184 FISH CULTUEE. 



burthen, and manned with not less than 30,000 

 seamen. 



"The valuable report, dated 2d October, 1848, ad- 

 dressed to the Vice- Admiral, the Earl of Dundonald, 

 by Captain Granville G. Loch, K.N., upon the fisheries 

 of Newfoundland and Labrador, when in command 

 of her Majesty's ship Alarm (an ominous name), 

 conveys most forcibly the state of the British fisheries, 

 in comparison with the advantages possessed and 

 maintained by the French. Captain Loch heard the 

 French speak with pride of the sailors their bankers 

 produced, and of the hardships and dangers they 

 were exposed to in fishing on the banks, and that to 

 deprive their country of these fisheries would be to 

 lop off the right arm of her maritine strength." 



To the above notice of the fisheries I will add a 

 few facts. In 1517, the first English vessel that 

 visited the coast of Newfoundland, found French, 

 Spanish, and Portuguese engaged in the traffic. In 

 1 615, England had 200 ships there, while the French, 

 Biscayans, and Portuguese had 400. Many of these 

 ships carried twenty guns, eighteen boats, and from 

 ninety to a hundred men. In the early part of last 

 century, the inhabitants of New England had about 

 1,200 tons of shipping employed in the whale-fishery; 

 and, with their vessels engaged in the cod-fishery, they 



