THE RENAISSANCE OF THE FISHERIES 151 



fleet; the area of his field of activity enlarged, for he 

 over-ran the islands and bays of the Gulf of Saint 

 Lawrence, he pushed through the Straits of Belle Isle 

 to the eastern shores of Labrador, and extended his fish- 

 eries to Cumberland Island and the entrance of Hudson's 

 Bay. 



Many influences combined to hold the fisherman to his 

 calling when men of other occupations were leaving their 

 eastern homes for the uncertainties of life in the new West. 

 He was held fast-bound to the life on the sea by the chains 

 of habit. The traditions of the family and the educa- 

 tion of the children were confined chiefly to nautical af- 

 fairs. "Long before a lad could nib a quill, or make a 

 pot-hook, or read half the precepts his primer contained, 

 he knew the name of every brace and stay, every sail and 

 part of a Grand Banker and a Chebacco boat, all the 

 nautical terms. . . . By the time he had seen his 

 tenth birthday he was old enough not to be seasick, not 

 to cry during a storm at sea, and to be of some use about 

 a ship, and went on his first trip to the Banks. The skip- 

 per and the crew called him 'cut-tail,' for he received 

 no money save from the fish he caught, and each one he 

 caught was marked by snipping a piece from the tail. 

 After an apprenticeship of three or four years the ' cut-tail ' 

 became a 'header/ stood upon the same footing as the 

 ' sharesmen, ' and learned all the duties which a 'splitter' 

 and 'salter' must perform.' Entering upon his period of 

 apprenticeship at an early age and pursuing the fishing 

 industry continuously throughout his youth, the young 

 New Englander found himself, at the age of twenty, fully 

 equipped in experience, in strength, and in knowledge to 

 engage in the fisheries with the hope of earning a place for 

 himself above the rank of one of the crew. He aspired 

 to the position of skipper of a schooner, possibly as owner 

 of the craft that he was to command, and it was this ambi- 



