30 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



the south- as Cartier recognized Bonavista Cape and Catalina Harbour, 

 east ^ ein S a t its northern extremity, in 1534; and Purlican at its southern 

 politan, extremity was a fishing-resort in 1597. Conception Bay was 

 known even better than Trinity Bay, and being free from 

 Beothics was far more popular. The ninety miles of coast- 

 line between Cape St. Francis, which is on the southernmost 

 promontory of Conception Bay, and Cape Race, which is the 

 southernmost cape on the east shore of Newfoundland, were 

 best known and most popular. The Beothics were never 

 tempted so far away from their lakes and rivers ; harbours 

 were deep and numerous, and their entrances were narrow ; 

 moreover the coast between Cape Race and Cape Francis 

 St. Johns l av nearest Europe. Sixteen of the thirty-six ships in 



being in- St. John's in 1583 seem to have been English, and at that 

 creasingly , T--II- i T i tr 



English dale no Trench ships are mentioned as being there. Yet in 



and Ferry- 1527 and 1542 French ships were numerous in St. John's, 



land mostly j -r> i i \ \ 



English, and Jinglish ships were absent (152 7) or not mentioned (1542). 

 In St. John's the French star was setting and the English 

 star was rising, though as yet it was only one amongst many. 

 Ferryland, where twenty-two English ships were seen in 

 1594, and an English 'fishing admiral' held sway in 1597, 

 was probably an exclusive English port. Frenchmen and 

 the Basque allies, who clung to their skirts, were unconsciously 

 monopolizing Placentia Bay, Belle Isle Strait, and the neigh- 

 bouring seas and shores, and were neglecting the cosmopolitan 

 havens on the south-east. Englishmen left the south, north, 

 north-east, and north-west coasts to the Frenchmen and the 

 savages, and limited themselves to the strip of straight land, 

 and many-dented bays and coves, in the south-east corner of 

 the island, and more especially to those parts which were 

 freest from savages. In doing so, they stamped an English 

 character on Ferryland, as far as an English or any other 

 character can be stamped on an island, where no white man 

 ever built a house or stayed during a winter. 



The Eng- Behind the fishers there was a great mass of public opinion. 



I ish fisher- 



