The historical priority of navigation in the waters of Newfoundland goes 

 to John and Sebastian Cabot, yet nothing permits one to affirm that in the 

 course of their two voyages to northern regions they had landed on this great 

 island, nor even that they had seen any part of it. But they certainly sailed 

 in its near neighborhood. 



On return from his voyage in these regions in 1497, John Cabot relates 

 that "the sea there is full of fish to such a point that one takes them not only 

 by means of a net but also with baskets to which one attaches a stone to sink 

 them in the water. " His English companions added that it was possible to 

 capture them in such great numbers that "henceforth the kingdom will no 

 longer have need of Iceland, whence comes such great quantity of the fish 

 called 'stock-fish'". 



The Portuguese, Corte-Real, who certainly landed at Newfoundland in 

 1501, and thus was the historical discoverer, confirms the tales of Cabot on 

 the prodigious quantities of cod that one found in these waters. Also the Por- 

 tuguese sailors were the first to come there to fish, as is attested by an or- 

 dinance of King Emmanuel, of October 14, 1506, concerning the collection of 

 an annual tax on the fish carried from Newfoundland. 



One is led to consider as very probable that the origin of the fishery in 

 Newfoundland, as much by the Bretons, Normans, and Basques, as by the 

 Portuguese, is to be found in the stories of Cabot and Corte-Real, of which 

 the rumors had not failed to spread rapidly among the cod fishermen of these 

 diverse countries who were to be found each year in Icelandic waters. Dur- 

 ing this epoch, the Bretons and Normans had fished half a century around 

 Iceland, and the Basques had come there for a long time with their whaling 

 vessels. It is not, then, surprising that at the announcement of the discov- 

 ery of new fishing grounds where cod abounded, they had immediately gone 

 there in great numbers. 



Outfitting vessels for the Grand Banks rapidly took on great importance. 

 August 3, 1527, the Englishman John Rest found, in the Bay of St. John alone, 

 eleven Norman^ boats. During the months of January and February of 1543 

 and 1544, about two boats per day left for Newfoundland from Rouen, Havre, 

 Dieppe, and from Honfleur. At the time of his second voyage, Jacques Car- 

 tier, observing the Isle of St. Pierre, found there "many boats from both 

 France and Britanny. " Thirty years later, in 1548, 150 French boats were 

 outfitted for the Newfoundland fishery, with an effective strength one can 

 estimate at 2, 500 men. At about the same time the Portuguese sailors had 

 developed this industry to such an extent that one counted, in the little port 



