The minister did not immediately yield to their reasons and allowed, at 

 first, exceptions to the regulation only for those outfitters whose vessels 

 found themselves in a situation where they could not put to sea for lack of a 

 captain. But in the following years, these exceptions having become more and 

 more numerous, with a tendency to become the general rule, the controversy 

 finally had to be resolved to the benefit of the outfitters. The law of June 21, 

 1336, authorized coastal skippers to command all vessels outfitted for the cod 

 fishery, as well as for the Newfoundland banks. 



It was forbidden them, however, to command vessels during this period 

 engaged in the important traffic of exporting dried cod from Saint-Pierre to 

 the Antilles, as well as to take, on departure from France, a load of freight 

 to the fishing places. 



Finally, the establishment of the new commissions of captain of the fish- 

 ery and captain of the merchant marine conferrec on their holders the same 

 prerogatives for commanding vessels in the great fishery. The fishing skip- 

 pers, embarking as a kind of super-cargo as men in the confidence of the out- 

 fitters, continued to sail on the greater number of vessels. It was only in the 

 20th century, with the entry on the scene of the steam trawlers commanded 

 by captains more and more specialized in the practice of this new scientific 

 fishery, that one saw the progressive disappearance of this function. 



The loyalty and firmness with which the British government enforced, in 

 the years which followed the resumption of fishing on the French Shore, the 

 rights of the French fishermen, was not appreciated by the inhabitants of New- 

 foundland, and it could not be otherwise, since the islanders, after twenty- 

 five years of a monopoly in fact, saw once again imposed on themselves a ser- 

 vitude which had been for them a distant memory, and which they had believed 

 themselves free from forever. 



The freedom of the fishery about the island was not the only question. In 

 Newfoundland as in the other British possessions, the continental blockade 

 had had as a consequence an attempt to develop all the local resources which 

 could come to the aid of the mother country. Some important mineral and 

 forest exploitations had been created, with, as a result, in this country with- 

 out communications, the opening of maritime outlets as close as possible to 

 the centers of production. Thus the restrictions which held on the French Shore 

 to the profit of the French fishermen, carried an undeniable embarrassment, 

 although sornev/hat less than was pretended at St. John's, to the development 



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