226 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



red lobster which, so to speak, was drawn across the 



scent. 



In For/iiae The herring of the Seventies was not the herring of the 

 ing}]"*' Fifties. In the Seventies it employed men all the year round. 

 winter Fortune Bay had succeeded Placentia as ' the home of the 

 fishery, herring '; the best herring-fishery in Fortune Bay was between 



Newfound- November and February : and the herring, when taken, was 



landers . , . . . 



rioted and P ut m ice > an( J bought and brought by American shipowners 



injured to Gloucester, Massachusetts. Frozen herring became an 

 property, article of trade for its own sake as well as for the sake of cod, 

 '878, an d its purchasers w r ere almost invariably American. The 

 temporary Treaty of 1871-86 only enabled Americans to 

 catch what they had previously bought, and they now pursued 

 their industry in winter as well as in summer. Being pro- 

 tected, the Americans pursued their industry in a mysterious 

 way. The Boston Fish Bureau wrote that ' From 50 to 75 per 

 cent, of the men in the Gloucester mackerel fleet are citizens 

 of Canada. . . . Hordes of them come here every spring, man 

 our vessels for the fishing season, and return home when it is 

 over V As soon as the Americans arrived in Newfoundland, 

 Newfoundlanders sold them bait, or served on their ships 

 while catching bait, and were always paid cash. Wage- 

 earning was popular, and cash was as welcome as it was 

 rare; because it meant emancipation from the merchant 

 whose dominion was based on credit in kind. Americans 

 were never at a loss for bait-sellers or bait-catchers in New- 

 foundland, and bait-fish was the only thing which they wanted. 

 The American codders caught cod on the Grand Banks, 

 despised shore fisheries, and spoke of flakes and stages as 

 cotton-spinners speak of handlooms. If they wanted herring 

 as bait they wanted it in a hurry, and if they wanted herring 

 as food, even then they relied on the man on the spot to haul 



1 Dispatch of Sir L. S. West, Oct. 10, 1885, in United States, 

 Correspondence relative to the North American Fisheries, Accounts and 

 Papers. 1887, vol. xci (c. 4937). 



