In the years which followed the conclusion of the treaty, the French 

 outfitting for the American fisheries constituted two fleets of about 250 sail 

 each. The first fleet sailed about the first of January, the second took to sea 

 during March. The principal ports of outfitting of these 500 vessels were 

 Rouen, Dieppe, Fecamp, Le Havre, Honfleur, Granville, Saint-Malo, Nantes 

 which, in this field as well as in the number of other sailings, asserted, in 

 the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, its supremacy as the first French 

 port, La Rochelle, Sables- d'Olonne, Bordeaux, and Bayonne. 



The bank fishery was practiced by more than 100 of these boats, Nor- 

 mands and Nantais for the most part. 



Others, in more or less equal numbers, outfitted, in the majority, in 

 the ports of the Gulf of Gascogne, went to the fisheries of Gaspe and Cape 

 Breton. The principal group, comprising some 250 vessels, almost all from 

 Brettony ports, St. Malo, Binic, Cancali, as well as Granville, fished the 

 French Shore, especially in the region of Petit-Nord. 



In order to avoid all conflicts between fishermen for the disposition of 

 the beaches as areas for drying of which the suitability was very variable, 

 according to their extent and the composition of their pebbles, the coast fish- 

 ery was submitted to police regulations which remained influenced, until the 

 Revolution, by the general dispositions of the rule of 1640, elaborated at the 

 request of the St. Malo outfitters, and in line with the act of the Parliament 

 of Rennes of March 31 of that same year. 



This regulation, the application of which was extended in 1671, to all 

 boats outfitted in French ports, stipulated that the master of the boat which 

 first arrived and dropped anchor in the harbor of Petit-Maitre, which had 

 been for a long time the gathering point of fishermen come to the coast of 

 Petit-Nord, took the title of Admiral of the Fishery for all that season and 

 that the token of this title would be permanently hoisted on the mainmast of 

 his vessel. 



The first prerogative of the Admiral was the right to choose the harbor 

 where he would install for the fishery, as well as the beach where he would 

 dry his cod, attributing to himself an area determined in proportion to his 

 crew. To establish without possible dispute his rank and right of priority, 

 he had to, before everything else, give evidence at Croc, situated in the bay 

 of Petit-Maitre, where a deposition was made by a representative of his 

 crew, a paper of notification bearing indication of the day of his arrival and 



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