THE COE-. 
loO 
fouth, and ceafing altogether before they advance to the 
ftraits of Gibraltar *. 
Before the difcovery of Newfoundland, the great e! 
fiflieries of tli<e cod were on the coafts of Iceland , and the 
weftern illes of Scotland, where the Englijb reforted in 
<jueft of them, as early as the beginning of the fifteenth 
century. Our right of fifhing in thefe parts, however, 
was not acknowledged by the government of Denmark f, 
till the reign of fames I. whofe marriage with a princefe 
of that country, fecured to his i objects that indulgence 
of which they availed themfelves fo completely, that 
they had then a hundred and fifty Ihips employed in the 
Iceland filhery. 
Even on the banks of Newfoundland, the French, Spa- 
niards, and Portuguefe, had originally a far larger por- 
tion of the fulling, than the Britifh : In 1570, the for- 
mer nations had upwards of three hundred veffels em- 
ployed in that trade, when thofe of the Englijh did not? 
exceed fifty t. Matters, however, have fince been re- 
verfed ; and the Englijh {hipping on that coaft has im- 
menfely increafed ; it is now fuperior to that of any other 
nation, and the trade is deemed a valuable acceffion to 
the wealth of individuals, as well as to the naval pov.’e l 
of the empire $. 
This immeni'e filhery is conducted in a tract of the ie a > 
agitated’ by a perpetual fwell, and involved in continual 
darknefs, by means of a thick fog, that conftantly hang J 
over 
* Britiili Znol. f Rymer’s fed. xvi. 275- 
J Hackluyt’s coll. vbjr. iii. 132. .0. 
§ 15000 Britilb feamen are at prcfenC employed in this filhery- 
Zoology. 
