198 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



as to die or dance at the caprice of the protectionist behind 



the stage ; and it was pointed out that the Frenchmen and 



Americans, who almost monopolized the Banks since Waterloo, 



isailed in ships of larger burden than those of Newfoundland, 



and used new fishing implements called ' bultows ' which often 



contained 5,000-6,000 fathoms, or six or seven miles of line, 



to which hooks and weights were attached at certain distances 



in order to sink them in the sea. 1 The bultow was unknown 



in Newfoundland, and inspired a terror which is always 



associated with the unknown. Newfoundlanders dared not 



| compete with it, and feared that if they did their hooks and 



' lines would be caught in its monstrous folds and destroyed. 



They were deterred by the same motives as those which kept 



aboriginal archers away from hunting-grounds frequented by 



riflemen. Further, their skippers, though incomparable 



coasters, were bad bankers, because they relied only on dead 



reckonings. 2 Moreover, their ships, which were not so large 



as those used on the Grand Banks by Englishmen in the 



eighteenth century and by Frenchmen and Americans in the 



nineteenth century, were being used elsewhere where their 



size was more appropriate and where no competitors intruded. 



and for In 1793 or thereabouts colonial sealing-ships were in- 



seahng, troduced for the first time. Sealing had hitherto been 



practised with nets and boats in winter along the shore, and 



v depended for its success on the continued prevalence of 



north-east gales; for the bay-seal is of little account in 



commerce, and the harp-seals, hooded seals, and square 



flippers, which are always of great value in the markets of 



the world, have their homes and bring forth their young upon 



ice floes, which descend from the far north, hugging the 



coasts of Labrador, and afterwards drifting out into the 



open sea, unless perchance they are blown into the bays of 



1 Captain Loch, in Accounts and Papers, 1849, vol. xxxv, p. 493, 

 No. 327, p. 3. 



2 Report of Fisheries Commission of Newfoundland^ 1890. 



