472 A. D. 1767. 



befides the value of the fi(h oil, train oil, whale-bone, mackerels, and 

 herrings, got on this coaft, all of which were confiderable. It is more- 

 over a great objed; to a maritime power to have fo many feamen bred 

 up in an employment, which fo eminently qualifies them for encounter- 

 ing the hardOiips of a feafaring life. 



He fays, that there were only 1 1 decked veflels, and 68 flialops, em- 

 ployed in the fifhery, when he made his furvey : but the coaft, eftimat- 

 ing it by the extent of beach fit for curing the fifli, might ajflford em- 

 ployment for 820 decked vefl!els, and 2250 flialops, which would require 

 above 20,000 men to man them ; and the filh caught by them, together 

 with the oil made from thofe fifti, would find employment for 653 fize- 

 able veflels to carry them to markets. 



Befides the important cod fifliery. Cape Breton is excellently fituated 

 •for carrying on a fifhery for whales, which abound near its fliores, and 

 for falmon, mackerels, herrings, &c. 



The inland part of the country abounds with beavers and other ani- 

 mals with valuable furs. It alfo produces plafter of the beft fort, 

 marble, lime-fl;one, free-ft one for building, and timber for building; 

 alfo coals, of which between two and three thoufand chaldrons were dug 

 this year by a company, who had contraded to pay government 2000 

 dollars for permiifion to work them. 



Commodore Pallifer, governor of Newfoundland, in his report upon 

 the fifhery this year, obferved, that the number of veilels employed 

 therein had annually increafed of late, and the number of men returning 

 to Britain and Ireland had alfo been fully double of what it ever was 

 for iixty years paft, though ftill not equal in proportion to the number 

 of men returning annually to France from the limited fifhery allowed 

 to that country. He reflecled feverely on the avaritious and cruel cuf- 

 tom, longpraftifed by the commanders offifliing fhips, of leaving many 

 of their fifhermen on the defolate coaft of Newfoundland when the fifh- 

 ing feafon is over, whereby their families are left deftitute at home, and 

 themfelves forced into a life of idlenefs and rapine, and obliged to fell 

 themfelvcs to the colonies, or piratically run off with vefTels, which they 

 carry to the continent of America. By thefe nefiirious pradices the 

 Newfoundland fifhery, which is fuppofed to be one of the moft valuable 

 nurferies of feamen for the navy, has long been an annual drain, which 

 has carried off thoufands of the ftouteft and moft valuable feamen to the 

 rival (rather than fubjcci) fifhing colonies in America *. 



His accounts of the fiftiery on the coaft of Labrador, which he had 

 Yifited this feafon, ftate, that twenty-feven Britifli fiflilng veflels were 

 there this year ; and that thofe, who formerly objeded to the eftablifii- 



• In a ftatemeiit of the Mimbcr of Britifli fliips rica in 1764 at 1,500, in 176531 1,000, and in 

 and men, employed at Newfoundland during tlie 1766 and 1767 at 200 each year, 

 laft four years, he cftimates the men run to .4me- 



