The part of England lying southwest, from Bristol to Southampton, was known historically as the West Country. This was the area chiefly concerned with the Newfoundland fishery. It included five counties: Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. It also included the city of Bristol. Devon was one of the two most populous and powerful counties in England and collectively, the five counties were able to bring enormous influence on Parliament and the Privy Council. This influence affected the history of the fishery and people of Newfoundland.
The merchant was always treated as one of the villains in Newfoundland history. A contrast has been drawn between the honest hard-working fishermen and the greedy, unscrupulous merchants who supplied him with goods and took advantage of his labours. They were blamed for everything bad that happened in Newfoundland including the weather. A man of education and high social rank but apparently little money in Poole described the Newfoundland merchants in 1760's as being "infamously intent on Trade, proud of their quick raised fortune, unsociable amongst themselves and envious of any success that strangers who settled among them met with; so that is not exceeding the bounds of charity to say of them that they are very little influenced either by principles of religion or morality".
The merchants were disliked by leading English politicians and administrators of the day who saw them as greedy, narrow and intent only upon their own interest as opposed to national ones. William Pitt, the Younger, found the Newfoundland merchants "a very discontented body of men who did not fail to misrepresent any action of government which went contrary to their desires." Others saw them as monopolists who, through their absolute control over the fishery, made vast and rapid fortunes at the expense of fishermen and were responsible for the "retardation" of colonial development. The merchants often saw themselves as hard-working, practical men of affairs who alone sustained the fishery and the population of Newfoundland in the face of ignorance on the part of the fishermen and the foolishness on the part of the government, which they saw as prone to interfere in the fishery by making laws that would lead to the downfall of the trade.
For the early days of the colony, the merchant was the benefactor of the fisherman. Often the fisherman felt the merchant owned him body and soul because he had to depend on the merchant for everything. The merchant no less than the fisherman was trapped by the credit system of supply. The fisherman might go into debt in bad times, but the merchant who had supplied him also had to find the money to pay those who had supplied him with the goods and provisions.
The West Country Merchants were very active in Placentia and Placentia Bay. Although in 1753 Richard Welsh, an Irish Catholic, set up a mercantile business in Placentia and emerged as the leading merchant in the harbour of Placentia. He had connections with the merchants of Poole, and his family married into the Blackney family connecting them with the Catholic sub-gentry in the southeast of Ireland, including the Archbolds, the Wyses and the Anthonys of Waterford. These connections helped sustain the business.
In the early 1700's Placentia was the centre of a thriving migratory ship fishery based in North Devon. A cluster of ports in Bideford were involved: Barnstaple on the river Torridge, Bideford on the Taw, Northam and Appledore. Each spring the fishing ships set sail from these small ports with fishermen and supplies for Placentia and other harbours in the southern half of the Avalon Peninsula. They would anchor for the summer while crews were deployed in shallops to fish inshore for cod. When dried, the cod was shipped to the markets in southern Europe or the West Indies, and in the fall these fishermen returned home.
In 1734, twenty fishing ships docked at Placentia and nearby harbours, with 600 fishermen who operated 100 shallops and caught over 30,000 quintals of cod. There was at this time also a small fishery conducted by some fifty planters who lived at Placentia and nearby harbours year-round. These residents were from the English West Country; some were married with families.
With the outbreak of war between Britain and France in 1756, the migratory ship fishery from North Devon collapsed, never to recover. During the war Placentia depended largely on a resident fishery conducted inshore. Poole in Dorset replaced the North Devon ports as the organizational centre of the ship fishery, and the importance of Waterford and its hinterland as a source of labours and provisions increased. Poole was the pivot of the trading network in Placentia. It was the port where the vessels were owned and registered and where the final decisions on their deployment were usually made. Poole and its hinterland provided much of the technology and some provisions for this fishery.
The merchant families from Poole attempting to establish a branch at Little Placentia during the Seven Years' War were from the Quaker house of Kneaves and Company, drawing on Quaker merchants in Waterford for passengers and provisions. The Kneaves as well as the Penney and Boutean were set up at Little Placentia. The Jersey house of Villenueves had an establishment at Jerseyside. LeBlanc succeeded Villenueve there. Mr. Cooke of Poole had an establishment at Paradise. The Irish Quaker Keough was at Merasheen. The Villenueves, Falle, Suppier and Joliffe and Hoopers were at Burin. Spurrier also operated a business at Oderin and Isle of Valen.
Suppier's daughter was married to John Bindy Garland with a dowery of 100,000 pounds. Suppier's wife was known for her gambling and was reported to have lost 20,000 pounds in one game. This may have contributed to the failure of Suppier's business in 1824.
Trade at Placentia peaked after the Seven Years' War, as settlement expanded and the harbour continued to dominate the fishery of the bay. William Saunders of Bideford was hired as Welsh's his principal agent in Placentia and revived links with old ship owning families such as Hoggs and Salmons of North Devon and Placentia.
In 1792, Fitzhenry, Doyle, Power and Company, a Bristol-based firm, made serious inroads into the trade at Placentia. But the firm of Welsh, Saunders and Sweetman with their Poole and Waterford connections thrived for over a century.
The merchant and the fisherman association started early in Newfoundland history and continued
for centuries in Placentia and Placentia Bay.