198 



CONCLUSION. 

 PUBLIC SERVICES AND CHARACTER OF FISHERMEN". 



The interval in our annals between the discovery and the settlement 

 of North America is often regarded as a mere blank; and the opinion 

 is prevalent that our fisheries have no history, but such as relates to the 

 quantity and quality of" food which they annuall}' produce. It may be 

 "hoped that something has been done in this report to correct these 

 errors, as well as others which exist with regard to our subject gener- 

 ally. We have seen that fishermen were the pioneers of British and of 

 French civilization in America; thnt by their severe toils tlie}^ taught 

 other adventurers to the New World to rest their hopes of success on 

 regular and useful employments ; that the intercourse which they main- 

 tained between the two continents kept alive desires which otherwise 

 might have become extinct ; that they persevered when all others Avere 

 defeated or discouraged; and that the arrival upon our coast, for nearly 

 or quite a century, of hundreds of fisliing vessels, gave rise to events of 

 momentous consequence. 



In the course of our inquiries, we have ascertained that France was 

 directly indebted to her fishermen for the immense domains which she 

 acquired in this hemisphere; and that the failure of several attempts to 

 found English colonies at Newfoundland hastened permarsent settle- 

 -mcnts in more ijenial re2;ions. We have seen that lono; before an Eno^- 

 lishman had a home in America, a law was passed to correct abuses on 

 our fishing grounds; and that, contemporaneous with the founding of 

 New England, Parliament, after an excited debate, broke down the 

 company of court favorites who claimed the monopoly of our seas, and 

 asserted the principle of "/free fishing with all its incidents" as the 

 right of every subject. We have seen, too, that the strong and repeated 

 declarations of Smith, the father of Virginia, that the waters of New 

 England were richer and its soil and climate were better adapted to hus- 

 bandry than were those of Newfoundland, were known to the Puritans 

 who came to Plymouth and to those who came to Massachusetts proper, 

 and had a controlhiig influence with other Englishmen whose thoughts 

 were turned, by persecution or the love of adventure, to the northerly 

 part of America; while it has also appeared that the founders and pro- 

 prietors of New Hampshire, INIaine, and Maryland, before obtaining 

 these possessions, were interested in the fisheries of" Newfoundland. 



We have seen that the founders of Venice, and of the cities of Am- 

 sterdam and Rotterdam, were fishermen; that the same humble class 

 of men gave the first impulse to the commerce of Holland and Den- 

 mark, and an immense increase to that of England; that, previous to 

 the development of other resources, the fisheries were the lif"c-blood of 

 our own commerce, not only with the mother country, but with every 

 other people with whom we had lawful or illicit trade. We have seen, 

 that through all the wars and territorial and maritime disputes between 

 France and England, touchifig their respective possessions in America ; 

 through all the changes and chances of our colonial submission, from 

 its commencement to its termination ; through tlie war of the RevoliL* 



