Among other improvements meditated for Newfoundland, it was resolved to establish custom-house officers. The commissioners of the customs, in March and May 1764, issued out deputations constituting a collector and controller of the customs at Newfoundland. We find that _Captain Byng_ had, in the year 1743, appointed a naval officer as a necessary assistant to him, in checking the illicit trade there carried on. It does not appear whether this appointment was continued by his successors. [Sidenote: Newfoundland a plantation.] A seizure was made about this time at Newfoundland of a ship, for want of a register; it appeared to the commissioners of the customs that Newfoundland had hitherto been looked upon merely in the light of _a fishery_, and vessels going thither were not thought liable to the same regulations, as those going to the other British colonies and plantations: they now applied to the treasury for advice on this point[72]; and the treasury referred it to the board of trade for their opinion; who report, that they saw no reason to doubt its being a part of his majesty’s plantations, and they thought its commerce, and the ships bound thither, should be under the same regulations as in the other plantations: their lordships further thought, that as the governor had suspected that many foreigners were sharers in the fishery and commerce of that island, and had made seizure of three ships, in two of which it clearly appeared that Spaniards were concerned, it was highly expedient and necessary, that the laws of navigation should be carried into execution there[73]. [Sidenote: Custom-house established.] Thus by the establishment of a custom-house, and the introduction of the laws of navigation, was another pillar added to the civil government of that place. But this was considered and treated as an innovation by those who clamoured for a free fishery, and Stat. 10 & 11 Will. 3. and this institution being effected without the authority of parliament, was questioned in the same manner, and upon the same ground, as the commissioners of the peace, and of oyer and terminer. The article of fees was a topic on which a complaint might be founded with most hopes of success, where the interests of a fishery were concerned. This the merchants pushed with petitions and memorials for some time without prevailing: and the fees of the custom-house are a cause of complaint to this very day. [Sidenote: Property in flakes, &c. discussed.]