FISH 195 



portance. Seals, salmon, herring, lobsters, and whales began 

 to counteract the bad example set by the cod, for the horo- 

 scope of the island was evidently cast in the constellation 

 Pisces, with Gadus Morrhua as its presiding but not its only 

 star. 



Ever since Guy settled by Port de Grave the stars in their until boat- 

 courses fought for boats and against ships. The anti-settlers ^^^f.^^^ 

 were right. Boat -fishery was destined to supplant the ship- proved 

 fishery. The cod hugged the shore, therefore the codders ff\oreeffec- 

 hugged the shore, and boats which were at first auxiliary to cod-fishery, 

 ships superseded ships, or ships became auxiliary to boats. 

 Ships were usually useless without boats, and boats were 

 usually useful without ships; consequently the law of the 

 survival of the fittest made ships almost disappear from the 

 cod-fishery of Newfoundland. An effect was produced both 

 on England and on Newfoundland. 



English fishing-ships ceased to vibrate between England mid men 

 and Newfoundland like the pendulum of a clock. * Suppose,' f Jl^^w ^^ 

 it was said, * my workshop and tools are twelve miles away, and fro for 

 and I can only work for half a day ; it may be good for my ^^^^-f^ ^ 

 legs to walk backwards and forwards to my work every day, and to 

 and legs are serviceable in war; but is it likely that I should ^^^^vy^^ 

 do so, if wagons and tramcars are continually going to and strottg; 

 fro, or if good houses are to be had near my work ? ' The 

 circumstances of the Newfoundland fisheries were similar. 

 The fishing-ships that crossed the Atlantic during the 

 seventeenth century were gradually transformed during the 

 eighteenth century into passenger ships; and the habit of 

 living at the workshop grew more and more. Consequently 

 West of England fishermen and ocean-going fishing-ships 

 ceased during this period to play a part in the Newfoundland 

 fisheries, and the whole dream of raising up a nation of 

 oceanic sailors, by training them in catching cod-fish in a 

 hemisphere not their own, was dispelled, or rather fulfilled in 

 another way. 



o 2 



