2IO HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



bringing material prosperity and political strife to the colony. 



The cod and the seal have been its guardian angels, 



while the herring and lobster have been the authors of all 



mischief, and yet all four influences whether beneficent or 



malignant, and whether principal or accessory, made for 



progress. The immediate effect produced by these spirits of 



the sea has been to drive men into new haunts or homes, and 



their ultimate effect has been to make or mar treaties between 



England, France, and the United States. 



People were While the people of the east coast satisfied their restless 



^bothin- ^ irnpulses by annual tours to the north, the southerners steadily 



fluences, went westward and went to stay, or to go still further and 



'^alon^The ^^^^^ '^^^ east-coast process resembled a series of leaps and 



south coast bounds, the south and west-coast process resembled the 



stretching of elastic. The former flew, the latter flowed. 

 —especially In i8i8 Burin was but little known; in 1832 it became the 

 b ^t-als ^^P^^^^ ^^ ^^ electoral district which was created at the foot 

 at St. of the promontory between Placentia Bay and Fortune Bay, 

 iSiS^etsea ^"^ ^" ^^^^ ^^^ shipping was four times as much as that of 

 —which Placentia. The new influence which made men drift west- 

 ^tTcaf ^^^^' "^^^"^' against the stream and with the sun, was St. Pierre, 

 storms i which was now the baiting-place of the big bounty-fed Bankers 

 of old France. The old French capital was being eclipsed 

 by the new French capital. In 1854, 296 French Bankers 

 made St. Pierre their rendezvous, and bought from the boat- 

 men of Burin and Fortune Bay £56,000 worth of herring 

 and capelin. Jukes (1839), Loch {1848), and Canning (1854), 

 denounced the anti-patriotism of the sellers; bait-sales to 

 foreigners were forbidden by English Acts which were unre- 

 pealed though forgotten^; and export duties on bait were 

 imposed by a local Act of 1836, which no one enforced. 

 Denunciations, prohibitions, and penalties were words, idle 

 words; but a market where £56,000 a year could be won 



1 26 Geo. Ill, c. 26, s. 14, repealed Statute Lazv Revision Act, 1871. 

 Compare 10 and 11 Will. Ill, c. 25, s. i. 



