Such broad divisions into eras of shipbuilding are, of course, only to be taken as marking world-wide nautical advances in the largest possible sense. One epoch often overlaps another and begins or ends at different times in different countries. A strangely interesting survival of an earlier age is still to be seen along the Labrador, in the little Welsh and Devonshire brigs, brigantines, and topsail schooners which freight fish east away to Europe. These vessels make an annual round: in March to Spain for salt; by June along the Labrador; in September to the Mediterranean with their fish; and in December home again for Christmas. They are excellently handled wherever they go; and no wonder, as every man aboard of them is a sailor born and bred. [1] The nautical history of New France is all parts and no whole; brilliant ideas and thwarted execution; government stimulus and government repression; deeds of daring by adventurers afloat and deeds of various kinds by officials ashore: everything unstable and changeable; nothing continuous and strong. It cannot, therefore, make a coherent narrative, only a collection of half-told tales. [2] See in this Series _The Great Intendant_, chapters iv and ix. [3] For the narrative of the Hudson's Bay Company the reader is referred to _The Adventurers of England on Hudson Bay_, in this Series. {68} CHAPTER V SAILING CRAFT: UNDER THE UNION JACK When Canada finally became a British possession in 1763 she was, of course, subject to the navigation laws, or the Navigation Act, as this conglomeration of enactments was usually called. The avowed object of these laws was to gain and keep the British command of the sea. They aimed at this by trying to have British trade done in British ships, British ships manned by British crews, and British crews always available if wanted for British men-of-war. The first law was enacted under the Commonwealth in 1651. The whole series was repealed under Victoria in 1849. Exceptions were often made, especially in time of war; and there was some opposition to reckon with at all times. But, generally speaking, and quite apart from the question of whether they were wise or not, the British government invariably looked upon these navigation laws as a cardinal point of policy down to the close {69} of the wars with the French Empire and the American Republic in 1815.