PART I. 

 FRANCE, SPAIN, PORTUGAL, 



COD-FISHERY OF FRANCE. 



The French were the first European cod-fishers in the American 

 seas. There is a tradition among the fishermen of Biscay that their 

 countrymen visited Newfoundland before the time of Columbus. It is 

 said, indeed, that the great discoverer was informed of the fact by a 

 pilot who had been engaged in the enterprises. The story, improbable 

 as it is, seems to have been treated with respect by some writers of the 

 sixteenth century, but may be dismissed now as one which rests upon 

 no clear and authentic testimony. 



But that the Newfoundland fisheries were known to the Biscayans 

 and Normans as early as the year 1504, is quite certain. When 

 Cabot discovered our continent, Europe, including England, was Cath- 

 olic ; and during the fasts of the church, the pickled herring of Holland 

 was the principal food. The consumption of fish was immense ;* and 

 the Dutch, having enjoyed the monopoly of the supply, had become 

 immensely rich. The knowledge communicated by Cabot and the 

 voyagers who followed him, that the waters of America contained, not 

 only an abundance, but many varieties of fish, gave rise to an excite- 

 ment on the subject of fishing hardly less intense than is witnessed at 

 the present time relative to mining. Persons of the highest rank, and 

 not engaged in commercial pursuits, became shareholders in adventures 

 to the new fishing-grounds. And though the Dutch refused to abandon 

 the particular fishery by which they had obtained both wealth and ce- 

 lebrity, vessels wearing the flags of France, England, Spain, and 

 Portugal came annually in search of the cod — as we shall see — for 

 nearly a century before a single European colony was founded m 

 America north of the ancient limits of the United States. 



Of the incidents of the French fishing voyage of 1504 I have not 



* Documents which show the immense consumption of fish are to be met with by th^ 

 students of history everywhere. The following incidents, selected from a number, will sufli- 

 cieutly illustrate the statement in the text : 



"The bill of fare of the feast given on the marriage of Hemy IV to his Qaeen Joan, of 

 Navarre, at Winchester, in 1403, 'is yet in existence, written on parchment,' remarks a 

 chronicler of curious thingsof ' the olden time;' andthebanquet consisted of six courses — three 

 of flesh and fowl, and three of fish. In the ' first course of Fyshc,' were ' Salty fyshc,' and 

 ' Breme, samoun rostyd.' ' Of the comforts of the poor,' 16th century, says an English journal, 

 ' we may form a tolerably correct notion from the luxuries registered in the household book 

 of the great Earl of Northumberland.' From this document it appears that, in one of the 

 most noble and splendid establishments of the kingdom, the retainers and sei^ants had but 

 spare and uuwholsome diet — salt beef, mutton, and fish three-fourths of the year, with little or 

 no vegetables ; so that, as Hume says, ' there cannot be anything more erroneous than the 

 magnificent ideas formed of the roast beef of old England.' Nor does it seem that ' my lord 

 and lady' themselves fared much better than their ' retainers,' since for their breakfast they 

 had ' a quart of beer, as much wine, two pieces of salt fish, six red herrings, four ichite ones, and 

 a dish of sprats.' In England, in the same century, ' the first dish brought to table on Easter 

 day was a red herring riding away on horseback;' that is, it was the cook's duty to set this 

 fish ' iu corn sallad,' and make it look like a man riding on a horse." 



