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    Oral testimony is categorical. Among the first Frenchmen to settle on the peninsula many, if not all, had deserted from the French shore fishery .De la Morandière has drawn our attention to the presence of a few deserters in the St. George's area; these would have been quickly absorbed by their Acadian cousins or by the Anglo-Irish settlers. It is curious to note that few informants can say why their ancestors deserted. It is implicitly suggested that the fishermen's living conditions prompted desertion; but the deserters themselves were, it seems, disinclined to say anything at all about their lives before deserting, except among themselves.

    What then were the conditions prompting them to start their lives anew? Firstly, it should be remembered that most of the men involved in the shore fishery were not professionals. They were, to use Paul Sébillot's term, "peasant-sailors" or better, peasant-fishermen, people who, for different reasons, did not earn a good living from the land and sought to add to their means by engaging in the fishery. Without backgrounds in the fishery, they were most often obliged to do the shore work.

    These shore workers were often quite young. The shore fishery required much greater manpower than the Banks fishery, and in the nineteenth century it was attracting fewer and fewer experienced fishermen. 'Boys' and novices were always in demand. The age limit had been set, at the beginning of the century, at sixteen, but there is good reason to believe that 'boys' often began their new careers as young as twelve or thirteen years old. The prestige associated with the seaman or sailor's life, as well as economic needs, prompted numerous young Bretons to engage in an occupation the realities of which they ignored totally.