Chapter IV. Treaties and Disputes 



Among historically proven facts, John Cabot, departing from Bristol 

 in 1497 under the flag of Henry VII, king of England, was the first navigat- 

 or who attained, in the same year, the northern latitudes of the New World. 

 Having landed at a point which it is not possible to locate with exactitude, al- 

 though most historians fix it on the coast of Labrador, he took possession, 

 in the name of the English crown, of all the new lands extending from the 

 regions discovered by the Spaniards to the Arctic Circle. 



During the course of almost all of the 16th century, the English govern- 

 ment failed to take any advantage of the rights he had established so impre- 

 cisely, and the indifference was such that the fact was little by little forgot- 

 ten. The goal assigned to Cabot had been to seek a passage to China by the 

 western route. This first attempt to discover the famous Northwest Passage, 

 which was to be followed, after a brief time, by many others, had only a com- 

 mercial objective in which the taking of possession of frozen lands seemed of 

 little interest. Also no dispute arose after the expedition of Verazzano, who, 

 in 1524, took possession of the same territory in the name of the king of 

 France, Francis I. 



As with Cabot, one can only affirm that Verazzano had landed at New- 

 foundland. Be that as it may, at the end of his expedition and of the voyages 

 of Jacques Cartier between 15 34 and 1540, then the founding of New France 

 by Champlain, the French considered that Newfoundland, which Jacques Car- 

 tier had first recognized as an island, belonged to them in the same way as 

 their new continental possessions. This thesis was so weU accepted by the 

 English that in 1591 the fishermen of Guernsey addressed the authorities of 

 St. Malo to demand, and to be refused, permission to fish for cod at New- 

 foundland. 



The English continued to come to the great isle during the first half of 

 the 16th century. But if, aside from the fur trade, they interested themsel- 

 ves in the fishery, rather than engage in it themselves, at the risk of con- 

 flict with the French, they found it much more practical to buy from the lat- 

 ter in this region the fish v/ith which they loaded their boats for selling on 

 the British markets. At the end of the 16th century, the English trade with 

 Newfoundland had acquired a great importance. 



If, from the 16th century, the French considered themselves masters 

 of Newfoundland, it was not, however, until the beginning of the 17th cen- 

 tury, probably about 1603, that they founded their first permanent estab- 

 lishments. The Malouins, who were the most numerous, contented them- 



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