138 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



increased; and the 12,000 inhabitants of 1764-74 swelled to 

 17,000 in 1792, 20,000 in 1804, and 52, ooo in 1822, without 

 any corresponding increase on the part of those who ap- 

 peared every spring and faded away every autumn, like leaves 

 or flowers. 



and fame New sources of supply were tapped and home ports took 

 from more more part or more home ports took part in the life of the 



Of front 



largcrhomc colony. Not but what there were drawbacks. Reeves wrote 

 Ports, j n I/79 g t k at , Bjdeford and Barnstaple were once great towns 

 and have long ceased to employ any ship ' in this trade 1 ; 

 and it was the same with Gweek, St. Loo, Mevagissey, Fowey, 

 and Topsham, which used to contribute their tiny quota to 

 the fishing-fleet, and now contributed no more. Reeves 

 suggests that Dartmouth rose out of the ruins of the smaller 

 ports ; adding that whether this was so or not, ' Dartmouth 

 and Poole were now the two great towns in this trade'. 1 

 The Poole merchants, who had long since led the van, now 

 occupied Twillingate in force, and had been preceded or 

 accompanied by salmon-fishers as well as sea-fishers in their 

 northern migrations. Jerseymen and Guernseymen were 

 busier than ever in parts which had been French, not only 

 fishing, but settling, trading, and smuggling French brandy 

 and cordage. 2 The lesser lights went out, but the larger 

 lights burned more brightly and steadily; large progressive 

 towns took the place of small villages, and Newfoundland 

 was ' thrown much more open than it used to be, . . . instead 

 of being confined to the West country merchants and to those 

 e.g. Liver- of Poole and some few other towns '. 1 London and Liver- 



pool, Cork, p 00 i now en t er ed the lists; and in 1763 Cork, Waterford, 

 Glasgow, r 



Belfast, and Glasgow, as well as the south-western towns of 



England, advised the Privy Council on the affairs of New- 

 foundland. The places of origin were no longer ' solidaire ' 



1 J. Reeves, Evidence, pp. 42, 83, 84. 



2 Captain Griffith Williams, Account of the Island of Newfoundland, 

 1765. 



