34 



Spain retired from our waters in peace, and at her own pleasure. 

 Little is heard of her in connexion with our subject for quite a century, 

 and until the peace of 1763. Her claim— resting on discovery— ever 

 vague and uncertain at the north, had become almost as obsolete as 

 that of the King of England to the title of King of France. Still, in the 

 definitive treaty concluded at Paris, she formally renounced " all pre- 

 tensions which she has heretofore formed, or might form, to Nova 

 Scotia or Acadia, in all its parts, and guaranties the whole of it, and 

 with all its dependencies," and ceded and guarantied to England, " m 

 full right, Canada, with all its dependencies, as well as the island of 

 Cape Breton, and all other islands and coasts in the gulf and river of 

 St. Lawrence; and, in general, everything that depends on the said 

 countries, lands, islands, and coasts, with the sovereignty, property, 

 possession, and all rights acquired by treaty or otherwise." With ims 

 ■treaty the history of the Spanish fishery in America terminates.* 



COD-FISHERY OF PORTUGAL. 



An account of this fishery may be embraced in a single paragraph. 

 If materials exist by which to ascertain its progress and final extent, I 

 have not been able to find them. 



Portuguese vessels were at Newfoundland as early as those of Spain; 

 and in 1577, the number employed there is estimated at fifty. These 

 two facts comprise the substance of my information upon the subject, 

 except that Portugal, like Spain, soon abandoned all attention to the 

 claims derived from the voyages of her navigators to the northern parts 

 of our continent, and devoted her energies and resources to colonization 

 in South America, and the acquisition of wealth in the mines of Brazil.t 



* Spain relinquished her rights at the peace of 1763, with reluctance, though she had long 

 ceased to exercise them. A letter of Sir Joseph Yorke is quoted in the correspondence of 

 Horace Walpole, ia which it is said : "By what I hear from Paris, my old acquaintance, Gri- 

 maldi, is the cause of the delay in signing the preliminaries, insisting upon points neither Franca 

 nor England would ever consent to gi-ant, such as the liberty of fishing at Newfoundland ; a 

 pijint we should not dare to yield, as Mr. Pitt told them, though they were masters of the Tower 

 of London." • 



t The rivers and coasts of Portugal abound in fish. But the fisheries are neglected by the 

 government. The whole number of sailors and fishermen who belonged to the kingdom in 

 1826, was only 18,700. I find in an official document a statement which shows that during the 

 twenty-four years ending in 18B5, the quantity of dry codfish imported into Portugal was seven 

 million five hundred and twenty thousand quintals, of the vjdue of more than thirty-nine 

 millions of dollars ! As late as the year 1839, certainly, the government pursued the policy of 

 levying a tax or duty on the produce of the domestic or coast fishery ; a fact which enables ua 

 to account for the miserable condition of the kingdom, as regards its maritime strength and 

 lesources. 



