Cod

It is the fish that bring them first. Cod in such numbers as to seem endless. Cod to fill the nets and bellies of hungry Europeans with the tender white flesh. Cod, it seems to them, without end. They fill the ships, salting the fish down in barrels, til the hull is full, and head back home. This wet cod-fishing goes on for years, far out in the Banks, with only an occasional stop on land. We dry our fish in the sun cure it in smoke-houses and sure enough, the foreigners hear about it. Soon they need a land base to dry the cod which weighs less than when wet tastes better, too it is these dreams of cod that first bring the French to land dreams of cod the gold of the sea that will fill their bellies and their pockets