INTRODUCTION 23 



This, however, was not at all the object which the Eng- 

 lish government had wished to accomplish. It had been 

 their intention to put the Labrador fishery under the same 

 regulations as the Newfoundland fishery. It was to be 

 preserved as an "open and free fishery" for the Dorset 

 and Devon fishing fleets, and was to be governed by 

 fishing admiral rules. The establishment of sedentary 

 fisheries immediately caused trouble. It was the old 

 story, so familiar in the case of Newfoundland itself, of a 

 struggle between the settlers on the shore, who claimed 

 the right of exclusive fishing, and the fishermen who came 

 over the Atlantic from English ports, and who wanted 

 the fisheries and landing-places reserved for themselves. 

 Sir Hugh Palliser, the governor of Newfoundland, strove 

 energetically to carry out the new regulations. He applied 

 to the home government for naval reinforcements, "for 

 the purpose of enforcing the fishery laws and preserving 

 peace and some degree of order amongst the fisheries, 

 especially amongst the mixed multitudes now resorting 

 to the new northern banks about the Strait of Belle Isle, 

 composed of about 5000 of the very scum of the most 

 disorderly people from the different colonies." He built 

 a blockhouse in Chateau Bay, and garrisoned it with an 

 officer and twenty men. But his measures were in vain. 

 He had to encounter, not only the opposition of the few 

 English and French-Canadian settlers on the coast, the 

 latter armed with their title-deeds acquired under the 

 French governors, but also the hostility of the Canadian 

 and New England fishermen, who were excluded from the 

 fisheries. The feeling among the New England fishermen 

 was especially strong; their exclusion from the Labrador 



