A HALF-CENTURY OF PROGRESS, 1713-63 117 



1 720 Governor Collins, as he was still called, was chief amongst 

 those who encroached, so that encroachment became almost 

 a badge of respectability, and the shipowners being absent 

 on the Banks began to forfeit their claims upon the shore. 



Fishing on the Great Banks of Newfoundland, a hundred on to the 

 miles east of St. John's, was a new departure in English 

 history, and at first it was unsuccessful. Residents took no 

 part in it, and the English fishermen were slow in learning 

 how to treat fish caught so far away, so that ' the consuls and 

 the merchants residing in Portugal, Spain, and Italy unani- 

 mously complain of the ill-curing of the fish in Newfound- 

 land for some years ' (I728). 1 The years of transition which 

 succeeded the war were about as lean as the years of war, 

 but before the middle Twenties fat years began again, and 

 in 1752 the English fishing-ships numbered 284 and averaged 

 1 20 tons, against 221 ships averaging 74 tons in the most 

 prosperous years of the past century. 2 Moreover, they were 

 twice the size of the New England trade-ships which visited 

 the colony, and the old Englanders employed seventeen men, 

 while the New Englanders employed seven men, on a ship. 

 Long voyages still made big ships and many sailors, and the 

 English fishing-ships gained steadily in weight and number, 

 at the very time when they were being ousted from the 

 shore by competitors, whose industrial progress was still more 

 rapid and striking. 



Bay fisheries became boat fisheries, and some of the boat- A wage- 

 owners were settlers, but many of them came as ' passengers ' an <*' truc 

 from England, with servants who were hired for two summers became 

 and a winter, and without boats, which were left behind or ^i" e ^ f ! 

 hired in the colony. The relation of the ship-owners zx\& fisheries, 

 boat-owners to their merchant was the same; and in both 

 cases the merchant was the only possible purchaser of cod, 

 and the only possible vendor and lender of victuals, tackle, 



1 Lord Vere Beauclerk's Report. 2 Ante, p. 84. 



