1174 MISCELLANEOUS. 



eight hundred men, were engaged in the fishery. Yet the seas were 

 not safe. Some of the fishing vessels mounted from ten to twenty 

 guns, and carried from sixty to one hundred men, and others sailed 

 under convoy, and were protected, while on the coast, by ships-of- 

 war. The price of fish, to support this state of things, must have been 

 enormous. 



As the century closes we notice the mention of a report of the Lords 

 of Trade and Plantations, in which they so far modify their former 

 order, relative to emisration, as to intimate that, inasmuch as a thou- 

 sand persons might be useful at Newfoundland, to construct boats 

 and fishing-stages, that number would be suffered to live there, without 

 fear, we may conclude, of official incendiaries and legal robbers. But 

 the gracious privilege thus accorded still placed the resident fishermen 

 at the tender mercies of the merchants and the masters of their ves- 

 sels; for, by an act of Parliament in 1698, these masters, in the ab- 

 sence of all law, were authorized to administer justice, and to regulate 

 the general concerns of the fisheries and of the colony, almost at 

 pleasure. 



Were the inmates of British prisons to be subjected now to the 

 treatment received by the inhabitants at the hands of these masters, 

 the whole civilized world would join in a shout of indignant con- 

 demnation. The first master who arrived at any particular harbor 

 was its admiral for the season; the second was its vice-admiral, and 

 the third its rear-admiral. Thus, at the outset, no attention what- 

 ever was paid to the qualifications to the heads or the hearts of 

 these strange rulers. Accident a long passage or a short one, a dull 

 or a quick-sailing vessel determined everything. The triumph of 

 the English merchants over their fellow-subjects, in this lone and 

 desolate isle, was as complete as that of the warrior who storms a 

 city. In fine, the "admirals" selected the best fishing stations, dis- 

 placed at will the resident fishermen who occupied them, drove the 

 inhabitants from their own houses, took hush-money and presents 

 of fish in adjusting cases brought before them for adjudication, and, 

 in their general course, were as arbitrary and as corrupt as the 

 leaders of banditti. There were exceptions, it may be admitted; 

 but the accounts are uniform that, as a class, the "admirals" were 

 both knaves and tyrants. Yet the law which authorized these 

 iniquities bore the title of "An act to encourage the trade of New- 

 foundland." 



In 1701 we have a very particular and detailed return of the con- 

 dition of the fishery, thus: There were 121 vessels, manned with 2,727 

 men, 993 boats, belonging to the vessels and to the resident fisher- 

 men, 544 fishing-stages on the shores, and 3,581 men, women, and 

 children employed as curers; while the catch was 216,320 quintals 

 of fish, yielding 3,798 hogsheads of oil.* 



In 1729 we record an improvement in the government of the 

 island, since a captain of a ship-of-war displaced the "admirals," and 

 we find the number of inhabitants estimated at about 6,000. Refer- 

 ring to the accompanying table for the general statistics of the cen- 

 tury; and remarking that the number of ships was doubled in the six 



* In 1727 an act of Parliament was passed which authorized the importation of salt 

 into Pennsylvania, in British ships, (navigated according to the navigation acts of the 

 realm,) and for the curing of fish, on the same conditions as were allowed in New Eng- 

 land and Newfoundland. 



