Gentleman In The Outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland 9780773573833

Citation preview

A Gentleman I N THE OUTPORTS:

BY

Joseph Arthur de Gobineau EDITEDAND tQCIHSLAllD BY

Michael Wilkshire

A Gentleman I N THE OUTPORTS:

Gobineau

BY

Joseph Arthur de Gobineau E D ~ AND D TRANSUTED BY

Michael Wilkshire

Carleton Library Series Number 177

Carleton University Press m a , Canada 1993

O Carleton University Press, Inc.

Printed and bound in Canada Carleton Library Series 177

CANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA Gobineau, Arthur, comte de, 18161882 A gentleman in the outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland m e Carleton library; 177) Translated from the French. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0.88629-214X (bound) ISBN 0-88629-2158 (pbk.)

1. Newfoundland-Description and travel-1851-1900. 2. Nova ScotiaDescription and travel-1851-1900. 3. Gobineau, Arthur, comte de, 1816-1882Journeys. I. Wilkshire, Michael, 1939- . 11. Title. 111. Series.

Design :Chris Jackson Cover photograph: view of Conche, Newfoundland, taken by the French in 1859 during Gobineau's mission. Public Record Office, London, CO 194/160, p. 171. Production: Xpressive Designs, Ottawa Typeset in 11/14 Century Oldstyle Acknowledgements Carleton University Press gratefully acknowledges the support extended to its publishing programme by Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council. The Press would also like to thank the Department of Communications, Government of Canada, and the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation, for their assistance. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I should like to express my profound gratitude to Dr. Stephane Sarkany who guided my first steps in the work of Gobineau many years ago at Carleton University; time has in no way diminished my gratitude for his generous assistance and encouragement I should also like to express my thanks for the financial support of the Social Science Federation of Canada through the Aid to Scholarly Publications programme. May I also take this opportunity of expressing my appreciation for their valuable services to the staff of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies at the Queen Elizabeth I1 Library at Memorial University as well as at the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, both in St John's, Newfoundland; also to the personnel of the Archives nationales and the Archives du ministere des affaires btrangeres, in Paris. Thanks are also due to the Public Record Office in London for permission to use the 1859 photographs of the west coast of Newfoundland and to the Musee de lphomme,Paris, for the Micmac photographs. In addition, I am greatly indebted to Jocelyn Williams, who kindly volunteered to draw the four maps used in the Introduction, and to my wife Frances Wilkshire, who has spent countless hours patiently rereading my translation and weeding out flaws; those that remain are solely my responsibility.

Table of Contents Introduction Maps Vbyage to Newfiundland Chapter 1 The Crossing Chapter 2

st Pierre

Chapter 3 Sydney Chapter 4 OurstayinSydney Chapter 5

Halifax

Chapter 6 Excursions Chapter 7 Bay S t George Chapter 8 Codroy and Red Island Chapter 9 The Bay of Islands Chapter 10 The Eastern Shore Chapter 1 1 St John's and the Fisheries Chapter 12 Customs

Di#lomatic Correspondence 22 April 1859 27 June 1859 16August 1859 16August 1859 24 December 1859

The Caribou Hunt

Introduction

J

oseph Arthur de Gobineau was born in Ville-d'Avray, close to Paris, in 1816.The noble "denwas inherited, but the title of Count that he used after he started his diplomatic career was one that he invented for himself. His father was an army officer and absent for long periods on military service, so that it was his mother and a tutor who were responsible for his education. After experiencing some legal trouble, his mother moved abroad; the young Gobineau was brought up in Switzerland, but moved to Paris at the age of nineteen when the time came for him to make his own way in the world. He found work as a journalist, contributing especially to right-wing periodicals (he was always a staunch defender of monarchist views, yet was never constrained by any party line). He also began writing poetry and novels. It.was not until 1849 that he was given his first position in the public service: in that year, his friend Alexis de Tocqueville became Minister of Foreign Affairs and appointed him as his principal private secretary. Tocqueville remained Minister only a few months, but before leaving his post arranged for Gobineau to be given a position as embassy secretary, the first of a lengthy series of postings that was to take him to Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Iran, Newfoundland, Brazil, and Greece. It was during the earlier embassy postings that he wrote his Essai sur I'inigalitk des races humaines.l This work has often been cited as an important precedent for Nazi ideology on the superiority of the Aryan race, with the result that Gobineau has been reviled by many. To hold him responsible for twentieth-century perversions of his ideas is manifestly absurd. Gobineau attempted to demonstrate that while races had been created unequal, and the Aryans were originally superior to all others, so much mingling had taken place over the course of history that the point of no return had long since passed. Far from holding out any hope of the restoration of racial purity, what he elaborates is a very

ii Gobineau and Newfoundland sombre vision of the whole of mankind being condemned to inevitable decadence. In his conclusion to this work he wrote: "One might be temp ted to assign to the domination of man on earth a total length of between twelve and fourteen thousand years, divided into two periods: one, which is already over, will have witnessed and encompassed the youth, vigour and intellectual greatness of the species; the other, which has already begun, will experience the faltering advance towards decrepitude.'" His most successful novel is Les PliiadeQ which has been variously translated as The Pleiads4 and Sons of Kings? It deals with a small group of men of exceptional talent in a society from which they are totally alienated; it has often been compared to the work of Stendhal, both for the psychological penetration and the gulf separating society and the main characters. (Gobineau was one of the few of his time who admired Stendhal.) He also wrote a number of short stories, notably Souvenirs de V ~ y a g ewhich ,~ included La Chasse au caribou (The Caribou Hunt), and Nouvelles asiatiques.? He wrote works on history and philosophy, contributed to the debate on the understanding of cuneiform writing with an explanation of his own, was a friend of Wagner, and hied his hand at sculpture. There were few fields of artistic endeavour that did not interest him. He was always a man of forthright and independent views, frequently at odds with his French contemporaries, and often physically removed from them by his diplomatic postings. He died in Italy in 1882.8 The texts that have been gathered together here all relate to his 1859 visit to Newfoundland, St Pierre and Nova Scotia. byage d TerreNeuve (Voyage to Newfoundland) was written soon after his return to France and officially published by Hachette in 1861; this at least is the date given on the title page, though the book appears to have been released in reality in December 1860. Gobineau's financial situation at this time was bleak, and there is no doubt that the work was written in an attempt to produce some revenue quickly. At times, thehaste shows: he confuses dates and historical details, as well as the limits of the French shore. In Gobineau's view, this was not a work to be compared with his more serious productions; indeed, in a letter of 14 August 1871 to his sister, he describes the lbyage to Newfoundland and another travel diary on Persia as "v6tilles" (trifling works) .g The work was reprinted in 1972 with an introduction by Robert Cliche (Montrbal: Editions du Jour). Then in 1989, Roland Le Huenen published his scholarly edition, with an introduction, facsimile reproduction of the text of the first edition and copious

Introduction iii explanatory notes. Le Huenen rightly observes that Voyage to Newfoundland was published by Hachette in the BibliothJque des chemins defer, a collection intended particularly for sale as lightweight reading matter in railway-station bookstalls, and not having the status of mainstream publications. Voyage to Newfoundland enjoyed a modest success: the edition sold out, but does not appear to have been reprinted. Le Huenen records1* that extracts appeared in a periodical, Le Tour du Monde, in 1863, while the only known translation was into Greek, when Gobineau's friend 206 Dragoumis published a number of other extracts in the Athenian review Pandora.ll It has never before been published in English. The Caribou Hunt was one of the stories published in 1872 in Souvenirs de byage; in 1927 it was translated into English and included as part of the collection "The Crimson Handkerchief and Other Sto~ies?~ The translation given here is an entirely new one. The manuscripts of both Voyage ti TerreNeuve and La Chasse au caribou are lost The date of the composition of La Chasse au caribou is not certain, but Pierre Lksetieux is probably correct in his notes to the Pleiade edition when he dates it in the spring of 1868.13Gobineau was once again in dire financial straits, which the publication of Souvenirs de voyage was in part intended to remedy. Pierre Lksetieux suggests that Gobineau probably had other motives as well. In 1871, he was showing marked interest in seeking election to the French Academy, and a collection of short fiction would have been a useful complement to his other more learned writings. At the same time, he gave Souvenirs de voyage a subtitle: "Cephalonie, Naxie, TerreNeuve," following the scene of the action of each of the three tales. Usetieux speculates very perceptively that this may well have been because, while a work of fiction might be another string to his bow in the campaign for election to the Academy, Gobineau's superiors in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were traditionally suspicious of any diplomat who indulged in fiction, which was severely frowned upon. Esetieux sees the subtitle in part as an attempt to counter such attitudes by passing the tales off as having some geographical interest; at the same time the subtitle indicates a significant feature of Gobineau's short fiction, namely that it is not an invention of a fertile imagination but firmly based on direct experiences in the parts of the world on which he concentrates. The remaining documents are diplomatic despatches relating to his mission. The memorandum dated 24 December 1859 was published in French in Etudes Gobiniennes by Michael Biddiss in his article "Gobineau et les colonies anglaises de

iv Gobineau and Newfoundland 1'Arnkrique du nord."14 Michael Biddiss is one of the few scholars prior to Le Huenen in his edition of Voyage to Newfiundland to give more than a passing reference to Gobineau's North American posting; his book, Father of Racist Ideology, the Social and Political Thought of Count Gobineau, devotes several pages to the subject15The translation of this memorandum first appeared in Newfiundland Studies.16The other despatches have not been previously published in either English or French.17 The intent, scope, tone and purpose of this collection of texts are, then, very varied. byage to Newfoundland is a misleading title: the first half of the book deals with the crossing from France to St Pierre, and further voyages to Cape Breton and Halifau; and while the centre of attention is the diplomatic mission, Gobineau's curiosity is also aroused by matters beyond: landscapes, characters, social customs and native Indians. V i g e to Newfiundland is an account of his experiences and reflections on them, while The Caribou Hunt is a reworking of some of that same material in a work of fiction, albeit his own style of fiction, firmly rooted in reality. One might well wonder whether Gobineau's own downplaying of the importance of kyage to Newfiundland was related to the fact that he saw it as a direct recollection of experiences, and not a reformulation of those experiences in a fictional mode. In contrast to the frequently light-hearted tone of both of these works, in the diplomatic despatches we see a much more serious vein, that of the professional diplomat attempting to convince his superiors of the force of his arguments. Gobineau was sent to North America in the spring of 1859as part of an Anglo-French Commission to enquire into problems relating to the interpretation and observance of French fishing rights in Newfoundland, more commonly known as the French shore question.18This inquiry was by no means isolated. One observer comments: Between 1846 and 1886 no less than eight Anglo-French Commissions were appointed in fruitless endeavours to resolve the differences of interpretation and to remove grievance^.^^

In historical terms, Gobineau's mission was no more than one of a series of failures to resolve a thorny issue involving the governments of Newfoundland, Great Britain and France. The matter remained unresolved until the "entente cordiale" of 1904, when French rights were relinquished in exchange for extensive territories in Africa.

Introduction v Although the 1859 mission was ultimately no more successful than the others, Gobineau's work on it is nevertheless of interest since it provides such varied illustrations of the problem: in the account of his travels in byage to Newfoundland; in his fictional narrative The Caribou Hunt; and finally in the diplomatic correspondence. The whole offers a fascinating commentary on Newfoundland, St. Pierre and the whole of Atlantic Canada in the mid-nineteenth century French fishing rights in Newfoundland dated back to 1713,when, in the Treaty of Utrecht, France renounced all sovereignty over the island while maintaining the right to catch and dry fish within prescribed territorial limits. A C. Hunter comments: The peace treaty gave France certain rights off the west coast. I say certain rights: in fact nothing was more uncertain. You would think that the men who drafted the treaty had deliberately made it of doubtful interpretation so as to provide future generations with grounds for wrangling about what it meant...20 The Treaty of Utrecht allowed the French to fish between Cape Bonavista and Point Riche, a right confirmed in the Treaty of Paris of 1763. But by 1783, there were already problems due to settlement by Newfoundlanders in the area where the French were entitled to fish, so in that year, the limits were changed in the Treaty of Versailles. The French gave up the coast between Cape S t John and Cape Bonavista, where the settlement had principally occurred, and in its place, accepted rights over the entire shoreline from Cape St John, around the tip of the Northern Peninsula, and down the west coast to Cape RayZ1The definition of 1783 remained in effect until the departure of the French in 1904. These, then, were the limits in effect at the time of Gobineau's mission (see map 1). The main problem with the interpretation of the treaties was whether, as Gobineau forcefully and consistently maintains, the French rights were exclusive, or, as Newfoundland claimed, concurrent, and on this point the language of the treaties is singularly unhelpful. There were other differences, however. Were the English hindering the French fishery and damaging French property? Did the French have the right to take all species or just HOWpermanent a structure were they allowed to build on land? Was it true that French subjects were wintering

vi Gobineau and Newfoundland

in Newfoundland when the treaties said that they could stay for the fishing season only? Was it true that the French strayed outside their limits to the coast of Labrador? And the list of bones of contention could be extended further. There were also more particular reasons why a Commission should be set up in 1859. In 1857, the French and British governments had negotiated a convention that would have given the French access to the Labrador fishery; the French, for their part, would have accepted the presence of the English settlements of Codroy and St George's on the French shore. This was the infamous Labouch6re Convention that Newfoundland had indignantly refused to ratify when asked to do so. At the same time, there were rumours that if the French were prevented fi-om fishing in Labrador they would remove the English from the French shore.23Then, during the 1858 season, Baron de la Roncikre le Noury, Commodore of the French naval forces in Newfoundland, formally announced to the English settlers on the French shore that they would not be allowed to fish there the following year. He reported to his Minister in Paris in a despatch dated 30 June 1858: Your Excellency will see that all of his orders were meticulously carried out; that all the foreign vessels that were encountered on the 'CBte Fran~aise'(the French Shore, as the English in Newfoundland refer to it in their official documents), were expelled, with no exceptions; and that all the English residents of St. George's and the other points were clearly warned that they will be totally forbidden to fish as of 1859."

An account of his journey along the French shore, visiting every harbour to declare the intentions of the French government in person, is contained in two letters to his daughter, dated 29 June and 23 July 1858.25 In a letter to Sir Alexander Bannerman he later wrote:

...it was painful for me to use the harsh measures that were necessary in reclaiming the rights we once enjoyed. But it was time to reclaim them, if we did not wish to be displaced."

This is the threat alluded to by Gobineau in his chapter on St George's (pp. 1067), although according to him the English settlers received the

Introduction vii news calmly and philosophically. This is a considerable understatement of the seriousness of the situation created by the French warnings. De la Ronciere wrote to his daughter of the situation in S t George's: I do not know what will become of these poor devils who have hardly any other means of subsistence, since agriculture is impossible in that country. But this is always the way in politics, the lowly suffer for the foolishness of the great. And in reality the measures that I have to take are purely and simply the outcome of the stubbornness of the people who are in charge of public administration in the capital of the island? And in a despatch to Sir E.B. Lytton, Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, Sir Alexander Bannerman indicates that according to his information "the Cod Roy fishermen intended to burn the property belonging to the French, after their d e p a r t ~ r e . "The ~ ~ same despatch refers to the difficulty created for the residents of Bay St. Georges by the French proclamation: they received their supplies from merchants in exchange for the fish they caught; there was now great concern that the merchants would no longer supply the fishermen, fearing they might not be repaid. The agitation created is confirmed by a government inspector, J. L. Prendergast, who recorded having heard on the west coast that "considerable excitement prevailed at St. George's Bay" and also that the inhabitants were informed that they could no longer use nets but only hooks and lines, and that even this was to be for the remainder of the 1858 season onlyzgThis notification had caused the local inhabitants to send a petition to the Governor asking for his assistance; he had responded: I will lose no time in transmitting it to H.M.Government, for they were informed in 1857 that peace would prevail if the Convention fell to the ground. By Official Notices given by the French Commodore, it seems very probable that there will be "no peace"....30

So by the end of 1858, in addition to the perennial differences between the governments involved, a tense local situation had developed and become somewhat inflamed, necessitating measures to calm things down. S i rAlexander Bannerman wrote again to the Secretary of State for

viii Gobineau and Newfoundland Colonial Affairs: ...an enquiry on the spot will be indispensable; and when information is obtained by competent Commissioners, which cannot be questioned, then, and not till then, can this fishery question be brought to a satisfactory terrninati~n.~~ The words "on the spot" would appear to be a pointed allusion to the proposed convention of 1857, which had been negotiated in Europe between England and France, with Newfoundland being asked for its accord only after the two imperial powers had reached agreement This had infuriated the colony. Gobineau himself in his despatch no. 4 of 16 August 1859 refers to the violence of the protest in St John's, claiming that the Union Jack was dragged through the streets. When Bannerman's proposal for a Commission was passed on to Paris, it was accepted, though not without reservation. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Walewski, observed to the British Ambassador in Paris: The difficulties raised by the Newfoundland question, appear to the Emperor's Government to proceed solely 6.om a difference in interpretation of treaties; and it cannot, therefore, share in the confidence which H.B.M. [Her Britannic Majesty's] Government feels in the results of the proposals which Your Excellency has been charged to make to me.32 The wheels were nevertheless set in motion for the Commission to do its work in the spring and summer of 1859. These, then, were the circumstances in which the enquiry was instituted and Gobineau was invited to take part. He could hardly have refused. He had earlier been offered a post in China, but had declined it since, as Jean Gaulrnier rightly points out, he saw it as an unwarranted demotion. Walewski was displeased with Gobineau's refusal and let it be known. The latter wrote to his friend Prokesch-Osten on 28 February 1859: My problem is settled for the time being. The Minister has agreed to my not going to China and to my keeping my present position for the moment. But he wished me to know that it was a

Introduction ix black mark and that if I made any comments on the next posting I was given, I should be taken off the active list. Amen? It happened that the next posting was to Newfoundland. His unpublished letter of acceptance is courteous but very formal: I received the despatch dated 11th. inst in which Your Excellency pays me the honour of informing me that I have been chosen by him to carry out the functions of Commissioner, along with a delegate of the Minister for the Navy, charged with collecting information in Newfoundland likely to facilitate the smoothing of difficulties raised in those parts by the exercise of fishing rights. In conformity with your orders, I shall make myself ready to leave for this mission around the 15th of next month. Please accept, My Lord, along with the expression of my gratitude for the mark of confidence that you have been so kind as to show me, the renewed expression of the deep respect with which I have the honour of being Your Excellency's most humble and obedient servant.35 On 17 March 1859he again wrote to Prokesch-Osten:

I have just been appointed to take part in a study, along with a naval captain and two English Commissioners, of the demarcation of the Newfoundland fishing grounds. For a month I shall sail around the coasts of North Gobineau had probably not yet received his detailed instructions: he was not to be asked to define the areas to be used by the French or English fishermen, but to look into their observance of treaty rights, and the task would take him considerably longer than one month. As Michael Biddiss reminds us:' Gobineau saw this as a useful mission for his career. On a more personal level, though, he was less pleased: From the professional point of view, it is a very good mission; but very tiresome for Clhmence [his wife], for the children, and for the one who has to leave them.38

x Gobineau and Newfoundland His wife seems to have been quite upset "Cl6mence is not very happy, not very happy at all, at seeing me leave. She is taking it very badly."3gSo it was probably more with resignation than excitement that he undertook his task. A few days later he wrote to Prokesch-Osten: "Although a trip to Newfoundland holds little appeal for me at the moment, I would still rather be there than in Europe."40Nor did his enthusiasm show any signs of increasing after his arrival in Newfoundland. In a letter of 26 July 1859, again to his faithful friend, he complains: 'This is an awful country It is very cold, there is almost constant fog, and one sails between pieces of floating ice of enormous size."41But there was little that he could do except stoically accept his fate. It seems that he spent his spare hours working on his research into the history of cuneiform writing. The same letter continues: I have made great progress in cuneiform writings and I am now able to read proper nouns with complete assurance. I shall bring back an extensive work which will consist of an analytical exposition of several lengthy achaemenid inscriptions. In another letter to his friend Jules Baroche, an influential politician under the Second Empire, he also described some of his experiences in Newfoundland, again underlining the professional challenge as well as the physical difficulties of the mission: The Marquis de Montaignac, whom I have been given as a colleague, and I get along extremely well, so that our indoor lie is very pleasurable. Unfortunately one can scarcely say the same of life outside, for we are having a very harsh season, The crossing was very difficult. We spend our time visiting harbours and deserted beaches, and when we come across any that are inhab ited, it is by fishermen living there for a few months in huts, surrounded by awful piles of fish offal. But we are working hard and have the opportunity to come back with fresh ideas and conclusions on a question which, since it is closely related to our naval recruitment, is not without very significant importance. It is true that in present circumstances we could never expect any great fame. But at the same time, since we are dealing with a population of ten or twelve thousand sea-

Introduction xi men and their education, at least a seventh of our intake, I am not without some hope that if there is any satisfaction with our work, it will also be borne in mind that our efforts were directed at something that was worth undertaking. Whatever the case may be, Your Excellency will be in no doubt that I am more concerned with duty than personal advantage.42

A few years later Gobineau wrote to Heinrich Adelbert von Keller in a similar vein: I was sent as an Imperial Commissioner to the English colonies of North America to settle territorial differences relating to our Newfoundland fishery; there I did a season of six months in floating ice, mists and rain, which was not too cheerful for an Asiatic such as I; but I came through it very well....43 There were four Commissioners named in all. In addition to the author of byage to Newfoundland, the French government appointed the Marquis de Montaignac de Chauvance, who by then had replaced the Baron de la Ronciere Le Noury in command of the French naval forces in Newfoundland. On the British side, there were Captain Hugh Dunlop of the Royal Navy, commanding officer of the British naval presence in the area, and the Honourable John Kent, Newfoundland's Colonial Secre tary." Each pair of Commissioners had its own secretary, CharlesFblix-Marie Lossieux for the French and Henry Jenkinson for the British. The four Commissioners and the two secretaries were honored by each having a place named after them on the French shore in the area of Port Saunders. (See map 4. Dunlop Spit and Montaignac Rock do not appear on standard topographical maps, but they are listed in the Newfoundland gazetteer, which places them at 50'30"N 57'17'W and 5038"N 57'16"W, respectively" It is somewhat ironic that, as Gobineau himself reminds us in Chapter 9 of Voyage to Newfoundland, Port Saunders is named after the British admiral who assisted in driving the French out of Canada in the battle for Quebec (p. 131). The first half of byage to Newfoundland is taken up with accounts of visits by the French Commissioners to various places before beginning the enquiry They went first to St Pierre, no doubt to examine on the spot the questions of the Banks fishery and the sale of bait They must have

xii Gobineau and Newfoundland been helped in this more than a little since the recently appointed Governor of St. Pierre was none other than mile-~ran~ois de la Roncikre le Noury, the elder brother of Montaignac's immediate predecessor as Commodore of the French naval division in Newfoundland. The bait issue had been a matter of public controversy, but Gobineau contents himself with a humorous presentation of a Newfoundland seller disposing of his cargo in S t Pierre and then quickly and ill-advisedly spending the money before returning home (pp. 25-6). The author also makes a few brief comments in a similar vein on whether the cod themselves prefer fresh or salted bait (p. 21). These issues were in fact very serious. Quite apart from the fact that Newfoundland merchants were not pleased at seeing the profits fkom the bait sales spent on French territory rather than at home, and hence viewed the whole trade with a jaundiced eye, many Newfoundlanders believed that they had a stranglehold over the French fishery, since they could if, they so decided, withold the supply of fresh bait caught by Newfoundlanders along the south coast of the island where the French had no fishing rights. This issue provides a good example of a common phenomenon in Wyage to Newfundland: the seriousness of the matter under discussion is minimized in the public document, but treated much more fully and h n k l y in the diplomatic correspondence. In despatch no. 3, dated 16 August 1859, Gobineau is quite caustic in his account of how Newfoundland had attempted to disrupt the French Banks fishery and to force up the price of bait and how the strategy had been a dismal failure, with costly consequences for the English bait fishermen. There are two other occasions when the author avoids any mention of the harsher realities of events as they unfolded around him. While in Sydney, Montaignac reports to the Minister for the Navy that the crossing had been very difficult, but would have been without mishap had it not been for the death of a crewman who was severely injured in an accident and later died? And when Gobineau gives an account of the fire in St. John's, it is in a light-hearted vein, with no mention of the fact that a woman was so seriously injured that she later died of the burns she received. The purpose of the trip to Nova Scotia is not made apparent in Thyage to Newfundland. Certainly the Gassendi needed to go to Sydney Mines to replenish its supply of coal after crossing the Atlantic and in preparation for a lengthy tour of the French shore. Chapter 7 opens with the words "Our business in Halifax being concluded..."; but Gobineau makes no

Introduction xiii mention of any official business during the side-trip to Halifax, and his chapter on that city consists of descriptions of the area and its social life. This location gives him the opportunity to pursue a line of thinking on the superiority of French naval recruitment over methods used by the British, a subject that he develops in his diplomatic despatches, where he advances the traditional argument that the Newfoundland fishery is the training ground of the French navy. His thought was fuelled by a concrete example: he refers in Chapter 5 of Voyage to Newfiundland to attempts made by the British to recruit men while he was in Halifax. We know that such recruitment was in progress. The Halifax Evening &press of 6 June 1859 carries the following report: Handbills have been posted about the city inviting healthy seafaring men who would like to join the Royal Navy, to enter on board the flag ship Indus, whence they will be sent to England by the earliest opportunity to man the channel fleet. There is no mention of any bounty. At home an able-bodied seaman receives £10 on entering the service. And the Morning Journal and Commercial Advertiser of 6 June launches into an attack on the navy's recruiting methods, but from a perspective that is quite different from Gobineau's: We observe that recruitment stations have been opened in British North America. Able Seamen will receive the bounty on entering at any of these points, the head quarters of which are on board H.M.S Indus, 76, Halifax harbor. Now this is all decidedly wrong. The trade of British North America ought not to have been interfered with. It is a difficult matter at all times to man the timber fleet in this direction. The Home ports, where the Ship ping Interest is least incommoded are the legitimate points for recruiting officers. Already wages have gone up in the outports of the United Kingdom from £3 to £3 lOs., and owners have given the advance Ifreely. But we do object to the Admiralty regulations extending beyond the Seas. There is no knowing what may be the consequences of this most injudicious step. That the British Navy will be well and speedily manned and that too, with the pick of the Mercantile Marine, no person can doubt, but most

xiv Gobineau and Newfoundland assuredly that great consummation must not be accomplished at the expense of the bone and sinew of the very basis of England's prosperity - the Shipping Interest of the Empire. Gobineau condemns the purely material and financial considerations that were exploited by the British navy. It is quite probable that his view of North American society as being excessively materialistic was further confirmed by the blatant self-interest of the local complaints that such recruitment constituted unfair competition and contributed to undue escalation of the costs of manpower in the merchant navy. The Commissioners did, however, have a specific purpose in going to Halifax. In a letter from that city dated 11June 1859to the Minister for the Navy, Montaignac explains that he was in Cape Breton waiting to hear that Dunlop had arrived in St. John's when he received newspapers from that place in which an appeal was made to the patriotism of the local press to stir up local opinion in favour of the colonial interests in the enquiry which was to begin before the International Commi~sion.~~ Montaignac states that this agitation had con6rmed the doubt he already had about starting the enquiy in St. John's: he would have had to go to the west coast sooner or later, and to proceed from Nova Scotia to St. John's and then back to the west coast was a waste of time and fuel. He adds that it was at this point that he heard of the arrival of Admiral Sir Houston Stewart, Dunlop's commanding officer, in Halifax, and decided to head straight there himselfd8In Chapter 5 Gobineau gives the impression that the meeting with the Indm was a chance encounter (p. 72). This was not the case at all. Gobineau was attempting to disguise the fact that the express purpose of the journey to Halifax was to meet the Admiral for a visit that was much more than the exchange of courtesies he suggests in the text of Vqyage to Newfoundland, and was in reality directly related to the joint enquiy that they were about to begin. Montaignac informs his Minister: On hearing the news that Sir Houston Stewart communicated to me of the arrival in St. John's of the Tartar and the Sfyx as well as

Introduction xv a gunboat, I induced the Admiral himself to suggest to Captain Dunlop that the meeting take place in St. George's and I accepted his proposal that I await the answer.50 It may well be that Stewart communicated directly with Dunlop, but Montaignac did in fact write to the British Commissioners from Halifax, as their Secretary explains to S i r E.B. Lytton:

...the French Commissioners have not arrived at St. John's; but Mons. de Montaignac has written from Halifax to CaptnDunlop, and has proposed to CaptnDunlop that the British Commissioners should fix on St. George's Bay as the rendez-vous for the International Commission. To this letter Capr Dunlop has replied agreeing to meet Mons. de Montaignac at St. George's Bay on the 14thIn~t'.~l Furthermore it is quite likely that even prior to Montaignac receiving the hostile newspapers that he refers to earlier, the French Commissioners saw the dignitaries of S t John's in an unfavourable light This view may well have been passed on to them by de la Roncikre, who writes to his daughter of his stay in the capital: Several minor city officials came to visit me, but I received them very curtly, since I had not come to talk to these troublemakers, but simply to pay a visit to the Queen's representative, the Governor. Moreover I refrained from paying my respects in town. I personally received only the military commander, a splendid veteran who took me into his friendship. I had an aide-de-camp receive the rests2 It is obvious that the choice of meeting-place was of considerable importance to the French Commissioners and that they were most anxiousto avoid hearing any witnesses in St John's. Gobineau's despatch no. 3 of 16 August 1859 refers to their reluctance to face what they saw as hot-headed trouble-makers in the island's capital, as does the final report of the French Commissioners to the Minister of Foreign Affairs:

xvi Gobineau and Newfoundland When Captain Dunlop arrived in Newfoundland to meet his colleague, Mr. Kent, the Colonial Secretary, and reach agreement with him over the attitude to which their common instructions bound them, he found public opinion greatly over-excited; people quickly attempted to put severe constraints upon him; to summarize the situation, and to use his own expressions and to reproduce the language that he later used to us, he was misled as to the facts. It had been expected that we would begin by coming to St. John's and it was intended to impose upon us once we were there a line of conduct which would certainly not have obtained the consent of your Commissioners, but which could not have been repudiated without division within the Commission, and this could have been unfortunate. We were anxious to avoid these difficulties, and, proceeding with the utmost caution, were unwilling to open the enquiry anywhere other than where it ought to have begun, in fact, in Bay St. George.53 This change of plan was not well received in S t John's. It gave rise to an exchange of letters between the Secretary to the British Commissioners and James Tobin, the letters being published in the S t John's newspaper, The Public Ledger on 24 June 1859. Tobin had asked to be sent to St. George's to testify before the Commission; Jenkinson refuses, pointing out that the Commission will later visit St. John's, and that he will be invited to appear there. But on 30 August the same newspaper published further corresponaence between the two where Jenkinson now informs Tobin that the Commissioners have decided not to hear any witnesses when they go to S t John's, and, despite their earlier commitment to him, will make no exceptions; Tobin protests vigorously? The correspondence is prefaced with an editorial comment that attributes the responsibility for that decision to Kent, who is accused of having surrendered to the French. Whatever Kents role may have been, it is evident that Gobineau and Montaignac could not but have been in favour of the refusal to hear witnesses in the capital. There are numerous references in Gobineau's writings on Newfoundland to the very cordial relationships between the British and French Commissioners, beginning in S t George's and continuing elsewhere. There is no reason to suppose that these remarks are not perfectly genuine. Indeed, both British Commissioners recorded very favourable

Introduction xvii impressions of their French counterparts. Kent wrote to Bannerman: 'The French Commissioners are very superior men in every respect" 55 He also wrote to the Colonial Office in London: 'The fi-ench (sic) Commis sioners Messm.Montagnac (sic) and Gobineau are most agreeable gentlemen...."56 Bannerman reported to Newcastle that he had heard from Dunlop that "everything had gone on very amicably with the French Commissioners both of whom he found to be very gentlemanly men."57 The Secretary to the British Commissioners also informed the Colonial Office: The French C o r n . are very gentlemanlike people. M. de Montaignac was first Secretary of the French Embassy in London in 1848. Mons. de Gobineau has been in Persia a good deal, and alte gether they are particularly agreeable well bred men - but quite up to their It should be remembered, however, that both sets of Commissioners had instructions from their respective governments ordering them to remain on good tenns and not to create any division.59 It is abundantly clear that the British Commissioners thought highly of their French counterparts, and Gobineau's own comments on Kent and Dunlop reflect the same harmonious state of relations that they had been instructed to develop. There were, however, some difficulties. The report of the French Commis sioners calls the impartiality of their British colleagues into question: During the first sessions, it was easy for us to discern attitudes

that were less than amicable in our colleagues. They received aggressive depositions with visible satisfaction, and listened to contrary evidence, that was much closer to the truth, with disdain and even impatience.'jO They then maintain that it was the obvious flouting of French rights in places such as Codroy that caused a change of heart in Kent and Dunlop. There seems little doubt that these differences were very much in Gobineau's mind when he wrote of the love the British have of enquiries and expressed a marked scepticism (p. 109). He was also at the same time echoing his Minister's reservations expressed to Lord Cowley and quoted above.

xviii Gobineau and Newfoundland Gobineau's remarks on S t George's should not be taken entirely at face value. Throughout the book he consistently maintains that the , ~ ~here he goes even further, French fishing rights were e x c l ~ s i v ebut alleging that the only legal authority on the French shore was that of the Commodore of the French naval station, hence the individual claiming to be a magistrate was nothing short of an imposter (pp. 1045). This was not the case at all. Newfoundland at that time had stipendiary and resident magistrates, the former being remunerated, the latter honorary Mr. Forrest of S t George's was indeed a resident magistrate and testified before the Commission; he is without doubt the man referred to by Gobineau but not named. There had been a stipendiary magistrate a few years earlier, with a salary voted by the House of Assembly. When the British government was asked for approval for the creation of such a position on the French shore the then Governor of Newfoundland, Sir J.G. LeMarchant received the following response: I have to acquaint you that Her Majesty's Government are of opinion, that the establishment of such a Magistracy would not contravene any existing Treaty between Great Britain and France relative to Newfoundland; and you are therefore at liberty to make the appointment in questionea The post was created, and the House of Assembly voted a salary in 1851 and 1852, and when it declined to do so any longer in 1853 it was not out of any deference to French authority but, as the motion abolishing the position points out, because "the inhabitants of St. George's Bay contribute no duties to the revenue of this co1ony"a But the post of resident magistrate continued to exist It would seem, though, that the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs was well aware of the political niceties of the situation prior to the enquiry of 1859; Sir A Bannerman had raised the question of the creation of electoral districts along the French shoreMand was informed rather sharply: "I am not aware that there is any occasion to enter on the question as to the representation of these districts at the present time."" The reason why Gobineau presumes that there was no duly appointed magistrate in St. George's is that this was the perception of the French naval officers. Prior to the creation of the posts, Captain Ange Gautier recorded in 1846:

Introduction xix The government of St. John's has established a spiritual authority there, a Protestant minister combines his functions with that of schoolteacher, a church and a school have been constructed for this purpose. It may be that the principal authority in Newfoundland has not yet dared to send a magistrate there, although one would be at least as useful as a minister, for, besides the fact that this area is much sought after by captains of ships wishing to commit barratry, conflicts that are frequently quite serious also break out daily, and since might is right, there are countless brawls and acts of violence.& The following year, Captain Jehenne listed in his report a number of reasons for the growth in the population of S t George's, and included among them: "Finally, the absolute independence of everyone, due to the absence of any authority."" But even in 1858, Baron de la Ronciere expresses the same view: "In S t Georges, the only authority is a Catholic priest who is of French origin, very learned but as deaf as a post"68Gobineau seems to have been simply echoing a misconception on the part of the French authorities. The observations in Voyage to Newfoundland on the religion of the population of St. George's are curiously inaccurate. According to Gobineau, they were almost entirely Catholic, whereas a report from M. J. Kelly completed after the 1857 census reads in part The population of St. George's Bay, including Port au Port, is 1049, of whom 631 are Catholics, 402 Church of England, 13 Wesleyans and 3 of the Free Kirk Church. There are here one Catholic Chapel and a resident Clergyman, and one Protestant Church, a Clergyman for which is expected to arrive shortly. I have heard since that he arrived.69 There had always been a very significantProtestant population in that area. There is another aspect of Gobineau's reporting that is even more curious. He claims that the inhabitants are Irish. But the resident magistrate of S t George's had earlier written to Sir Alexander Bannerman listing the name of the families who were destitute because of the measures taken by the French. The list includes such names as Benoit, Duval,

mc Gobineau and Newfoundland Alexandre, Josseau, Doucet, Le Basque, Legune, Longuepee, Perrier and J a c q ~ a i sA . ~good ~ number of these inhabitants were obviously of French origin. It is difficult to imagine how a French citizen assigned the task of recording the status quo along the French shore could not have been aware of their presence, yet there is not a mention of them in the pages on St George's. This is even more surprizing since the French authorities in St Pierre had been informed of this French presence on a number of occasions, specifically in 1846 in the report by Captain Gautier quoted earlier:

I am coming to the main point: apart from the seamen engaged in fishing who, in some cases to escape kom the constant levying, in others out of a desire for change, annually abandon their country's flag to stay in St. George's, there are in addition the continual migrations from Cape Breton and New Brunswick which flock to Newfoundland every year, come and usually settle there, in the area of Cape Ray, but mostly along the rivers of Codroy and in Bay S t George. Today one can find thirty-five of these families in this bay making up no less than two hundred people. They are given the name of Jacotars and my research into the origin of this name has been fruitless. In abandoning their country the one aim of these new arrivals was to escape the taxes that the English government would impose on them as on all of its subjects and at the same time to pursue the eel fishery, which is the main source of food for a great number of them. These Acadians, of French origin, but almost completely left to their own devices, with no respect for God or man since the British have been in full control, form a completely separate population: a population that is sickly and degenerate, living from day to day and differing from their English neighbours only in their inertia and their laziness. However, they do cultivate the land a little, enough to harvest sufficient potatoes to be able, with their supply of salted eels, to await the arrival of the herring, which come to this bay at the begimhg of the spring.71 It so happened that the captain of the Tdnare, the vessel that accompanied the Gassendi on a good part of the mission, was none other than the author of that report" Gobineau himself, in his chapter on Sydney, points out that "Captain G." of the Tinare had been a veteran of the French naval

Introduction xxi forces in Newfoundland for over twenty years and knew the French shore intimately. Gobineau could not have been unaware of this French presence. Indeed, one section of the report of the French Commissioners reads like a paraphrase of Gautier's report During the first years of the Restoration, our fishermen from St. Pierre drequented St. George's, which was inhabited by just a few families originally from Cape Breton; but the absence of cod in the bay and the remoteness of the fishing grounds gradually caused St. George's to be abandoned by our people, who did not take part in the herring fishery The place that they left free was soon occupied by numerous families, some of French origin, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Jacotars),others from the south coast of the island.73 The previous year the then Commodore of the French naval division, Baron de la Roncikre le Noury, wrote a letter to his daughter: 'The population ... is a mixture of Irish, refugees from Canada, French deserters from the fishing fleet, and a few savages from Canada."" Gobineau was clearly going out of his way to avoid any reference to French deserters. It is true that he does describe a single example, although he places him not in St George's but near Port Saunders @p. 131-2). The man in question forms a very sad picture, full of remorse at the error of his youth. It would seem that Gobineau chose to ignore the situation of the French population of Bay St George since he had little reason to be proud of it, and adds a highly moralistic conclusion to the picture of the one French deserter that he does describe. There is another reason why Gobineau might have ignored his former compatriots. In his chapter on Halifax (pp. 81-2) he explains that in his view the moral superiority of French crews over those on British warships stems from the fact that the former have freely chosen the honour of serving their country while the latter are hired with tempting promises and retained only by coercion. Then in his memorandum of 24 December 1859 to Count Walewski he puts forward a strong statement of the traditional argument in favour of the French Newfoundland fishery, namely that it provides an excellent pool of experienced sailors that can be drawn upon by the navy at any time. All of this would have been seriously undercut by any description of the sorry state of the French

n i i Gobineau and Newfiundland population of Bay St George, and especially by any reference to French deserters. This is in addition to the fact that it would obviously not have been expedient to highlight the presence on the French shore of numbers of French nationals who had settled as permanent residents in violation of the treaties. There is one further curious omission in the pages on St. George's: there is no mention of any Amerindian population. While Gobineau was in Nova Scotia he showed a very keen interest in the native peoples of North America, and devoted several pages to them. There had been Micmacs settled in the area of St. George's for decades, and the French naval authorities were well aware of their existence. But even more surprising is the fact that there are five photographs of Micmacs taken on the west coast of Newfoundland by the French photographer Miot and recently discovered in the Musee de l%omme in Paris." Miot must have been the photographer taken to Newfoundland by the French authorities and the author of the photographs of the shoreline intended to demonstrate English interference with the French fishery The reason why Gobineau chose to show great interest in them in Nova Scotia and yet studiously ignore them in Newfoundland is perhaps because he had nothing to add to what he had already said, but probably also because these Micmacs were commonly associated with the French deserters in St. George's and the two groups together had the reputation of forming a lawless rabble? But there is another dimension to what can only be seen as a delib erate oversight on the part of Gobineau, and one that needs to be borne in mind when reading his very enthusiastic remarks on the anglophone inhabitants of the area. He describes their society as a sort of Utopia, and comments that this Utopia is brought into being in the midst of the harshest of living conditions (p. 106). Michael Biddiss aptly comments:

...his fleeting conception was marked with the vitalist Aryan ideals of challenge and struggle. But, perhaps more signiiicantly, it embodied Gobineau's striving for isolation and withdrawal from social cornm~nication.~ There seems little doubt that, to a degree, what Gobineau was recording was coloured with his own personal nostalgia for lost purity, and was at odds with the reports of the Commodores of the French naval station.

Introduction xxiii In Codroy, though, there is mention of the presence of French fishermen among a predominantly English population; they are presented as the peaceful and innocent victims of English encroachment The memorandum submitted by the Secretary to the British Commissioners, separately fiom their report, supports much of this presentation. Of Codroy, he concludes: It affords the only decided case of violation of the Fishery Treaties by British subjects that came to the notice of the Commissioners during the whole course of their investigation^.^^ The records of the depositions collected at Codroy annexed to the report of the British Commissionerssubstantiate Gobineau's allegations that the British settlers took the best fishing berths, obliging the French to travel great distances, as well as causing damage to French property, and wanted to drive the French out entirely." Jenkinson's Private Memorandum... asserts: 'The French fishery establishment here is of no great extent; it is slovenly and ill-cared for, and presents a poorer appearance than is usual with the French fishing stations."" What Gobineau does not mention is that, according to the same memorandum, French subjects were wintering in Codroy, in violation of the treaties: Some French subjects appear to be in the habit of wintering on the island [Codroy Island], but no similar instance of French fishermen remaining on the Newfoundland coast, after the close of the fishing season, came to the knowledge of the Commissioners. Indeed, every Frenchman who does not return in his ship to France, is regarded as a deserter by the French Government; for by so doing his services are lost to the French navy. As a breach of existing Treaties, and for fear that such an act should be construed into a precedent, the fact of French fishermen wintering at Cod Roy demands the attention of Her Majesty's Government; but otherwise the fact does not assume any international importance -it is only the act of a few private individuals, and more wretched hovels than their residences can hardly be imagined.81 One element of Gobineau's description of Codroy deserves further attention. He mentions the presence there of an extremely aggressive

xxiv Gobineau and Newfoundland individual who had dreams of driving the French out entirely. The man he has in mind is undoubtedly James Galton, who testified before the Commission and presented as evidence two documents. In a postscript to the first, a letter from himself to C.E Bennett, he writes: The fishermen of Cod Roy would press for the protection of their own Government. But if it is not granted to them, they will have to implore the protection of those who are disposed to protect them, namely, the Americans." So Gobineau was not embroidering when h e made reference in his Chapter on Codroy to the presence of a fierce spirit of independence (pp. 114-5). He must also have recalled the curious business of the second document submitted by Galton as evidence. This too was in the form of a letter to Bennett, and reads in part:

I wish to ask you, Mr. Bennett, for the information of the poor inhabitants of the neighbourhood, whether they would be justified in using their guns and in driving the French away who may interfere with them in their fishery; and if they are to be prevented kom fishing as their forefathers have done from time out of mind? Whether the British Government intend to pay them for that which they take from them to give to the French, together with the value of their houses and plantations, which would thereby be rendered useless? Also, whether the British Government intend to pay the passages of these people out of the country, as they would have to go to the United States, where, I am told, they could carry on the same fishery under the protection of the American flag. If not, what is to become of the people - 2,000 in number at least? Surely this number of human beings, and Englishmen too, will not be allowed to starve, or their property taken from them without compensation?I can tell you that Englishmen will not s u b rnit to this, unless their character be changed? However, on examination of the second document, the Commissioners determined that it was in Bennett's own handwriting and concluded: "Mr. C.E Bennett appears, therefore, to have written the letter to himself, when h e visited Cod Roy in his yacht in September 1853,and to have delivered

Introduction xxv it to John Galton."" This second letter, apparently written by Bennett and supplied to Galton for him to pass off as his own, was subsequently withdrawn from the evidence. The incident must have been a clear confirmation of the fears of Montaignac and Gobineau regarding the damage that could be done by the interference of troublemakers from St John's. In his chapter on Red Island Gobineau points out that St George's is entirely English, Codroy English and French, while Red Island is entirely French and hence perfectly legal. The British Commissioners nevertheless apparently felt some doubt about this; their Secretary wrote to Bannerman: "At Red Island there were certain stone houses on which the Home Government must decide whether they are to exist or not"85 This is in marked contrast to Gobineau's description of a collection of the most flimsy and rudimentary shacks, although neither the final report of the British Commissioners or their secretary's private memorandum makes any complaint of the existence of stone houses in contravention of the treaties. It was, of course, common practice for the French to build a wooden house or shelter and to attach to it a stone bakeoven, to which none but the most aggressive francophobes raised any objection. The Commission decided that while it was in the area it would extend its investigation beyond the treaty shore into the coast of Labrador. Gobineau points out that French access to the Labrador fishery was a bone of contention: it had been included in the proposed Convention of 1857, but Newfoundland's rejection of that had blocked the agreement Gobineau makes light of allegations of illegal French encroachment into Labrador (see his despatch no. 3 of 16August 1859, claiming it was only short-lived and in any case not very productive). In fact, the French had a long tradition of straying beyond the treaty limits.86Patrols were very few and fishing captains had little compunction about crossing boundaries when it suited their purpose. In 1846 Captain Jehenne of the French naval division in Newfoundland, on board the corvette the Boussole, reported to his Minister that the British warship Persian was on an inspection tour of the coast of Labrador: This brig will no doubt meet some of our fishermen completing their fishing at Belle Isle North and others on the coast of Labrador; but since the instructions of Captain Caryton are no more severe than in previous years, I believe that he will content himself with issuing to our vessels fishing at Belle Isle North an

xxvi Gobineau and Newfoundland order to withdraw, without caring greatly whether, after putting on a show of moving out, the fishermen go straight back once the patrol vessel has continued on its way, for there is no anchorage at Belle Isle for a warship. As for those of our vessels from the eastern shore that left at the end of July to complete their fishing on the coast of Labrador, according to their annual custom, I believe that they will have practically finished their operations, and that they will remove themselves as soon as the English brig first tells them to. Our cap tains know very well that it is at their own risk that they venture on this illegal fishery, that I will never authorize, even tacitlya7 It is obvious that both sides treated the issue as something of a polite game of hide and seek. Jeheme later wrote again to his Minister: As I predicted, several of our ships went to finish their fishery on the coast of Labrador; but the fish was so abundant there that they had already completed their fishery when the English warship Persian passed through the area. So it had no difficulty in sending our fishermen away. This brig met two of our schooners at Belle Isle North, one from St. Julian's Harbour, the other from Pacquet Harbour, which were fishing there. The English captain requested that they leave, expressing his regret at disturbing them. Since our subjects quickly acceded to this courteous request, there was no complaint or claim made on either side.88

The officers of the French naval division must have been well aware of the encroachment of their compatriots along the coast of Labrador, but were in the habit of turning a blind eye to i t And the Commissioners had been informed that the French continued to fish along the coast of Labrador in depositions from Thomas Le Scellieur of Blanc Sablon and Thomas R Crockwell of Forteau.* The view of the Labrador situation that Gobineau puts forward is, then, the official one, which could differ greatly from reality. (Crockwell claimed that although square-rigged vessels had not appeared in Labrador for thirteen or fourteen years, smaller French boats went there regularly, and as many as thirty had been seen that year.) After visiting a number of communities along the French shore

Introduction xxvii Gobineau found that they began to seem much alike, and does not go into great detail about the succession of places that he saw. He does, however, record one incident that requires some explanation. He notes in his chap ter on the Eastern Shore (pp. 145-6) how a trouble-maker appeared in Conche, claiming to represent the government and inciting the population against the French. This is entirely factual and the incident greatly upset the French Commissioners. James Finlay had chartered a vessel, the Dauntless, and had gone to the French shore with the declared intention of enquiring into the state of affairs. But he was hardly a disinterested investigator. In the spring of 1859 he had been engaged by the Chamber of Commerce to proceed North [.. I for the purpose of taking down in writing oral evidence from the Fishermen and others, of the practice, as known to them respecting the Fisheries, the nature and character of such testimony as desired by the C ~ m m i t t e e . ~ The French Commissioners were most displeased with Finlay, and when they arrived in St John's, Montaignac wrote to Bannerman in courteous protestg1In his reply, Bannerman is at pains to distance himself from Finlayg2The Governor claims that Finlay was an agent of the government only in so far as he was carrying government correspondence, and that it was the Chamber of Commerce that had hired him, a group of people who, according to him, "at all times avoid meddling in any political question..."?3 But the Governor had earlier written to the interim Colonial Secretary: >!

I am clearly of opinion that the Government ought to ask for the aid of the Chamber of Commerce, or any other source that may suggest individuals capable of giving evidence to controvert the French claim of exclusive right.

The Chamber of Conunerce later wrote to the Governor: The Committee trust their proceedings and the arrangements made with regard to despatching the Dauntless in a few days North-ward with Mr. Finlay on board may meet with your Excellency's approbation...?5

xwiii Gobineau and Newfoundland After he had been appointed by the Chamber of Commerce, Finlay himself wrote to the Governor offering his services for "the protection and assistance British residents and fishermen will necessarily require at the hands of Your Excellency's Governmentng6Indeed, once the enquiry was over, the Governor actually asked the home government to repay the Chamber of Commerce the expense of the Finlay mission: "I trust, as the subject is a National one, H.M.Government will not think it unreasonable to reimburse the Chamber for the money they have individually advanced." 97 S i c e Finlay's mission had been instigated by the Governor, one can well understand Finlay's claim that he was in fact an agent of the government, albeit indirectly. In a similar manner, Bannerman had apparently been in touch with Forrest of St. George's, who wrote to him as follows: I beg to say that on the arrival of the Commissioners here that (sic) the line of duty marked out by Your Excellency for my observance shall be attended to to the best of my abilityg8

Following the hearings in S t George's, Kent wrote to Bannerman that Forrest had been "very useful in collecting evidence on the different heads suggested by Your Excellency." 99 Bannerman's forceful defence of Newfoundland's claim had led the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs in London to chastize him: Her Majesty's Government wish you distinctly to understand that while the present enquiry is in progress and until the receipt of further instructions you must abstain from taking any steps or making any communication in any quarter except by direct communication with the British Commissioners and Her Majesty's Government upon the general question of the Newfoundland Fisheries.loo This was the outcome of a letter Bannerman had written to de la Ronci&re le Noury, a letter that Newcastle deemed inappropriately contentious. Discretion obviously prevented Gobineau from elaborating on his feelings regarding the Governor and the colonial government, but his irritation over the Finlay incident is clear, and is based on the feeling that the

Introduction xxix Governor was attempting to influence the enquiry, as well as on a total lack of patience with the colonial viewpoint. Jenkinson's Private Memorandum... also refers to the matter of F ' i a y The French Commissioners could with difficulty be induced to believe that Mr. Finlay did not act in pursuance of instructions issued by the Colonial Government, and they clothed Mr. Fiiay's acts with an importance quite beyond the real merits of the case.lo1

In byage to Newfoundland the unnamed individual is portrayed as an interferer from outside, disturbing the essentially harmonious relations between the English and French along the treaty shore. This view of relations is consistent with our present understanding of the situation. John Mannion writes: Resistance to the French did not stem initially from the residents, who were generally indifferent or ignorant of the political and legal situation, but from mercantile interests now centred in St. John's who were jealous of the illicit but lucrative traffic in bait on the south and west coasts, and were fearful that the French might cap ture traditional markets overseas. Using the Legislative Assembly in S t John's as their mouthpiece, they complained bitterly about French interloping.lo2 Jenkinson underlines the hostility of Gobineau and Montaignac to the views of the Legislature: The French officials [...I evidently did not regard the Colonial Government at St. John's with any friendly feeling, in consequence of their having rejected the Convention of 1857. These gentlemen seemed to consider it quite an anomaly that a small Colony of not more than 130,000 inhabitants should interfere with arrangements made and signed between the Imperial Governments of Great Britain and France....Io3 The Secretary to the British Commissioners records the views of the author of Voyage to Newfoundland in particular:

xxx Gobineau and Newfoundland M. de Gobineau once observed to the writer, in the course of conversation, "What has our Government to do with the Government of St. John's? We made Treaties with Great Britain, and not with a Colony." Such sentiments must have put something of a strain on relationships between Kent, Colonial Secretary in the Newfoundland government, and the French Commissioners. And while Gobineau is full of praise for the outpouring of friendliness towards the French during their stay in St. John's, he is markedly silent on the most notable figure in St. John's society, Sir Alexander Bannerman. We know that the Commissioners had repeatedly been guests of the Governor, who records: "During the visit of the Marquis de Montaignac and Count Gobineau, they were frequently at Government House...."lo5 The Governor wrote very favorably of Gobineau and Montaignac: The French Commissioner, the Marquis de Montaignac in the Naval Service of His 1.[Imperial] Majesty is also a very intelligent man, but his colleague M. Gobineau is a very able diplomatist, in the service of the Government of France, and it is fortunate I think that the duties of the Commissioners are confined to acquiring information for their respective governrnents.lo6 Later he wrote of the author of byage to Newfoundland:

...the Count Gobineau is a Diplomatist of the lirst class; he never

was in Great Britain, has been mostly in Persia, - he is a learned, and scientific man and, (sic) I have no doubt eminently qualjfied for the post he filIs....lo7 Bannerman seems to recognize a formidable adversary in Gobineau and his spirited defence of French rights. The fact that Bannerman went out of his way to ensure that the Commission was presented with evidence to contest the French claim to exclusive rights did not endear him to Gobineau or Montaignac. But there was also a more personal reason for Gobineau's pointed silence on Bannerman. In Chapter 12 of Voyage to Newfoundland he criticizes New-

Introduction rnnri foundlanders in general and even those in high office for overindulgence in alcohol (p. 185). Understandably, h e writes in purely general terms. However, Montaignac's predecessor as Commodore of the French naval station in Newfoundland, Clement d e la Ronciere le Noury, referred specifically to the Governor. In a letter to his daughter dated 23 July 1858 h e wrote: The Governor, Sir Alexander Bannerman, is sixty-five and physically is very like Lord Stratford Canning. But with the difference that Sir Alexander gets drunk once a day on even-numbered days, twice a day on odd days, and all day long on Sunday, in order to celebrate it better, according to the English custom. Since it was eleven a.m. and it was an even-numbered day, he was completely coherent and most pleasant.lo8

It is scarcely conceivable that either the other officers of the naval station or Gobineau himself could have been unaware of Bannerman's reputation. During the stay of the Commissioners in the capital, Gobineau records a number of events, including a fire that detachments of the crews of the English and French warships helped to fight. The event was real, and recorded in the local newspapers.lmIn byage to Newfooundland h e also reports a ceremonial mass at the Basilica in honor of the French visitors on the feast of the Assumption, as he does in his despatch no. 4 of 16 August; the event is reported in glowing terms in the Newfoundlander of 18August 1859 (see p. 202). While in Nova Scotia he had commented on the strong current of sectarian polemics in local publications (p. 56). He had an opportunity to see a striking example of this in another account of the same mass in the Public hdger, a Rotestant paper in St. John's, on 16 August 1859: Great excitement was created in our harbour yesterday by the expenditure of a vast quantity of gunpowder which may ye[t] be needed for more sensible purposes, and the exhibition of bunting which gained nothing by the wear and tear consequent upon exposure to wind and rain. It is surprising that Britons have no more gumption than to indulge in such flummery. It was observed that whilst they paid a compliment to "Catholic France,"

d

i Gobineau and Newfoundland as the Newfiundlander has it, by exhibiting the tricolor at the main, the French ships took the independent course of a nonexhibition of the good old British Ensign. This is not as it should be - and we don't like it. At least we think that when the British ships in port were paying a respect to the French flag the latter should certainly have acknowledged the compliment -if only for the time being.

This account in the Public Ledger was almost certainly in the back of Gobineau's mind when, some years later, he sketched the portrait of O'Lary, the amiable but totally unprincipled St John's journalist in The Caribou Hunt, who is equally ready to indulge in blatant francophobia when it suits his purpose. In his comments on the capital city, Gobineau describes the tremendous influence of the Catholic Bishop, whom he does not name in Voyage to Newfoundland, though he does in despatch no. 4. Once again we have an example of the reserve of the public document and the much franker character of the private one. In Voyage to Newfoundland he mentions the influence of Dr. Mullock, and although it is evident that he sees him as an autocrat, he is described as extremely disinterested, enlightened and benevolent. In the despatch, however, Gobineau dwells much more on the prelate's tremendous authority, and on his power to make or break governments as well as individual careers. The French Commissioner also carefully underlines the fact that in establishing cordial relations with the Bishop, he and Montaignac were opening a line of communication to the most important power-broker in Newfoundland. After their work and social calls in St. John's the Commissioners moved to the Burin peninsula, though Gobineau carefully avoids any mention of the purpose of this visit to a place well outside the limits of the French shore. He does, however, comment on the relative affluence of the area, attributed to the sale of bait to the French in St. Pierre. To view this trade was a main object of the journey. One of the two joint recommendations of the Commission was that bait sales to the French be free of any duty. But there was another matter raised: the invasion by both French and English subjects of the territorial waters of the other nation (Burin being close to St. Pierre, the dividing line was halfway between the two). The Secretary to the British Commissioners wrote to Sir A, Bannerman:

Introduction xxxiii The Commission has accordingly specially recorded that these encroachments do actually take place; and, it is the intention of M. de Montaignac, in his capacity as Naval Commandant, to take measures to prevent as far as possible the recurrence of any such encroachment on the part of the French fishermen.l1° And the minutes of the twenty-first meeting of the Commission, signed by Gobineau with all of the other Commissioners, record: The Commission having taken into consideration the fact that it is commonly reported that both British and French fishermen carry on their respective fisheries beyond the respective limits between the South Coast of Newfoundland and the Islands of St Pierre and Miquelon, and that quarrels, much to be regretted, had occurred between the fishermen of the two nations, in consequence of French fishermen having fished with the bultow on British fishing ground, determined that these circumstances should be admitted as facts, and that, therefore, it was not necessary for the Cornmission to proceed to Lamaline for the purpose of verifying the same by actual evidence." l At this point the work of the joint enquiry was over, it only remained for the commissioners to bid each other farewell, go their separate ways, and write their reports. They had agreed that in general the reports of treaty violations had been exaggerated, that it would be useful to set up an Anglo-French force to ensure that the treaties were observed and to settle squabbles, and that there should be no restrictions on the sale of bait between Newfoundland and St Pierre. There were further discussions the following year in Paris, but as far as Gobineau was concerned, once the final report was written, his task was officially over. But he took his mission extremely seriously, and after his return to Paris in the fall of 1859 wrote a further personal memorandum to his Minister on the French fishery on the Grand Banks and off the coast of Newfoundland. This is the document dated 24 December 1859 and included in the present collection. me Caribou Hunt allows Gobineau to reuse in a work of pure fiction some of the local colour observed in byage to Newfoufoundland:the sectarian polemics of journalism, the upbringing of the younger generation, the

d

v Gobineau and Newfoundland

fondness of Newfoundlanders for alcohol, the simplicity of marriage arrangements where no minister is available to bless the union, are some of the clearest examples. The character of Charles Cabert, though, has his origins elsewhere. He may well be the product of personal experience, but experience of affluent Parisian society, not of Newfoundland. On the one hand, he is mercilessly mocked for the paucity of his intellect, his fop pishness, and his inability to exist outside of his circle of Parisian friends. On the other, the experiences that he goes through are in some respects those that the diplomat lived through during the enquiry of 1859. The author's sardonic smile is aimed in two directions at the same time, at his main character and at the society in which he finds himself. Gobineau's writings on eastern North America form a unique commentary on the area in the mid-nineteenth century. They do, however, need to be treated with some caution. His account of the nature of French treaty rights is highly partisan. It is not surprising that he never mentions any French violations of the treaties, but this does not mean that there were none. The message that the English and French fishermen were, in general, living in peace was precisely what both metropolitan governments wanted to hear. But even with these reservations in mind, the portrait of the simple, God-fearing fishermen eking a meagre living from hostile elements, with no outside help, is a moving homage to Newfoundlanders. He does not hesitate to describe St George's as a kind of Utopia. The most unsympathetic characters in his tableau are, throughout, those who vigorously contest the French claim of exclusive rights, whom he sees as nothing more than greedy troublemakers or mindless materialists, or both at the same time. One of the most engaging aspects of both the diplomatic despatches and the published texts is the tremendous enthusiasm and optimism with which Gobineau writes. It is true that some of this may be seen as selfserving: when, in despatch no. 4, he reports glowingly on the new relations he and Montaignac have established with the Bishop of St. John's, one may well wonder whether his desire to impress his Minister has coloured his assessment of a welcome that was undoubtedly cordial but certainly did not erase the problems of the French presence in Newfoundland. But his touching homage to the English population of St. George's, his personal initiative in advocating the development of St. Pierre, his belief in the moral qualities of the French navy, his faith in the mutual understanding of men of good will, all of these are so strongly

Introduction xxxv underlined that, even if they may at times be misplaced, one cannot but admire the generosity of spirit that inspired them. The 1859 enquiry was instituted after the failure of the proposed Convention of 1857; the Commissioners found that it was not necessary to negotiate a fresh agreement The report of the British Commissioners concludes: Upon reaching the scene of these reported difficulties, some of them disappeared entirely, while others assumed a much less formidable aspect, and your Commissioners, in common with their colleagues, became convinced, before the conclusion of the investigation, that there was no necessity for any alteration in existing Treaties, in order to secure to the subjects of both nations the practical enjoyment of their rights.l12 At this point there arose a sizeable element of confusion. The British Ambassador in Paris, Lord Cowley, reports a conversation with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Walewski:

I enquired this afternoon of Count Walewski, as desired by Y. L's. [Your Lordship's] despatch No. 549 of the 10 instant, whether I had reported his observations correctly to Y. L. when I stated, quoting H.E. [His Excellency], that the Newfoundland Fishery Commissrshad arrived at the conclusion "that the treaty of 1783 should be declared null and void." Count Walewski replied in the affirmative. He said in the opinion of the French Comrnissem,an opinion in which they had understood their British colleagues to coincide, no treaty whatever was necessary to regulate the Newfoundland Fisheries and that no more would be required than the establishment of a local commission to prevent any contravention on either side of existing rights. I observed to Count Walewski that these very rights could only be derived from a treaty, when H. E. seeming to feel the force of the remark said that to speak the truth he had taken his impressions kom a conversation he had had with M. Gobineau one of the French Cornmiss*, and that for more certainty he would furnish me with a summary of the report of the C ~ r n r n i s s ~ ~ . ~ ~ ~

xxxvi Gobineau and Newfiundland

How the leap was made from the position that nofurther treaties were necessary to the notion that all treaties should be abolished is not clear. Gobineau, in the concluding paragraphs of his despatch No. 3 of 16 August 1859makes it clear that he is advocating the former view. Perhaps Walewski misunderstood what he was told. In any case the question is of little importance, since although negotiations continued for a while in 1860 between Dunlop and Montaignac, even the proposal for a limited Anglo-French enforcement agency was finally abandoned. But by that stage, Gobineau himself had moved on to Tehran, and then to Greece, and had little else to say about Newfoundland. Michael Wilkshire Memorial University of Newfoundland

Introduction xxxvii Chronologv of Gobineau's Movements March-September 1859 11 March:

Gobineau appointed Commissioner.

14 April:

Gobineau boards the Gassendi in Brest

23 April:

Departure of the French Commissioners from Brest, heading for St Pierre.

13 May:

Arrival in St Pierre.

Last week of May

Departure from St. Pierre for Sydney (for coal).

1 June:

Arrival in Halifax from Sydney.

12 June:

Departure kom Halifax for the west coast of Newfoundland,

15June:

Arrival of the French commissioners in Bay St George.

16June:

Arrival of the British commissioners in Bay St George.

18 June:

First meeting of the joint commission in Sandy Point, Bay St. George.

20 June:

Second meeting, Sandy Point.

21 June:

Third meeting, Sandy Point

23 June:

Fourth meeting, Codroy, Codroy Island and Red Island.

28 June:

F'lfth meeting, Lark Harbour, Bay of Islands.

5 July:

S i meeting, St John Island, New Portau-Choix and Old Por t-au-Choix.

xxxviii Gobineau and Newfoundland

9 July:

Seventh meeting, Port Saunders.

12July:

Eighth meeting, Blanc Sablon, Labrador.

14July:

Ninth meeting, Forteau Bay, Labrador, then back to Newfoundland to Flowers Cove and Anchor Point.

15July:

Tenth meeting, Quirpon.

20 July:

Eleventh meeting, Croque Harbour.

25 July:

Twelfth meeting, Rouge Harbour, Conche and Croque.

27 July:

Thirteenth meeting, Grand St Juliens, Fichot, Crkmaillere.

29 July:

Fourteenth meeting: fkom Crkmaillere the commissioners visited St Anthony's Bay, Bay of St. Mein, T h e e Mountains and Goose Cove, returning to Crbmaillkre.

30 July:

Fifteenth meeting, sailing from Gouffre Harbour, Canada Bay, to Englee, then returning to Gouffre Harbour. The Commissioners were looking for a hospital that James Finlay had alleged the French were building in contravention of the treaties.

1August:

Sixteenth meeting, first at Port Jackson, White Bay, then leaving Port Jackson for Southern Arm.

2 August:

Seventeenth meeting, first at Fleur-deLis then at Packet Harbour. Here the commissioners decided to proceed immediately to St John's.

,

Introduction xxxix

8 August:

Eighteenth meeting, S t John's. For reasons explained in the Introduction, no further witnesses are heard at the sessions held in the capital.

12 August:

Nineteenth meeting, S t John's.

16August:

Twentieth meeting, St John's.

26 August:

Twentyarst meeting, Little Burin. The cornmissioners were looking into the question of bait trade between residents of the Burin Peninsula and St Pierre as well as fishermen straying outside the limits of their respective territorial waters.

27 August:

Twenty-second and final meeting, Burin Harbour. The minutes of this session record: (.

The members of the Commission mutually congratulate each other on having arrived at the above conciliatory representations [recommendationsfor the creation of a joint police force to deal with disputes and the lifting of restrictions on the saliof bait], and also on account of the perfectly friendly understanding which, in conformity with the desires of their respective Governments, has constantly prevailed throughout their proceedings. September/October:

Gobineau and Montaignac go to St Pierre, and then to Sydney, Nova Scotia, prior to returning to France.

xl Gobineau and Newfoundland Notes Paris: Didot, 1853-55. l3e Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races, trans. H. Hotz (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1856). Oeuvres, 2 vols., ed. J. Gaulmier with the collaboration of J. Boissel (Paris: Gallimard, 1983) l:p. 1166. Our translation. Stockholm: Muller, 1874. Trans. J.F. Scanlan (New York: Knopf, 1928). Trans. Douglas ParmCe (London: Oxford University Press, 1966). Paris: Plon, 1872. Paris: Plon, 1876. a Standard biographical works on Gobineau include Jean Gaulrnier's Spectre de Gobineau (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1965) and Jean Boissel's Gobineau (Paris: Hachette, 1981); the definitive edition of the texts is to be found in the Plbiade collection, Oeuvres published under the direction of Jean Gaulmier in 3 volumes (Paris: Gallirnard, 1983-87); vol. 1was with the collaboration of Jean Boissel, vol. 2 with Pierre Usbtieux and Vincent Monteil, and vol. 3 with Marie-Louise Concasty. Gobineau's short fiction has been collected into two volumes edited by Jean Gaulrnier: "Le Mouchoir rouge" et autres nouvelles (Paris: Gamier, 1968) and Nouvelles asiatiques (Paris: Gamier, 1965). To this brief list should be added the recent edition by Roland Le Huenen of Vbyage ci Terre-Neuve (Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1989). Published by AB. Duff, Etudes Gobiniennes 1972, p. 109. lo Introduction to Voyage h Tewe-Neuve, p. XIV. l1 15 February, 15 March and 1April 1863. l2 Trans. Henry Longan Stuart (New York: Harper, 1927). l3 Oeuures, vol. 2, pp. 1195-7. I* 1967, pp. 11-26. l5 Michael Biddiss, Father of Racist Ideology, the Social and Political Thought of Count Gobineau (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1970), pp. 197-201. l6 Michael Wilkshire, "Newfoundland seen through French eyes"; 2.2 (Fall 1986): pp. 233-39. l7 They are located in the Archives du Ministere des Maires Etrangeres, Paris (subsequently referred to as AMEA), Mdmoires et documents, Angletewe, vol. 108,1859. la For a complete study, see Frederick F. Thompson, l3e French Shore Problem in Newfiundland; an imperial study, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961). l9 Gerald William St John Chadwick, Newfoundland. Island into Province (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967),p. 31.

Introduction xli "A French Visitor of 100 years Ago", Newfoundland Quatferly IXVI.4 (Fall 1968),pp. 1620, quotation from p. 17. 21 In "Une campagne au French Shore en 1770" (Le Pays de Granville 1950: pp. 27-51) Ch. de la Morandiere published the text of a report by Captain Hamon, of the French fishing vessel Marie-Anne from Granville, on his season in the area of Greenspond. This report, transcribed from the Archives nationales (Colonies, C 11F 4, f. 87 et seq.) provides a detailed illustration of the competition between French and English fishermen in the area ceded by the French in 1783 as well as of the kinds of quarrels that arose. See also Michael and Frances Wilkshire, "Alliances and Conflicts on the French Shore: Captain Hamon's Journal, Written in Greenspond in 1770." Newjhundland Studies vol. 8 no. 2 (Fall 1992),pp. 147-154. 22 This claim was based not so much on the restricted Newfoundland sense of fish, i.e. cod, but rather on the reference in the treaties of the right "to catch and dry fish", cod being the only species to which drying was applicable. This at least was the argument put forward by the Colonial Secretary, John Kent, in a proposed amendment to a resolution relating to the French fishery on 1F e b ruary 1859.Journal of the House of Assembly (subsequently referred to as JHA) 1859: p. 20. 23 See the report of M.J. K e l l y , ~ 1858: p. 442. 24 Archives Nationales, Paris (subsequently referred to as AN), Marine BB4762. Our translation. 25 Correspondance intime de l'amiral de la Ronciire le Noury avec sa femme et sa fille (1851-1871).Ed. Joseph I'Hbpital and Louis de Saint-Blancard (Paris: Champion, 2 vols, 1928-9), 1:pp. 127-144. 26 Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's (subsequently referred to as PANL), letter of 14 June 1859, GN 1/3/A, French Shore file. Our translation. 27 Comespondance intime 1:p. 128. Our translation. 28 NO. 98,21 December 1858; Public Record Office, London (subsequently referred to as PRO)CO 194/153: p. 603. 29 JHA 1859: Appendix p. 386. 30 NelOfOundland Ek$ress, 11September 1858.This issue contains both the text of the petition and the GovernoJs response. 31 Bannerman to Lytton, no. 99,22 December 1858; PRO CO 194/153: p. 613. 32 Contemporary translation of a despatch to Lord Cowley, dated 5 January 1859. JHA 1859: Appendix p. 406. 33 Contemporary translation of a despatch to Lord Cowley, dated 5 January 1859. JHA1859: Appendix p. 406. 34 Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, Correspondance entre le comte de Gobineau et le comte de Prokesch-Osten (1854-1876).Ed. Clbment Serpeille de Gobineau Z0

xlii Gobineau and Newfoundland (Paris: Plon, 1933), p. 195. Our translation. 35 AMEA, Mimoires et documents, Angleteme, vol. 108,1859: p. 41. Our translation. 36 Correspondance, p. 198. Our translation. 37 "Gobineau et les colonies anglaises," p. 11. 38 Correspondance, p. 198. Our translation. 39 Ibid., p. 201. Letter of 26 March, 1859. Our translation. Ibid., Letter of 1April 1859. Our translation. 41 Ibid., p. 202. Our translation. 42 Gobineau to Baroche, on board the Gassendi, Bay St. George, 20 June 1859. See S. Posener, Lettres inidites de Gobineau h Jules Baroche, Mercure de France, 15January 1935, pp. 270-89. Quotation from pp. 2734. Our translation. 43 Quoted by Posener, p. 272. Our translation. 44 The instructions given to the British Commissioners are contained in two despatches from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir E. B. Lytton, to Dunlop and Kent Both despatches are dated 20 April 1859. The first is of a general nature and was intended to be copied to the French authorities. The second was strictly confidential and outlined, for the benefit of Kent and Dunlop, the British position on a variety of contentious issues, explaining, for example, why the British considered French rights to be concurrent and not exclusive, why the French had no fishing rights in rivers or on the island of Belle Isle North, why the French naval presence had no right to enforce treaties itself but should request enforcement by the British, and how the British considered the French to be violating articles of the treaties prohibiting French subjects wintering in Newfoundland and building (as opposed to simply repairimg) fishing boats on the island. Copies of both sets of instructions are to be found in PRO CO 194/159: pp. 155-60 and pp. 209-37. 45 Gazetteer of Canada: Newfoundland. Published for the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names by the Geographical Services Directorate, Services and Mapping Branch, Energy Mines and Resources Canada: Ottawa, 1983. 46 Montaignac to Ministre de la Marine, 26 May 1859; AN Marine BB4773. 47 AMEA Mhoires et documents, Angleterre, tome 108,1859: p. 73. Our translation. 48 H alifax newspapers record the arrival of the Indus on 31 May and the Gassendi on 1June. See, for example, the Evening &press, 1June 1859. 49 The Halifax Evening Express of 1June records the arrival of the Tarfar in St. John's on 27 May. AMEA Mimoires et documents, Angleterre, vol. 108,1859: p. 73. Our translation. 51 8 June 1859, PRO CO 194/160: pp. 45. 52 Correspondance intime 1:p. 141. Letter of 23 July 1858.

Introduction xliii Report signed by Gobineau and Montaignac and addressed to Count Walewski; AMEA Mdmoires et documents, Angleterre, vol. 108,1859: pp. 177-204. Quotation from p. 164. Our translation. 54 He felt sufficiently strongly about this matter to complain to the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, the Duke of Newcastle, who later informed Bannerman of the complaint and stated that the matter would be taken up with the Commissioners (No. 31,19 October 1859, PANLGN 1/2/0). 55 July 16 1859, PANL GN 1/3/A, French Shore file. 56 Kent to Merivale, 16July 1859; PRO CO 194/60: p. 680. 57 1August 1859; PRO CO 194/156: p. 86. 58 Jenkinson to Merivale, 22 June 1859; PRO CO 194/160: pp. 1516. 59 The British Commissioners had had pointed out to them "the importance which H.M. Govt. attach to a conciliatory intercourse and a harmonious concert with [their] Colleagues." PRO CO 194/159: p. 156. AMEA Mdmoires et documents, Angleterre, v. 108, 1859: pp. 164-65. Our translation. The three landscape photographs reproduced here were taken in 1859 during the course of the enquiry by a French photographer (almost certainly Miot), presented to the English Commissioners at the meeting of 16 August in St. John's and included in their report. Their purpose is quite obviously to illustrate the extent of English invasion on the French shore, in violation of what the French understood to be their exclusive rights. (PRO CO 194/160, p. 169: 'Vue photographique de la plage de Sandy Point (Saint Georges)." Ibid., p. 170: "Vue photographique du havre de 1'1sle Saint Jean." Ibid., p. 171: "Vue photographique de la Conche.") 62 1November 1849;JHA (1850): p. 31. 63 JHA (1853): p. 114. a Bannerman to Lytton, no. 99,22 December 1858; PRO CO 194/153: pp. 612-13. 65 Lytton to Bannerman, no. 13,26 February 1859; PANL GN 1/2/0. 66 AN, report addressed to the Governor of S t Pierre; Colonies CllC: 7B. (National Archives of Canada, Microfilm, reel F-505). Our translation. 67 AN, extract of a report addressed to the Minister by Mr. Jehenne, Captain of the corvette the Boussole, dated 21 October 1847 at Brest; Colonies C1lC: 7B. Our translation. 53

(1858): Appendix, p. 438. 70 The text of this letter, dated 28 October 1858, and the list of families appended to it, was printed in the JHA (1859): pp. 39597. 71 AN Colonies Cl1C: 7B. Our translation. @

JHA

xliv Gobineau and Newfoundland The Minister for the Navy wrote to Montaignac on 6 April 1859, informing him that the Tinare was to be commanded by Gautier; see AN Marine BB4767. 73 Appendix A to the report of the French Commissioners; AMEA, Me'moires et documents, Angletewe, vol. 108,1859: p. 190. Our translation. 74 Cowespondance intime 1:p. 129. Our translation. 75 See Michael Wilkshire and Gerald Penney, "Five Micmac Photographs." Newfoundland Quarterly lXXXVINo. 3, Spring 1991, pp. 12-16. 76 Ibid. 77 Biddiss, op. cit, p. 199. 78 Jenkinson, Private Memorandum, PRO CO 194/160: pp. 499-507, quotation from p. 503. 79 Report of the Commissionersfor Newfoundland PRO CO 194/160: 533-674. See the depositions of Galton, Goin, Dubois and Broussais in the appendices, pp. 55862. * Ibid., p. 503. 81 Ibid. sz Ibid., p. 562. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. Jenkinson to Bannerman, 16July 1859; PANL GN 1/3/A, French Shore file. 86 There are a number of documents from the middle of the eighteenth century in the Archives du Ministhe des Affaires &trang&resdiscussing exactly where Point Riche was; there is even one that claims that the placing of it in its present location was an English ploy to allow them to take over the major part of the west coast to the exclusion of the French, and that the French had always understood Point Riche and Cape Ray to be the same place! The document in question is accompanied by a map, apparently of 1754, which shows for Cape Ray: "Cap de Ray ou la Pointe Riche," ("Cape Ray or Point Riche") and for the real Point Riche: "LaPointe Riche marquee ici par les anglois (sic), ma1 A propos, et contre la lettre du Trait6 d'Utrecht9' ("Point Riche, placed here by the English, improperly, and contrary to the letter of the Treaty of Utrecht"). Me'moires et documents, Amkrique, v. 23, 1699-1869 (Terre-Neuve): p. 99. Unsigned document dated 1762. 87 16 August 1846 at Croque Bay; AN Marine BB4639. Our translation. 88 September 1846 at Croque Harbour; An Marine BB4639. Our translation. PRO CO 194/160: pp. 565,566. 90 Rendell, for the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, to Finlay, 3 May 1859;PANL GN 1/3/A, French Shore File (copy). Emphasis added. 16August 1859; PANL GN 1/3/A, French Shore file.

72

Introduction xlv Bannerrnan to Montaignac, 17August 1859; PANL GN 1/3/A, French Shore file. 93 Bannerman to Montaignac, 17 August 1859; PANLGN 1/3/A, French Shore file. 94 Bannerman to Shea, 28 March 1859; PANL GN 1/3/A, French Shore file (copy). 95 Rendell to Bannerman, 9 May 1859; PANLGN 1/3/A, French Shore file. 96 Finlay to Bannerrnan, 25 May 1859; PANLGN 1/3/A. Bannerrnan to Newcastle, no. 67,23 September 1859, PRO CO 194/156: p. 225. 98 21 May 1859; PANL GN 1/3/A, French Shore d e . 22 June 1859; PANL GN 1/3/A, French Shore file. loONewcastle to Bannerman, no. 10,28July 1859; PANL GN 1/2/0. lolPRO CO 194/160: p. 506. lm"Settlersand Traders: Western Newfoundland", m e Peopling of Newfoundland. Essays in Historical Geography. Ed. John Mannion. Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1977, pp. 23479. Quotation from p. 249. lO3p~o CO 194/160: p. 506. lorIbid.,p. 506 n. loSBannermanto Newcastle, no. 51,24 August 1859; PRO CO 194/156: p. 129. lMBannermanto Newcastle, marked "Separate", 2 August 1859; PRO CO 194/156: pp. 100-01. lo7Bannermanto Newcastle, no. 51,24 August 1859; PRO CO 194/156: p. 129. 10BCorrespondanceintime 1:pp. 141-2. logseethe Newfoundland Express of 13August and the Patriot of 15August 1859. 11°2September 1859;PANL GN 1/3/A, French Shore file. l l l ~ CO ~ o 194/160: p. 551. [Bultow: "In the cod-fishery, a long, blioyed fishingline with closely-placed and baited hooks attached at intervals; set line; TRAWL." Story, Kirwin and Widdowson, Dictionary of Newfoundland English, 2nd ed., voronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), p. 73.1 u21bid.,p. 539. l13Cowleyto Russell, PRO CO 194/159: pp. 29899. Copy. l 1 4 p ~ co 0 194/160: pp. 551.

xlvi Gobineau and Newfoundland

NEWFOUNDLAND

..... ......... ..

- French Shore, 1713-1783. *>>:k*y