fishing by claiming all the land to Newfoundland,--not that it
was getting much out of it. One complaint as published in London
sometime before February 22, 1615, in the anonymous tract, _The Trades
Increase_, read:

The Virginia Company pretend almost all that main twixt it and
Newfoundland to be their fee-simple, whereby many honest and able
minds, disposed to adventure, are hindered and stopped from
repairing to those places that they either know or would discover,
even for fishing.

As a matter of fact, there was continuous wrangling in London over the
fishing rights off the entire coast administered by the Virginia
Company. The proposed settlers of the Northern Colony in New England
had fishing uppermost in their minds and would have been glad to
exclude fishermen coming from the Southern Colony. Minutes of meetings
of the Company reveal how earnest was the struggle:

December 1, 1619. The last great general court being read, Mr.
Treasurer acquainted them that Mr. John Delbridge, purposing to
settle a particular colony in Virginia, desired of the Company that
for defraying some part of his charge he might be admitted to fish
at Cape Cod. Which request was opposed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges,
alleging that he always favored Mr. Delbridge but in this he
thought himself something touched that he should sue to this
Company and not rather to him as the matter properly belonged to
the Northern Colony to give liberty for fishing in that place, it
lying within their latitude. This was answered by Mr. Treasurer
that the Companies of the South and North Plantations are free of
one another and that the patent is clear that each may fish within
the territory of the other, the sea being free for both. If the
Northern Company abridged them of this, they would take away their
means and encouragement for sending out men. To which Sir
Ferdinando Gorges replied that if he was not mistaken both the
Companies were limited by the patents unto which he would submit.
For the deciding whereof it is referred to the Council, who are of
both Companies, to examine the patents tomorrow afternoon at the
Lord Southampton's and accordingly to determine the dispute.

Two weeks later the Council gave its decision: Either Colony could fish
within the bounds of the other. But this was by no means an end to the
matter. The Northern Colony requested a