18 FISHERIES OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 



another name for what is now Old Fort Bay, 1 a mile and a 

 half to the west of the mouth of the Esquimaux river. 



A little book published in Lyons in 1608 2 describes 

 Brest as "the principal town of the whole country, well pro- 

 visioned, large and strongly fortified, peopled by about fifty 

 thousand men and furnished with all that is necessary to 

 enrich a good-sized town." 



When it is remembered that this letter was written in 

 the year in which Champlain founded Quebec, it will be seen 

 immediately that it is a fairy tale of the wildest sort. 



Mr. Samuel Robertson, who lived on the Labrador coast 

 fn the first half of the nineteenth century, gave a graphic 

 imaginary picture of Brest in its palmy days. ' * I estimate, ' ' 

 he said, "that at one time it contained two hundred houses, 

 besides stores, etc., and perhaps 1,000 inhabitants in the win- 

 ter which would be trebled in the summer. Brest was at the 

 height of its prosperity about the year 1600, and some thirty 

 years later the entire tribe of the Eskimos was totally ex- 

 tirpated or expelled from that region. After this the town 

 began to decay, and towards the close of the century the name 

 was changed to Bradore. ' ' 3 



The concluding sentence of the above indicates that Mr. 



1 "Port Brest (Breton), now Bale du Vieux Fort" Hiram B. 

 Stephens in "Jacques-Cartier, an essay" (p. 135). 



l ll est Men sur que sur la bale de Saint Paul se trouvent des- 

 ruines qui ont conserve le nom de Vieux Fort. Le meme nom est 

 donne a ce lieu dans les cartes attachees a rhistoire du Canada par 

 Charlevoix."A\)\)e Ferland, in a report to Mgr. the Bishop of Tloa 

 on the Mission du Labrador, in the Rapport sur les Missions du 

 Diocese de Quebec (No. 13, 1859, p. 79). 



2 Coppie d'une lettre envoy ee de la Nouvelle- France, ov 

 Canada, par le Sieur de Cobes, Gentilhomme Poiteuin. a vn fien 

 amy. En lequelle font brievement descrites les merveilles et 

 richeffes du pays, enfemble la fa^on & moeurs de ceux qui Thabitent. 

 la gloire des Francois et Temperance qu'il y a de rendre I'Amcrique 

 Chrestienne.A. Lyon, par Leon Savine M.D.C. IX. Avec Permiffion 

 des Superieurs. There is a copy of this book in the Lennox Library, 

 New York. 



3 Notes on the Coast of Labrador. A paper by Samuel Robert- 

 son, of Spar Point, read for him by Dr. Morrin in 1841, before the 

 Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. Transactions of the 

 Society, Vol. IV, pp. 32-34. 



