108 



is loo curious to be omitted, though my h'mits will not permit its inser- 

 tion entire. " About eioht or nine miles to the eastward of Cape Por- 

 poise," he writes, "is Winter harbor, a noted place for fishers ; here 

 they have many stages." "At 'Richmond's island' ** are likewise 

 stages for fishermen. Nine miles eastward of Black Point lyeth scatter- 

 ingly the town of Casco,* upon a large bay, stored with cattle, sheep, 

 swine, abundance of marsh and arable land, a corn-mill or two, with 

 stages for fishermen. * * * Further yet eastward is Sagadahock,t 

 where are many houses scattering, and all along stages for lisliermen. 

 * * * * From Sagadahock to Nova Scotia is called the Duke of York's 

 province ; here Pemaquid, Martinicus, Mohegan, Capeanawhagen, 

 where Captain Smith fished for whales, Muscataquid, all filled with 

 dwelling-houses and stages for fishermen." 



Again, he says that " The people in the province of Maine may be 

 divided into magistrates, husbandmen or planters, and fishermen : of the 

 magistrates some be royalists, the rest perverse spirits : the like are the 

 planters and fishers, of which some be planters and fishers both — others 

 mere fishers." After speaking of the quantity offish taken, and oftlie 

 various mai'kets to which the different qualities were sent, he thus de- 

 scribes the manner of fishing and the habits of those who lived by the 

 use of the hook and hne: " To every shallop belong four fishermen : 

 a master or steersman, a midshipman and a foremost-man, and a shore- 

 man, who washes it out of the salt, and dries it upon hurdles pitched 

 upon stakes breast-high,| and tends their cookeiy. These often get in 

 one voyage eight or nine pounds a man for their shares." The money 

 tliey earned, he continues, was squandered in drunken revels. Tlie 

 arrival of a " walking tavern," (as he calls a vessel laden with wine, 

 brandy, and other intoxicating liquors,) put an end to fishing, and no 

 persuasions which their employers could use were sufficient to induce 

 them to go to sea for two or three days — "nay, sometimes a whole 

 week," and until wearied with drinking. When thus carousing, " they 

 quarrelled, fought, and did cue anoUier mischief." 



The course of events during the hostile relations between France and 

 England, cannot be stated in detail. Particular cases will show, how- 

 ever, the general conduct of the French rulers in Acadia, and the kind 

 of warfare meditated and actually perpetrated by their savage allies 

 within the borders of Maine. For a time, the Acadian seas were vis- 

 ited by the eastern fishermen without molestation. But in 1675, De 

 Bourg, the French governor, not only prohibited his people from con- 

 tinuing their intercourse with their Protestant neighbors, but levied an 

 impost or tribute of four hundred codfish on every Enghsh colonial ves- 

 sel found fishing upon the coast of Acadia, and required his officers to 

 seize all that refused, and to take away whatever fish had been caught 

 with the outfits and provisions on board. || The remark of Mugg, (a 



* Portland. 



t The countr}- between the Kennebec and the Penobscot. 



t The maimer of drying on " flakes" is very similar at the present time. 



II Randolph, in a letter dated at Boston, July 28, 1686, and addressed to Mr. Blaithwait, 

 England, remarks: "There will, I fear, be an eruption betwixt the French of Nova Scotia 

 and our people in Maine and New Hampshire," and for reasons which he relates. "We have 

 sent," he fuixher says, "to all places to warn our people, and to the fishermen, not to ventm-e 

 apou their coasts, lest they be surprised and made to answer for damages done by strangers." 



