90 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



their rivals were forging ahead of them so fast and far 

 in this their boasted occupation, but also because their 

 mother country had shown none of that maternal instinct 

 to foster and protect colonial industries, which had been 

 expressed so often in such significant ways by the govern- 

 ment of France toward her colonies in America. A brief 

 comparison of the condition of these rival industries at 

 the outbreak of the fresh hostilities in 1744 will serve to 

 explain more fully why New England wished to drive 

 France from the North American fisheries. 



Accounts of the extent of the fisheries vary considerably, 

 and doubtless are exaggerated. Thus, one writer states 

 that the French at Cape Breton Island "carried on an un- 

 bounded fishery, annually employing at least one thousand 

 sail, from two-hundred to four-hundred tons, and twenty 

 thousand men." 1 From another account it is learned that 

 they had "five hundred and sixty-four vessels in all, and 

 twenty-seven thousand five hundred yearly employed from 

 France on the banks of Newfoundland and the adjacent 

 shores;" the catch was no less than 1,149,000 quintals of 

 cod, with nearly four million other fish, exceeding in value, 

 $4,500,000 annually. 2 



The returns of the English fisheries at Newfoundland 

 for 1701 were 216,320 quintals of fish ; in 1716, there were 

 exported to Spain, Portugal and Italy 106,952 quintals of 

 fish, and in 1724, 111,000 quintals. 3 The annual value as 

 reported in 1731 was placed at $600,000, derived from 

 200,000 quintals of fish. 4 The total number of men em- 

 ployed in the Cape Breton fishery in 1745 was 5,260, while 

 the yield was 186,000 quintals. 5 Another account places 



1 Auchmuty, Importance of Cape Breton, pp. 3-4. 



2 Bollan, Ancient Right of the English Nation to the American 

 Fishery, p. 53. 



3 Holmes, American Annals, II, pp. 55, 92, 114. 

 * Anderson, Origin of Commerce, III, p. 172. 



c MacPherson, Annals of Commerce, II, year 1745. 



