It may be said at once that the course of English diplomacy was almost uniformly weak, and was in fact such as to lend no small countenance to the French contention. Thus, for many years it was the policy of the Home Government to discourage the colonists from exercising the right which was always alleged in theory to be concurrent. Nor did the Imperial complaisance end here. The French fishermen and their protectors from time to time put forward pretensions only to be justified by a revival of the sovereignty which was extinguished by the Treaty of Utrecht. Thus, they attempted systematically to prevent any English settlement at all upon the debatable shore. For residential, mining and agricultural purposes this strip would thus be withdrawn from colonial occupation. It is much to be regretted that these claims were not summarily repudiated. The Imperial Government, however, encouraged them by forbidding any grants of land along the area in dispute. Under these circumstances the theoretical assertion of British sovereignty by which the prohibition was qualified was not likely to be specially impressive. The islanders acquiesced in the decision with stolid patience, but, undeterred by the consequent insecurity of tenure, settled as squatters in the unappropriated lands. As recently as forty years ago their title was still unrecognized, and the presence of thousands of settlers with indeterminate claims had become a dangerous grievance. In 1881 Sir William Whiteway, then Premier of the colony, paid a visit to England, and his powerful advocacy procured recognition for the title of the settlers to their lands, and brought them within the pale of the Queen's law. The French shore cod fishery was recently so poor compared with the Great Bank fishery that French fishermen abandoned the former for the latter; and, in fact, but for a recent development of the French claim, it would have been possible to say of the whole question _solvitur ambulando_.