400 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



bered on the north and south arms of Gaspé Bay, the amount on 

 each being sufficient for the sustenance of forty or fifty families. 

 He also found an equal quantity on the River St. John, which empties 

 into the bay, a locality which he described as a very pleasant place 

 for about forty inhabitants, who would find the river abounding with 

 salmon and the bay well supplied with codfish, eels, lobsters and other 

 fish. Point St. Peter he recommended as a site for a fishery, but re- 

 marked that the soil there was not fit for cultivation, while Point 

 Percé possessed the advantage in this respect, affording two hundred 

 acres of good level land fronting on the sea. Here there was room 

 for a town of about a hundred houses, with space sufficient for fishing 

 grounds, gardens, and other conveniences. 



On June 16 Sherwood and O'Hara arrived at Pabos, where they 

 noted the fine harbor with its narrow entrance "somewhat difficult 

 for large vessels," and they noted also the fertility of the soil. The 

 neighboring rivers were discovered to be stocked with trout and 

 salmon and the mountains covered with timber in abundance. The 

 prime value of the place lay, however, Sherwood judged, in its fine 

 situation for a fishery. Next to Pabos,' Paspebiac was recommended 

 for its advantages for fishing and trade and for its soil which, the 

 prospector declared, was the best he had seen in the gulf. The 

 visitors found Bonaventure, with its fine harbor and wide extent of 

 level country, already thickly populated ; they formed a good opinion 

 of the region on the Cascapedia River where the town of New Rich- 

 mond was soon to spring up, and also of the land on the Grande 

 Nouvelle. Sherwood praised the climate of Chaleurs Bay, and 

 estimated that 1,500 families might immediately settle at the various 

 places visited, namely, Pabos, Paspebiac, Bonaventure, Cascapedia, 

 and Nouvelle, while at least two hundred more might be advan- 

 tageously settled from Percé to Gaspé. He suggested that intending 

 colonists should be supplied with stock, farming tools, and other 

 things necessary; but he protested against the practices of a few 

 designing traders, who kept the inhabitants in debt. 



The last stage of the Captain's journey of inspection took him 

 to the River Miramichi to the south of the Bay of Chaleurs. He 

 entered this river on July 1, and described it as a fine stream abounding 

 in various kinds of fish and navigable for vessels of a hundred tons 

 up to its fork, above which there was good land sufficient for 500 

 families. By July 14 Captain Sherwood and his companion were 

 back at Gaspé. Thence he departed with his family for Quebec 

 on the 20th, arriving at the latter place on August 12th. His report 

 to Haldimand was written less than a fortnight afterward. 1 

 1 Haldimand Papers, B. 169, pp. 5, ff. 



