Notes: The category seaman relates to sailors in the migratory ship fishery who sailed large fishing vessels (between the West of England and Newfoundland) that carried fishing servants and small inshore fishing boats for the Newfoundland fishery. All other job categories in this table relate to fishing servants (for both the migratory and the sedentary sectors of the fishery), who either fished from small inshore boats or worked processing fish on shore. The categories of reporting are not consistent from year to year. For some years (e.g., 1798 and 1802), they are quite general. More-detailed categories are available for later years, but they are not necessarily consistent from year to year or even from district to district within a given year. Fishing servants' wages were generally paid for a season that ran from May 1 to October 20 (with slight variations—e.g., from mid-May to the end of October).

Sources: CO 194, Governors' Annual Returns, Additional Information, and Observations on Instructions: 1798, vol. 40, fols. 135-37; 1802, vol. 43, fol. 122; 1810, vol. 49, fols. 120-22, Schedule E; 1815, vol. 57, fol. 12; 1818, vol. 61, fol. 158; 1820, vol. 64, fol. 24; 1822, vol. 65, fol. 121; and 1825, vol. 70, fol. 227. Also see PANL, GN 2/1/A, 1803, vol. 17, p. 62. Blank spaces indicate that the data were not available or not entered. Note that a fairly thorough itemization of wages was being recorded by the governor by 1810 and broken down by district by 1815. These reports were discontinued altogether in the late 1820s.