GROWTH AND EXPANSION 69 



boiled it became red. This was eaten generally on Satur- 

 days at the best tables of New England. 1 



Throughout New England the codfish were divided into 

 three sorts the merchantable, the middling and the refuse. 

 The first of these was again sorted, the better fish being 

 shipped to Bilboa, and, later, to Calais; the second, to Lis- 

 bon and Oporto. The middle sort was sent to the Canaries, 

 the Madeiras, and to Jamaica. The Barbadoes and Lee- 

 ward Islands received the shipments of refuse cod, it be- 

 ing the smallest in size, the thinnest and most broken. In 

 addition to the codfish, some haddock, pollock and mackerel 

 were sent to market. At the close of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury there were exported from Massachusetts about 100,000 

 quintals of dried codfish, of the value of $400,000. 2 The 

 merchants of Boston shipped, annually, about 50,000 quin- 

 tals of codfish; about three-fourths of which went to the 

 Biscayan port of Bilboa. In 1699, the fish sold, on the 

 shore where it was taken, for 18 shillings a quintal, but 

 the next year the price had fallen to 12 shillings. The 

 cause for this decline in price was attributed to the glutting 

 of European markets by the French fishers. The cod 

 taken on the coast of New England brought two shillings 

 more a quintal at Bilboa than the cod caught on the banks 

 off Newfoundland. In New England the fishing was car- 

 ried on all winter, the fish being of a better quality when 

 cured in the colder season than in the warmer. When re- 

 turns were made direct from Bilboa to Boston the mer- 

 chants reckoned on a 50 per cent return of their money; 

 if their money was returned by the way of London, and 

 there invested for them in colonial supplies, the returns 

 were 100 per cent. 



About 1670, the New Englanders turned their attention 



iDoc. Col. N. Y., IV, p. 116. 

 2 Ibid, pp. 781-790, passim. 



