ON CAPE BEETON. 201 



amount was also paid for iu cash or by bills of exchange on France. West Indian goods 

 were largely sold to New England vessels for specie or in exchange for a small class of 

 schooners (goélettes) which Cape Breton fishermen and traders found well adapted to 

 their coasts and business. The value of these vessels in 1*753 was 284,230 livres. The 

 value of the codfish exported from the colony in 1T53 appears alone in the official returns 

 of exports, and does not represent the value of the total annual catch which, according to 

 the figures given above, was only 90,000 livres below the value of the total importations, 

 which, as already conjectured, included goods paid for by the government in France and 

 representing no obligations on the part of traders. In all probability the merchants as a 

 rule carried on a lucrative business in times of peace. It was only the lishermen who 

 suffered and were left in a stale of dependence on account of the high prices they had to 

 pay for their outfit and provisions. 



The people of Louisbourg largely depended on the French Acadian settlements at 

 Bay Verte, and on the island of St. John eventually, for supplies of meat and vegetables. 

 Only at Port Toulouse, Mira and a few other places was there ever any attempt at culti- 

 vation of the soil.' Some years, however, before Cape Breton passed into the possession 

 of England by the treaty of 1*762, the French were beginning to learn that the island was 

 not the bleak, inhospitable tract it was at firs*, believed to be, but had fine agricultural capa- 

 bilities. The farms and gardens, however, were very few in number during the French 

 rule, and the principal occupation of the people was the fishery of cod. Around Louis- 

 bourg the soil and climate forbid any extensive cultivation, and even now the grass only 

 grows in luxuriance above the ruins of the old town. Many of the fishermen, from all 

 accounts, seem to have eked but a poor livelihood from the fisheries themselves. It was 

 then, as in later times of the history of the Cape Breton fisheries, a battle for existence 

 between the fisherman and the trader who supplied him in advance with the means of 

 carrying on his industry. The prices charged for supplies to this class of toilers were 

 always enormous, and as a consequence they were never out of debt. Very many of 

 these fishermen were brought out from France, on certain conditions, for a fixed number 

 of years, and were on that account called " engagés." It was found necessary for the 

 government to encourage the employment of these men, as the French were very reluct- 

 ant to leave their old homes iu France, and seek a livelihood in the island. The fisher- 

 men of Bretagne and Normandie have for centuries risked their lives on the coasts of 

 Cape Breton and Newfoundland, but they have always returned to France in the fall 

 when their work is completed. The French system of colonization was never calculated 

 to build up a great colony in the days when Canada and Cape Breton were French 

 dependencies.- But under no circumstances was there ever the same readiness on the 



1 See Brown, " Hist, of C. B.," 222. 



^ " The fir-ît thing which strilies one on reading tlie correspondence of tlie governors and officials at lie Royale 

 is the neglect invariably manifestel by France towards tho new colony, from its foundation in 1713 down to the 

 fall of Louisbourg in 1758. Then the indolence of the settlers is another point which soon becomes evident. In 

 place of seeking their support from the soil, we find the people trying to live almost wholly by fishing, while the 

 upper class strove to live at the lying's expense. Fishing, with its prompt profits and easy returns— at that period 

 particularly,— first attracted the attention and absorbed all the energies of the first settlers on the island ; for we 

 find M. de St. Ovide de Brouillan, the governor, complaining to the minister as early as 1717 that tho inliabitants 

 paid but little attention to the cultivation of the soil. This improvidence increased with the lapse of time, and later 

 on we find the autliorities at Louisbourg making constant appeals to the court of France and to tho intendants of 

 Canada for help and grain at times when the latter colony was itself iu the throes of famine, resulting from suc- 

 cessive bad harvests." M. Marmette in " Can. Archives," 1S88, cxxxvii. 



Sec. 11, 1891. 26. 



