selves with their annual expeditions to the coast of Petit-Nord, the Nor- 

 mands and Rochelais engaged more and more in the bank fishery; the first 

 settlers were the French Basques. They settled in the southwest part of the 

 island, on the shores of the peninsula of Avalon, the deep indentations of 

 which gave shelter to their cod fishing boats and to whalers come from the 

 ports of the Gulf of Biscay. 



These settlers were everywhere few in number. At the end of the 16th 

 century, their numbers did not exceed 300, which would be reinforced by 

 300-400 winter fishermen. 



During this time, the island received a much greater number of Eng- 

 lish immigrants. Many of them came from Acadie, a region which had been 

 colonized by the Scotch before being taken by France, whence the name No/a 

 Scotia which it had retaken in the 19th century after the tragic failure of the 

 French empire in America. Many of them were engaged in the fur trade. 

 Others had founded fishing establishments. 



The English government, imbued with the idea that this colonization was 

 contrary to the interests of the Bristol dealers who wished to keep their mon- 

 opoly on the distant fisheries, from the very first shackled the settlers with 

 restrictive, Draconian, regulation. Since 1583, after the claiming of the is- 

 land by Humphrey Gilbert, in the name of Queen Elizabeth, English govern- 

 ors had been installed atSt. John's, which the French always called St. Jeans, 

 and which was the capital, except for a short period at the end of the loth cen- 

 tury. 



It was to the advantage of the British claim that the two kingdoms signed, 

 in 1635, a convention, in the terms of which the French enjoyed in Newfound- 

 land only the rights to fish in the waters of the island and to dry their fish on 

 the shores, on condition of paying to the English crown five per cent on the 

 value of the cod thus prepared. 



In reality, this convention was never applied. The Malouins, in partic- 

 ular, continued to consider the. Petit-Nord as their exclusive fief and to arm 

 a warship to forbid access to it; and one saw, in the same year, 1635, a 

 curious proceeding before the Parliament of Rennes, provoked by the refusal 

 of certain outfitters to participate in this arrangement. 



In 1640, a civil regulation endorsed by the Parliament, and having as 

 object to put an end to the disputes between the fishermen for choice of 



27 



