460 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



men. This supposition is supported by the fact that, as early 

 as 1504, only seven years after the discovery of Newfound- 

 land by the Cabots, Basque fishermen are known to have 

 visited the Banks, and in 1557 their fishing operations in 

 the New World had increased in extent to the employment 

 of some fifty or more vessels. 



The English do not seem promptly to have followed up 

 the advantages gained for them by the discoveries of Cabot 

 in 1497. Possibly the superior naval forces of her enemies 

 deterred her at that time from asserting jurisdiction over 

 the waters of North America. These waters had been re- 

 ported, first by Cabot, and soon after by other English 

 voyagers, as marvellously rich in fish. For nearly a century 

 Kn.Ljland made no attempt to colonize the newly discovered 

 territories. The French were more alert in grasping the 

 importance of the new industry thus disclosed to the world, 

 and during the early and middle portions of the sixteenth 

 century, enterprising merchants of Dieppe, St. Malo and 

 Rouen, sent their vessels to the Banks in annually increasing 

 numbers. By the year 1540, they had established fishing 

 stations on the shores of Newfoundland, and in 1577 their 

 fleet mustered 150 ships. At that time Spain and Portugal 

 were also well represented on the Banks, but the thirst for 

 gold, which consumed the Spanish adventurers of that period, 

 soon lured away her fishermen to the West Indies ; and the 

 Portuguese soon found more congenial fields for exploration 

 in Brazil. By the end of the century Spanish and Portu- 

 guese ships disappeared almost entirely from the fishing 

 grounds. 



English vessels, fitted out in London and Bristol, came to 

 Newfoundland as early as 1540, and continued yearly to visit 

 the region, though their operations were not carried on with 

 the vigor that characterized the efforts of the French fisher- 

 men of that period. Verranzo, Chabot, Cartier, Robeval de 

 la Roche and other voyagers of the sixteenth century were 

 conspicuous in establishing the supremacy of France in this 

 part of the New World ; and Champlain, who founded Quebec 

 in 1608, gave his country a still firmer hold on these shores, 



