Fishermen from Portugal, the Basque provinces of France and Spain, Northern France (perhaps Normandy) and West Country England are known to have frequented eastern Newfoundland during the first half of the 1600s, some as early as the first decade of the 16th century.

Instructions to Walter Sykes, Robert Street, Captain William Pyles and Captain Nicholas Redwood from the Council of State, dated June 16, 1652.