THE SEA AND THE DESEET. 
167 
they had carried this contemptible trade of fish,” as he 
significantly styles it, and were now equal to the Hol¬ 
landers whose example he holds up for the English to 
emulate; notwithstanding that “ in this faculty,” as he 
says, “ the former are so naturalized, and of their vents so 
certainly acquainted, as there is no hkelihood they will 
ever be paralleled, having two or three thousand busses, 
flat-bottoms, sword-pinks, todes, aiid such like, that breeds 
them sailors, mariners, soldiers, and merchants, never to 
be wrought out of that trade and fit for any other.” We 
thought that it would take all these names and more to 
describe the numerous craft which we saw. Even then, 
some years before our “ renowned sires ” with their 
‘‘ peerless dames ” stepped on Plymouth Rock, he wrote, 
“ Newfoundland doth yearly freight neir eight hundred 
sail of ships with a silly, lean, skinny, poor-john, and cor 
fish,” though all their supplies must be annually trans¬ 
ported from Europe. Why not plant a colony here 
then, and raise those supplies on the spot ? “ Of all the 
four parts of the world,” says he, “ that I have yet seen, 
not inhabited, could I have but means to transport a 
colony, I would rather live here than anywhere. And 
if it did not maintain itself, were we but once indiffer¬ 
ently well fitted, let us starve.” Then “ fishing before 
your doors,” you “ may every night sleep quietly ashore, 
with good cheer and what fires you will, or, when you 
please, with your wives and family.” Already he an¬ 
ticipates “ the new towns in New England in memory 
of their old,” — and who knows what may be discovered 
in the heart and entrails ” of the land, “ seeing even 
the very edges,” &c., &c. 
All this has been accomplished, and more, and where 
is Holland now ? Verily the Dutch have taken ih 
