INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES 25 



and traded in Newfoundland every summer ever since 1502 ; 

 Rut {1527) and Hore (1536) fished, and Rut sent letters 

 home by two English trade-ships; two English Acts (1542, 

 1548) exempted the Newfoundland fisheries from certain 

 dues, fees, and prohibitions ; and at that time fishing-fleets 

 from the south-west of England went to and from New- 

 foundland with every spring and autumn, like the winds 

 and ocean currents upon which they relied. Nor were 

 they alone. 



About 1506 Jean Denys, of Harfleur, is said to have sailed of French 

 to what he called Rognoust (Renewse), about fifty miles f/f^' ^^06 

 south of St. John's in Newfoundland, and a sailor of Dieppe 

 followed him in 1508.^ In 151 1 Breton pilots were in 

 request in Spain, because they knew the way across the 

 North Atlantic, and shortly afterwards Breton fishermen 

 named Cape Breton. Rut (1527) found twelve Norman or 

 Breton fishing-ships in St. John's ; Cartier, when he threaded 

 Belle Isle Strait (1534), found a ship of La Rochelle near 

 ' the port of Brest ', thirty miles or so west of Bradore Bay ; 

 and Brest, Belle Isle, and perhaps Quirpon^ are Breton 

 names. Cartier found French fishing-ships at St. Pierre 

 {1536); Roberval (1542) found a few French ships in 

 St. John's, and Wyett (1594) fifty-two, or more, French 

 ships in Placentia Bay. Haie wrote, but not from personal 

 knowledge, of one hundred fishing-ships, many of which 

 were French, upon the great misty submarine Bank of 

 Newfoundland, one hundred miles east of St. John's; and 

 Parkhurst {1578) vaguely estimated the total French fleet in 

 the waters of NewfiDundland at 150 sail, against 120 to 130 

 Spanish, 50 Portuguese, and 50 English ships. But 

 Parkhurst was one of those people who think in tens, and all 

 his estimates, especially his estimates of the Spanish fisher- 

 men, were probably exaggerated. 



^ Ramusio, Delle Navigationi, ed. 1565, vol. iii, p. 425. 

 2 Or Carpunt. But Cartier wrote Rapont. See James P. Baxter, 

 Memoir of Cartier, 1906, p. Son. 



