WI Britain took St. Pierre, Miquelon & Newfie fishing rights at Treaty of Paris (1763)?

If UK kept St. Pierre & Miquelon fisheries, France woulda been too weak at sea to aid the Americans?

  • Yes

    Votes: 8 36.4%
  • No

    Votes: 14 63.6%

  • Total voters
    22

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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I heard somewhere that Pitt opposed restoring St. Pierre & Miquelon (and implicitly opposing the fishing rights related to those islands and Newfoundland) to France, in part because he felt that undermining the French North Atlantic fishing fleet would help suppress French seamanship and naval threats in the future.

What if the British government saw it the same way and annexed St. Pierre & Miquelon to Newfoundland and denied fish drying rights there to the French. In effect telling the French if they want Atlantic Cod they've got to buy it from Britain. [Not really, there was cod elsewhere, but this is where a lot of it was].

I see London being harsher towards France on this issue as being more likely than Britain trying to keep Guadalupe for example, because of the British sugar lobby's opposition to added competition.

Would any major British interest have had its "ox gored" by Britain gaining an effective monopoly over the Newfoundland fisheries? Even if it did, did anybody who might lose out by more plentiful fish supplies have a powerful lobby like the sugar one?

And if Britain did this, would Pitt's calculation have proven correct? Would the French have been unable to build up their naval strength as much in the OTL 1760s and 1780s, perhaps leaving them unable to intervene effectively in the American Revolution?
 
Pitt would have loved to do such a thing. But is Britain just playing hard ball, or is France getting something else in return? If the former, that's going to build up animosity, and make a new war more likely sooner.

As it was, Parliament really, really liked to space out its wars to pay down previous war debts.

OT3H, without the North Atlantic fisheries to serve as training grounds for the French Navy, it might make the next overseas war easier for Britain....
 

raharris1973

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Pitt would have loved to do such a thing. But is Britain just playing hard ball, or is France getting something else in return? If the former, that's going to build up animosity, and make a new war more likely sooner.

If another round with France starts before the American Revolution really gets going, and Britain wins, that's kind of perfect for Britain. Britain would be facing less of a perfect storm.
 
Jonathan Dull in his book The French Navy and the seven years war, talks about the whole situation. The fact is that the fishing fleet did mean an additional twelve ships of the line in the french navy. With that and Spain as their ally they could raise a large enough fleet to challenge the English Navy. With out those ships the French would not be able to challenge the Royal Navy in open warfare. Pitt was unalterably opposed to handing the fishing ports to France so when he proved himself unwilling to do that France went on fighting for two more years. King Louis XV was personally involved in that decision. This meant that when the Revolutionary War happened France was able to intervene and with the alliance with France they did a lot of damage to Great Britain. You could say that he was a hero of the revolution in a roundabout sort of way.
 
While the economic effects of losing the access to the cod production would have been bad, as Farmer12 put it, it was more about the Navy. It was axiomatic at the time that this fishing fleet was the breeding ground of sailors for the French Navy. Without it, France would, for a long period until the game changed with steam power.

This was a major point in a book I read regarding the 7 Years War (the Crucible, I think, by author TBD). The author speculated that, had Britain tried to cut off French access to the fisheries, it would lead to a coalition against them by the rest of Europe (as in the American Revolutionary War).
 
The issue was that both Britain and France were spending vast amounts of money on the war, with both sending subsidies to their allies (Prussia and Austria). By December 1759, the British and Prussians had approached the French, Russians and Austrians to make peace at the Hague, and the negotiations lasted until April 1760. Though the war in North America had gone badly during 1759, the French were willing to cede Canada in return for the fishing rights.

One has to remember that though the war in Europe was the focal point of the conflict, with the colonial theatres being seen as secondary. French and Austrian successes throughout 1760 and 1761, made the British wiling to negotiate. Throughout 1761 it did seem that the British were unwilling to cede cede the fisheries, but as Prussia's ability to fight lessened, the British became more amenable to offering the fisheries.
 
As the French Navy used, even in the 20th c., conscripted fishermen and merchant sailors. They benefited from some social security in exchange for their service in the Navy. This system had its drawbacks, as the french officers never completely go around the issue of training their crews : they were sailors before they enlisted, so no dull and long exercices were needed ! As a reminder, the officer's training was a flawed, the long-term officers being nobleborns schooled in inland colleges, the short-term ones being merchant officers doing a term or two, but with no possibility to go very high in the ranks. Depriving the french fishing fleet of one of its main playground would have deprived the french Navy of its traditional crew members, but forced the naval officers to think about enlisting landsmen and training them to become sailors, and especially man-of-war sailors. If - and that is a big if - a competent admiral addressed this issue, the French Navy of the 1780' could actually be better trained and more up to its task.
 
It wasn't just the extra ships. Two thirds of French naval men during 18th century war time were sailors who learnt their trade in the Newfoundland fisheries. Both Pitt and France knew full well that France would be utterly done for as a naval power if France lost them. And Pitt wasn't budging on the point - the only reason France got them back was because of Pitt's resignation. If George II lived longer and Pitt still had his backing, France could have been in dire straits after another year or two of war.
 
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