208 HISTORY Otf SEA-FISHERIES. 



In that year Sir Francis Drake, being sent to the 

 island with a squadron, seized the foreign ships which 

 he found engaged in the fishery, and sent them to 

 England, where they were declared lawful prizes. 

 Seven years before that time attempts had been 

 made to settle a colony upon Newfoundland under 

 a charter granted by Queen Elizabeth, but without 

 success. In 1610, a company was incorporated 

 for the same purpose by King James I, and so 

 successfully was the fishery prosecuted that in 

 1614 there were nearly 200 vessels engaged in it; 

 in the following year the number exceeded 250. 

 The author of ' Considerations on the Trade to 

 Newfoundland/ inserted in the second volume of 

 Churchill's ' Collections of Voyages/ tells us that, 

 towards the end of the seventeenth century, the 

 French were in the habit of employing in these 

 fisheries about 500 sail of ships, a great many of 

 which were of good burthen, and mounted from 

 sixteen to forty guns, to man which they had by 

 a moderate computation about 16,000 men. 



This writer adds that " the French, by their 

 extraordinary frugality, joined with their other 

 great advantages, such as the cheapness of salt, 

 and having the best and most convenient part of 



