method which had long been employed in the Channel for the fishery called 

 aux corde . 



He made many of these devices by tying, end to end, pieces of line used 

 in hand lining which he supplied, from point to point, with leaders carrying 

 hooks baited in the usual way. Having furnished his boat with a strong anchor 

 cable of hemp, he took his anchorage on the bank, and the long-boats ran out 

 the lines, of which one extremity remained fixed to the vessel, the other being 

 held to the bottom by a great stone, a buoy marking its position. 



Each evening the lines were thus run out for the night. On wakening in 

 the morning, they were drawn aboard, and the operation was repeated the 

 next day. 



Captain Sabot made thus, on his first attempt, a fishery so extraordi- 

 nary at the time that he returned twice in the same season to Dieppe with a 

 full load of green- salted cod. Thus he had, in the following season, a num- 

 ber of imitators, with the enthusiastic agreement of the fishermen who had 

 seen the new method considerably augment their earnings, without spending 

 harrowing days of immobility fishing from the barrels. 



The results precipitated from this procedure, which led to daily move- 

 ments of small boats (running out the lines) provoked accidents. Many men 

 were lost and the maritime authorities were then led to hold a hearing im- 

 mediately on this kind of fishery. 



The official intervention did not produce any effect, and in the course of 

 the following season, the line-trawl fishery was adopted by most of the French 

 bank fishery. 



Certain meliorations had already resulted from the new method of fish- 

 ing. The first consisted of hauling in the lines with a hand winch instead of 

 by hand. Three men conducted the operation. The line was wound around 

 the winch, one of them turned the winch handle, the other cleared the hooks; 

 the third gaffed the cod. 



At the same time the yield was increased by fishing from both sides of 

 the vessel, in place of using one set of lines. The set on the port side con- 

 sisted of 24 lengths of 60 fathoms each, and was drawn in by the winch; the 

 starboard, formed of 35 pieces of the same length, was drawn in either by 

 winch or by means of a small boat. 



46 



