14 FISHERIES OP THE PROVINCE OP QUEBEC 



tries discovered by Cabot and Cortereal, and they speedily 

 became skilful and powerful in the American fisheries. The 

 fishermen of the ports of Brittany are known to have reached 

 the Newfoundland shores as early as 1504. They have left 

 there an enduring trace in the name of Cape Breton, which, 

 in one form or another is found upon very early maps. Two 

 years afterward, Jean Denys, who was from Honfleur, is said 

 to have visited the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and to have made 

 a chart of it." 



Benjamin Suite 1 says that before the first voyage of 

 Cartier (1534) fishing and fur trading brought ships to the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence, and at Champlain 's visit in 1603, 

 trading was being carried on as far as Lake St. Peter. 



In 1621 no less than 800 fishing and trading vessels wen; 

 reported in the Gulf. 



The Basques, in 1623, captured in the Gulf a fishing 

 vessel belonging to one Guers (or Guerard) a subordinate 

 of Champlain. These Basque fishermen carried Guerard 's 

 ship away with them to Prince Edward Island, refusing to 

 recognize the king's order giving the sole fishing rights in 

 the waters of New France to the Canada Company. 



Champlain, writing in 1625, mentioned the fact that the 

 Basques fished for whales at Grande Baie near the Straits 

 of Belle Isle. 2 The Rev. George Patterson 3 believes that 

 they explored the Gulf and mouth of the river St. Lawrence. 



Speaking of these and other early Canadian fishermen he 

 says: "Of the life of these men on those shores we have no 

 record, and we can form an idea only by what we know of a 

 later period. But we think it did not differ materially from 



1 Le Golfe Saint-Laurent (1600-1625) Par Benjamin Suite. Pro- 

 ceedings of the Royal Society of Canada, Vol. IV, Section 1, page 7 

 (Montreal, Dawson Bros.), 1887. 



2 "II y a un lieu dans le golfe Saint-Laurent qu'on nomme la 

 Grande-Baie, proche du passage du Nord de 1'ile de Terre-Neuve a 

 cinquante-deux degres, ou les Basques vont faire la peche des 

 baleines." 



s In his paper on The Portuguese in North America, in tlie 

 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Canada, Vol. VIII (1890), p. 146. 



