OUR SEA FISHERIES. 183 



position and benefit. The French, therefore, spared 

 no encouragement to stimulate their fisheries, gave 

 bounties on the fish exported from Newfoundland, or 

 from France to the French colonies. Bounties were 

 also allowed on all men and boys sailing annually 

 from France, and that were employed in the shore 

 and bank fisheries of Newfoundland. On the other 

 hand, so discouraging had been the countenance of 

 the Government to the British fisheries, that the 

 capitals embarked in them were by degrees with- 

 drawn, and the nurseries of seamen, so justly valued, 

 almost entirely lost. They still more rapidly declined 

 after the treaties of 1814 and 1818, when the greater 

 and the most valuable parts of the Newfoundland 

 fisheries were ceded to the French. The Americans 

 zealously followed the example of France, supported 

 their fisheries by bounties and other encouragements, 

 and thus, concurrently with the French, sapped the 

 foundation of the British fishery. The British fisher- 

 men, being unable to contend with the unequal com- 

 petition, were left to languish and to deteriorate, 

 being chiefly employed in the in-shore fisheries in 

 small craft ; while the French and the Americans pro- 

 secuted with vigour the deep-sea fishing on the great 

 Banks of Newfoundland — these Powers, it is stated, 

 employing at least 1,000 vessels of considerable 



