Sir John Berry submits his census of the island to the king, who, in his famous Proclamatione Regardynge the Colonye of New Founde Lande, declares: “… it be certaine from the informatione contained in the census that the probleme of this New Founde Lande in tyme will solve itselfe. It is cleare that human life in this wilde place cannot be sustained and that the planters will either leave or by attrition perishe. I do hereby decree that they be not molested but lefte to encounter whatever fate or variety of fates as may please Almightye God.”
It is because of its belief in the settlers’ right to self-determination that England is slow to respond to the invasion of Newfoundland by France in 1696.
After every English settlement except Bonavista and Carbonear is destroyed, England decides to fortify her colony. The two countries struggle for ownership of Newfoundland until 1713, when, under the Treaty of Utrecht, England recognizes France’s historical right to part-ownership of Newfoundland by giving to France what it believes to be a worthless stretch of coastline, the northeast one-third of the Newfoundland shore. England can be excused for this so-called blunder, for the only people who advise against it are the settlers who have lived on the shore for years and are to be supplanted by the French, and so can hardly be expected to give an honest estimation of its worth.