Newfoundland Fisheries.

The first Western Europeans to reach North America in the late fifteenth century may have been fishermen from Bristol in western England. Certainly Christopher Columbus spoke with Bristol fishermen and gathered information from them before sailing across the Atlantic for the first time in 1492. Drawn to the fish-laden waters off the Newfoundland coast, fishing fleets from the Atlantic ports of England, France, Spain, and Portugal sailed yearly in search of cod, the inexpensive "beef of the sea." Their cargo filled the bellies of Europe's armies, navies, and poor and stocked the tables of obedient Catholics on the 165 meatless days in the Church's liturgical calendar. By the early sixteenth century more than one hundred ships frequented Newfoundland's coastal bays and inlets, processing and drying their catch for shipment to European markets at the close of the season. The discovery...