78 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



a quarter of a mile of the shore ; therefore the colony was 

 doomed, and convoys were appointed to execute the doom. 

 Then Fate ironically ordained that the very orders which 

 sentenced the colony to death called into activity the only 

 influence which could revive it, and not only did revive it, 

 but conferred on it new prosperity. That influence was the 

 Royal Navy. Two influences brought ships of the Royal 

 Navy to Newfoundland danger and taxation. 



(convoys Convoys had been advocated by ' the Treasurer and 

 ^danger* ' Company with the Scottish undertakers in Newfoundland '- 

 from which is probably a periphrasis for J. Mason in 1621, by 



Dutchmen, Whitbourn e (1620, 1626), by Vaughan (1626), and Lord 

 and Baltimore (1628) as a protection against piracy and war; 



men anc * conv }' s sailed, or were ordered to sail, in 1623, 1629, 



1640, 1649, 1651, 1653, 1655, 1656 (?), 1657, l66 (?)> 

 1666 (?), 1671, 1672, and 1675, in order to protect the 

 annual fishermen from these dangers. Convoys took two 

 forms the form of a privateer equipped by the Governor, in 

 the expectation of winning prize-money (1629, 1640, 1666); 

 and the form of King's or State vessels, which were usually 

 two in number. Before 1651 want of money was the chief 

 obstacle in the way of providing State vessels. Mason, Whit- 

 bourne, and Vaughan urged that the expense should be 

 recouped by a small tax on fish, but when this course was 

 proposed in 1637 the fishermen spurned it. Consequently 

 State vessels only sailed as convoys, when questions of cost 

 were put on one side in the face of some pressing danger. 

 Danger came from pirates like Easton, Sir H. Manwaring, 

 and Ralegh's erring captains (1612-21), from the French 

 (1628-9), from pirates consisting of Moors, and of the scum 

 of Europe, who joined the Moors and were called ' Sallee 

 rovers' (1637), from Prince Rupert (1649-52), the Dutch 

 (1652-4), the French (1654-5), and again the Dutch (1665, 

 I ^73)- There were two actual attacks on Newfoundland by 

 the Dutch: in 1665, when De Ruyter raided St. John's, the 



