At this time the resident population of the island cannot have
exceeded a few hundreds, and every step was adopted which a vicious
political economy could suggest to keep the numbers down. It was made
penal for a settler to dwell within six miles of the shore, for a
planter to cut down wood or plant within six miles from the shore, for
any planter or inhabitant to take up the best positions in the
harbours before the arrival of the fishing-fleet in the spring; and
every master who sailed with a crew to Newfoundland was under
bond--lest here and there a permanent settler should filter
through--to return with his exact complement of hands. Their Lordships
of the Committee of Trade and Plantations were not superior to the
prejudices of the day, and they resolved in 1675, "That all
plantations in Newfoundland should be discouraged ... or that the
western charter should from time to time be put in execution; by which
charter all planters were forbid to inhabit within six miles of the
shore from Cape Race to Cape Bonavista." Equally considerate and
attentive were the efforts of the home country to cope with crime in
the island. The Star Chamber ingeniously provided that persons charged
with homicide, or with stealing to the value of 40s., should be
brought home and submitted to the judicial experience of the Mayors
of Southampton, Weymouth, and other specified towns. The
discrimination may also be admired which prohibited stealing _from the
fishing nets_. It must be supposed that time hung heavily on the hands
of the settlers in the intervals of the fishing, for we find at the
period much time and industry wasted on petitions to the Committee of
Trade, who possibly treated them as Grenville's predecessors are said
to have treated the American despatches. The Board of Trade, which
inherited the duties and the incompetence of the Committee, proved
more complaisant, and was indeed prepared to tolerate permanent