the bank, the long-boat ran out on the starboard 35 pieces of line of 60 fath- 

 oms each; on the port, 25 pieces were set by the small boat. The lines 

 were set out for the night at dusk and hauled at dawn. When the catch was 

 good, after the morning haul and landing the cod aboard, spare lines were set 

 out for some hours during the day. 



After some years, the line trawl fishing was established aboard all the 

 French cod vessels. Rather than try to enforce a ban about which no one 

 worried, the Marine Administration resigned itself to tolerating that which 

 it could not prevent under cover of a new regulation which concerned safety 

 measures to be taken by the men in the long-boats or other boats set out from 

 the fishing vessel for setting and hauling the lines. 



By a circular of January 30, 1821 to the maritime authorities in the ports, 

 inspired by a report from the commandant and "Administrator for the King" 

 of the islands of Saint- Pierre and Miquelon, Baron Portal, then Minister of 

 the Marine, prescribed the use of a special line, made for the purpose, of a 

 nature to constantly hold the long-boats to the vessel to assure them, the cer- 

 tainty of being able to return in case of a storm. He recommended, at the 

 same time, under the title of a supplementary precaution, the use of small 

 cannon for giving, in times of fog or storm, a rallying signal for the boats 

 still at sea. These were wise precautions, justified by the loss of manyboats 

 with their crews. The report addressed to the minister cited the long-boat of 

 the two-master Auguste , of Nantes, Captain Gourdan, which had disappeared 

 in a storm the preceding season, in 1820. 



Still these rules of prudence were ignored, in their turn, before the ne- 

 cessities of the fishery, for, little by little, the long-boats began to go so far 

 from the vessels that it became impractical to keep between them and the ves- 

 sel a line of security. The fishermen had, as a matter of fact, noted that the 

 waste of all sorts thrown into the sea from the vessel at anchor drove away 

 the cod and attracted at the same time dogfish and Greenland sharks. As long 

 as the vessel stayed at the same anchorage, the long-boats were obliged to 

 go farther and farther to set their lines, and beyond a certain distance, to a- 

 bandon all material liaison with the vessel. Finally, as this departure was 

 evidently less dangerous for small than for great distances, the measure of 

 prudence pronounced in 1821 by Baron Portal was completely and definitely 

 disregarded. 



During the same period the portmanteau was abandoned as a fishing boat, 

 the setting and hauling being done by two identical long-boats, equipped with 



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