224 THE LABRADOK PENINSULA. chap. xxxv. 



ing injury, if not positive ruin, to the Labrador fishery north of 

 Cape Charles, as will appear from the following considerations : — 

 The French carry on their fishery by means of large seines and 

 bultows. With the former, which are generally 200 fathoms and 

 upwards in length by thirty-five or forty in depth, they sweep 

 the ground where they are used, taking and destroying great 

 quantities of fish ; with the bultows also (which are lines moored 

 in the water, each sometimes a mile in length, and containing 

 several hundred baited hooks, which, except when lifted at 

 stated intervals to take off the fish, continue in the water day 

 and night) they attract and detain the fish in the locality where 

 they are placed, and take great numbers of them. Large seines 

 and numerous bultows, however, can only be tended and handled 

 where there are large crews. These the French, by means of 

 their bounties, can command. British fishermen, without such 

 support, can use only the hook and line, and at best small cod 

 seines of 100 fathoms long by eleven deep; the result mast in- 

 evitably be that the French will, within the same space, take a 

 much larger quantit}^ of fish than our men can ; and these being 

 taken from a locality where at present we can hardly find enough 

 for ourselves, we shall be compelled to abandon that part of the 

 coast altogether. The same observations apply to a concurrent 

 fishery at Belle Isle ; and that they are founded not merely in 

 theory, is shown by the history of our Bank fishery, and can be 

 confirmed by the experience of our oldest fishermen. 



By the aid of their large bounties, in short, the French are 

 enabled to carry on their fisheries in a manner that speedily 

 gives them the command of the whole ground to which they 

 may resort, and in a short time makes a nominally concurrent 

 fishery exclusively their own. 



The loss of the Straits fishery, however, is not the only in- 

 jury we shall sustain by the concession we are now considering ; 

 we shall suffer further injury in this way. The fish which 

 supply the Straits and the Labrador fisheries consist for the 

 most part of two large shoals, one of which, entering the Grulf 

 off Cape Eay in April or May, passes through the Straits down 

 the Labrador shore ; and the other, coming from the eastward 

 somewhat later in the season, strikes Belle Isle and proceeds 



