Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/189

 Rh he ran the vessel ashore on the coast of France, scuttled her, and sold the wreck with whatever was recovered from it to a French merchant, and he remained in France to enjoy his ill-gotten wealth. This was the unfortunate end of the ketch Robert, so far as we were concerned, but I have heard that the person who purchased her, as a wreck, was able to have her repaired, at a cost of little more than a crown, and that she has since been making trading voyages on the French coast.

In the month of May, 1700, we first commenced fishing for cod, off the Island of Durzey, but the weather was unfavorable, high winds and rough sea, which obliged us to return with scarcely any fish, and we had been at great expense. We next attempted to take salmon; our expenses were but small, our gains smaller still.

In July we mustered our whole force to take herrings, three tackles, six boats, and forty-five men, at an incredible expense. Had the fish been as abundant as usual at this season of the year, our profits would have been considerable, even though the expenses were so heavy. Very few fish appeared, but we were obliged to keep up the expensive establishment, for perhaps the fish might come, on the very day when we, for the sake of economy, had disbanded our force and given up waiting for them. One single draught in a large shoal of herring might pay all the expenses of one, two, or even three years. We were paying the same wages to the men all the time they were waiting, whether they caught any fish or not.

This season passing away with so little result, we thought it needless to keep both our vessels waiting for fish; so we sent the Judith on a trading voyage to Spain. With the