THE CODFISH FRONTIER . 261 



France at this time was involved in a series of civil wars that 

 dried up her available resources for overseas settlement on the 

 American continent. England now began to wake up to the 

 importance of the western world as a place for Englishmen to 

 settle. We have the record of the brave but ill-run attempt by 

 Sir Walter Raleigh, in the Carolinas at Roanoke Island, to 

 duplicate the colonial efforts of France, and the similar expe- 

 dition by Raleigh's half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, to 

 take over Newfoundland for the British in 1583. Gilbert ex- 

 hibited the same courageous and romantic flare for adventure 

 as Raleigh. He landed among the fishing fleet near St. Johns, 

 raised the English flag, and with a flourish of bugles announced 

 future empire. He declared that here the unemployed and 

 loose-of-foot at home could be shipped to labor usefully to 

 enrich the mother country. Sailing for home, he boarded the 

 smallest and most unseaworthy vessel of his little fleet, the 

 Squinel, in order to share all danger equally with his crew, and 

 in a great storm in the Bay of Biscay he went down, shouting 

 over the waters to his comrades on The Golden Hindy ''We 

 are as near to Heaven by sea as by land!'' 



From now on the opening of the American northeast coast 

 to English enterprise was undertaken by more competent nav- 

 igators and by the tough fishing fleets of the west country of 

 England. The merchants of Devon and Bristol now engaged 

 their interest to exploit the Codfish Frontier. These fishing 

 interests, however, were directly opposed to those who wished 

 to make permanent settlements in Newfoundland or Nova 

 Scotia. The merchants did not want the year-round competi- 

 tion of resident fishermen against the seasonal venture of the 

 fleets to the Banks. They did not want any civfl authority 

 estabhshed on the shores and in the bays where the fishing 

 admirals seasonally established their own autocratic rule. This 

 battle — a kind of mercantile civil war — did much to settle 

 the future struggle for power between the New England colo- 



