108 



is too curious to be omitted, though my limits will jaot permit its inser- 

 tion entire. " About eight or time miles to the eastward of Cape Por- 

 poise," he writes, "is Winter harbor, a rioted place for fishers,; here 

 they have many stages." "At 'Richmond's island' ** are likewise 

 stages for fishermen. Nine miles eastward of Black Point lyeth scatter- 

 ingly the town of Casco,* upon a large bay, stored with cattle, sheep, 

 swine, abundance of marsh and arable land, a corn-mill or two, with 

 stages for fishermen. ^ * * Further yet eastward is Sagadahock,+ 

 where are many houses scattering, and all along stages for fishermen, 

 * * * * From Sagadahock to Nova Scotia is called the Duke of York's 

 province ; here Pemaquid, Martinicus, Mohegan, Capeanawhagen, 

 where Captain Smith fished for whales, Muscataquid, aR filled with 

 dwelling-houses and stages for fishermen." 



Again, he says that " The people m the province of Maine may be 

 divided into magistrates, husbandmen or planters, and fishermen : of the 

 magistrates some be royalists, the rest perverse spirits : the like are the 

 planters and fishers, of which some be planters and fishers both — others 

 mere fishers." After speaking of the quantity offish taken, and of the 

 various markets to which the different qualities were sent, he thus de- 

 scribes the manner of fishing and the habits of those who lived by the 

 use of the hook and fine: " To every shallop belong four fishermen : 

 a master or steersman, a midshipman and a foremost-man, and a shore- 

 roan, who washes it out of the salt, and dries it upon hurdles pitched 

 upon stakes breast-high,t and tends their cookery. These often get in 

 one voyage eight or nine pounds a man for their shares." The money ' 

 they earned, he continues, was squandered in drunken revels. The 

 arrival of a " walking tavern," (as he calls a vessel laden with wine, 

 brandy, and other intoxicating liquors,) put an end to fishing, and no 

 persuasions which their employers could use were sufficient to induce 

 them to go to sea for two or thr6e days — "nay, sometimes a whole 

 week," and until wearied with drinking. When thus cai-ousing, " they 

 quarrelled, fought, and did cne another mischief." 



The course of^vents during the hostile relations between France and 

 England, cannot be stated in detail. Particular cases will show, how- 

 ever, the general conduct of the French rulers in Acadia, and the kind 

 of warfare meditated and actually perpetrated by their savage allies 

 within the borders of Maine. For a time, the Acadian seas were vis- 

 ited by the eastern fishermen without molestation. But in 1675, De 

 Bou'g, the French governor, not only prohibited his people from con- 

 tinuing their intercourse with their Protestant neighbors, but levied an 

 impost or tribute of four hundred codfish on qvery Enghsh colonial ves- 

 sel found fishing upon the coast of Acadia, and required his officers to 

 seize all that refiised, and to take away whatever fish had been caught 

 with the outfits and provisions on board. || The remark of Mugg, (a 



'■ ' : : ■ 1 , _ n 



* Portland. 



t The country between the Kennebee and the Penobscot. 



t The manner of drying on " flakes" is very similar at the present time. 



I Randolph, in a letter datfed at Boston, July 28, 1686, and addressed to Mr. Blaithwait, 

 England, remarks: "There will, I fear, be an eniption betwixt the French of Nova Scotia 

 and »m' people in Maine and New Hampshire," and for reasons which he relates. " We have 

 sent," he further says, "to all places to warn our people, and to the fishermen, not to venture 

 apon their coasts, lest they be surprised and made to answer tar damages done by strangers." 



