The FisJicry Question. 21 



Massachusetts were in the service. Wolfe 

 sailed for Quebec the following year and 

 added Canada to the roll of English posses- 

 sions/° France, previous to the war, had suc- 

 ceeded in drawing a line of forts around the 

 English on the seaboard. Her system had 

 been thoroughly feudal. The more active 

 among her American subjects had, in conse- 

 quence, become " Coureurs de bois," or had 

 drifted among the English. Canada might 

 long have remained a military government, 

 supported systematically from France. The 

 Court, however, was thoroughly European in 

 its aims, and the province, assisted at caprice, 

 was abandoned in extremity. Out of this 

 wreck the French succeeded in saving the use 

 of the Newfoundland coast from Bona Vista 

 around by the north to Cape Riche, beside 

 the little islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, 

 the latter under restrictions that rendered it 

 impossible to use them for anything more 

 than a shelter. The three-league limit was 

 enforced, expanding to fifteen leagues off the 

 coasts of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton.'*^ 

 Mr. Pitt, supported by the London merchants 

 and the colonists, had favored the total ex- 

 clusion of the French from the Fisheries. 



