few, if any, merchants, to say nothing of Western Adventurers, seasonally resident, unlike in 1792 when Reeves visited. If the Act's intent was to consolidate and rationalize, it cannot surprise that it was to apply only to those who might be expected to partake, as in the past, of a seasonal and migratory fishery in which decisions continued to be made and financial strings to be pulled from England.

Finally, by 10/11 William III, provisions for the regulation of the Newfoundland fishery were for the first time enshrined in statute. Why this form of legislative enactment was preferred is unclear. On its face statute assumed no greater legal weight or permanence than did the royal prerogative expressed in an executive order in council when issued under the authority of the Great Seal. The King, which is to say the executive arm of government, was as bound by the provisions of prerogative writ issued in this form as he was by statute.¹² An explanation may lie with the enhanced power assumed by Parliament as a result of the constitutional confrontation with executive authority which brought victory over the king in the Civil War as confirmed by the Restoration Settlement of 1660 and the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The Entrance to St. John's Harbour. From the logbook of H.M.S. Pegasus, 1786. Drawing by J.S.Meres. Courtesy of the National Archives of Canada (NAC/C 2539). with more information (55 kb).

Was this statutory restatement of the importance of the Newfoundland fishery and of the continuing ban on permanent settlement an earnest of the continuing influence of West Country merchants who had dominated the trade for two centuries? Did it reflect Parliament's concern for trade and commerce generally as an aspect of national policy in an increasingly mercantilist age? If such was the case, in the event Parliament was more concerned to enunciate national policy than to enforce it. In 1699 England was only at the half way point in a generation of warfare against France and Louis XIV's attempts to dominate Western Europe and, arguably, the New World. For France's holdings stretched beyond New France west to the lands surrounding the Great Lakes, east to Cape Breton, and south to Louisiana and the islands of the Caribbean. A statutory declaration of the historic and continuing priority which England attached to her domination and regulation of the Newfoundland fishery was a public, visible and unambivalent statement of a national interest. The incidentals of the fishery, settlement and, if need be, local governance, could be left to the traditional ad hoc responses of prerogative writ.