108 



is too carious to be omitted, though my limits will not permit its inser- 

 tion entire. " About eight or nine miles to the eastward of" Cape Por- 

 poise," he writes, " is Winter harbor, a noted place for fishers ; here 

 tl,]ey have many stages." " At 'Richmond's island' * * are likewise 

 stages for fishfrmen. Nine miles eastward of Black Point lyeth scatter- 

 ingly the town of Casco,* upon a large bay, stored with cattle, sheep, 

 swine, abundance of marsh and arable land, a corn-mill or two, wiih 

 stages 'for fishermen. * * * Further yet eastward is Sagadahock,t 

 where are m;iny houses scattering, and all along stages for fishermen. 

 * * * * From Sagadahock to Nova Scotia is called the Duke of York's 

 province ; here Pema(|ui(l, Martinicus, Mohegan, Capeanawhagen, 

 where C;iptain iSmith fished for whales, Muscataquid, all filled with 

 dwelling-houses and stages for fishermen." 



Again, he says that " The people in the province of Maine may be 

 divided into magistrates, husbandmen or planters, and fishermen: of the 

 magistrates p<»me be royalists, the rest perverse spirits : the like are the 

 planters and fishers, of which some be planters and fishers both — others 

 mere fishers." After speaking of the quantity offish taken, and of the 

 various mai^kets to which the difK>rent qualities were sent, he thus d^ 

 scribes the manner of fishing and the habits of those who lived by the 

 use of the hook and line: " To every shallop belong four fishermen : 

 a master or steersman, a midshipman and a foremost-man, and a shore- 

 man, who washes it out of the salt, and dries it upon hurdles pitched 

 upon stakes breast-high,| and tends their cooker3\ These often get in 

 one voyage eight or nine pounds a man for their shares." The money 

 they earned, he continues, was squandered in drunken revels. The 

 arrival of a " walking tavern," (as he calls a vessel laden with wine, 

 brandv, and other intoxicating liquors,) put an end to fishing, and no 

 persuasions which their employers could use were sufficient to induce 

 them to go to sea for two or three days — "nay, sometimes a wdiole 

 week," and until wearied with drinking. When thus carousing, " they 

 quarrelled, fought, and did r ne another mischief." 



The course of events during the hostile relations between France and 

 England, cannot be stated in detail. Particular cases will show, how- 

 ever, the general conduct of the French rulers in Acadia, and the kind 

 of warfare meditated and actually perpetrated by their savage allies 

 within the borders of Maine. For a time, the Acadian seas were vis- 

 ited by the eastern fishermen without molestation. But in 1675, De 

 Bou g, the Flench governor, not only prohibited his people from con- 

 tinuing their intercourse with their Protestant neighbors, but levied an 

 impost or tribute of four hundred codfish on every English colonial ves- 

 sel found fishing upon the coast of Acadia, and required his officers to 

 seize all that n^fused, and to take away whatever fish hid been caught 

 w^ith the outfits and j)rovisions on board. || The remark of Mugg, (a 



* Portland. 



t The countiT botweon the Konnelipc and the Penobscot. 



tThe uKinncr of" dryin<i; on " tliikes" is very similar at the present time. 



II Randolpii, in a letter dated at Boston, .Inly 2-f, 1()8(5, and addressed to Mr. Blaithwai*, 

 England, reninrks: "There will, I fear, be an ernption betwixt the French of Nova Seotia 

 aiid onr jieopb' in Maine and New Hani{)shire," and for reasons whieh lie rchites. "We have 

 sent," he fun iier says, "to all places to warn (Mir people, and to tlie lisliernien, not to venture 

 upon theii' coasts, lust ihey be surprised and made to answer for dtmiages done by strangers." 



