The Basques claim the honor of the discovery of Newfoundland, which 

 was in reality only a rediscovery. According to tradition their sailors 

 and, in particular, those of Cape Breton near Bayonne, had come to these 

 parts about the beginning of the 14th century in the course of their whaling 

 expeditions, the whales having deserted the Bay of Biscay, about 200 years 

 before the memorable discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. 



De Lamare, in his Traite de Police and, after him, R. J. Valin in his 

 Commentaires sur l'Ordonnance de la Marine en 1681 , write that credit for 

 the beginning of cod fishing in Newfoundland belongs to the French, princi- 

 pally to the Basques of Cape Breton who discovered, a hundred years before 

 Columbus, North America. They do not give any proof, however. 



Ducere, in his Dictionnaire de Bayonne , under the article "whales", 

 claims that it was about 1372 that the Basques, pursuing whales toward New- 

 foundland, penetrated to the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Here again one 

 finds neither proof nor reference. 



The thesis, too easily accepted, of schools of whales withdrawing in 

 good order before the Basques who pursued them from one coast of the At- 

 lantic to the other, is, however, a little too fantastic to be taken seriously. 



It is much more probable that the first great whaling expeditions of the 

 Basques were directed toward the north and with the destination of Iceland, 

 which was known a long time, and where they had learned that whales were 

 to be found. 



Thus Crozier relates in his Histoire du port de Bayonne : "according 

 to Icelandic history, in 1412, twenty Basque boats and harpooners equipped 

 for the whale fishery arrived at Groenderfioerd and in the Gulf of Grunder, 

 which caused a great surprise on the isle. " 



In reality, the presence of the Basques in Newfoundland is formally at- 

 tested for the first time in 1528. Their coming to these parts before this 

 date is perhaps only suppositional. 



On the other hand, it is affirmed that the Bretons and Normans fished 

 in Newfoundland waters in the first decade of the 16th century. A number 

 of authentic documents, of which the oldest refers to four Rouenn boats 

 bound for this destination in 1508, attest to the importance that their outfit- 

 ting had acquired at this epoch. But nothing confirms the tradition accor- 

 ding to which they had come to this region in the 15th century. 



