THE NEWFOUNDLAi^D FISHERIES. Ill 



foundland, first of all by J. Verazzoni, and then b}'- 

 Jacques Cartier, of St. Male, tlie greatest seaman of 

 liis time. The establishments which they formed 

 upon the coasts did not enjoy all the success which 

 Avas expected of them, and it was only under the 

 reign of Henri IV. that the prime-minister Sully 

 favoured the cod-fishery by placing it under the 

 immediate protection of the government. Even the 

 English did not acquire their celebrated preponder- 

 ance in the North Sea before the celebrated Drake 

 had driven the Spaniards thence, and their taking 

 possession of Newfoundland dates only from 1585. 



Corte Hoyal, the Portuguese, had observed an 

 extraordinary quantity of cod upon the Newfound- 

 land bank about the commencement of the sixteenth 

 century. He first gave notice to the European 

 fishermen of the fecundity of these waters. The 

 Spaniards attributed the discovery to Estaban de 

 Gomez, who was named the king's pilot by a royal 

 decree, dated Valladolid, the 10th February, 1525, 

 and who went afterwards to seek the North- West 

 passage. Some of the sailors of the old continent 

 claim the honour of haAdng fished there at least a 

 century before the discovery of America, but there 

 is no ground for these pretensions. The documents 

 on the subject which have been collected and quoted 

 in that handsome and important work the " Collec- 

 tion of Travels and Discoveries of the Spaniards,^' 

 published by Don Navarete, prove that they fished 



