FISHERIES OP THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 51 



fishery for both Salmon and Whales at the entrance of the 

 St. Lawrence, and had even given orders to the Commissioner 

 of Marine at Bayonne to send him a number of harpooners 

 and other Basque Sailors to teach the methods of the whale 

 fishery to the people of the country. 1 



The orders given by the King for sending out trained 

 fishermen to Riverin were promptly obeyed, but the latter 

 was already crippled in resources, as shown by an anony- 

 mous memoir on New France, dated at Versailles on the 

 4th May, 1690, prepared for the information of the Marquis 

 de Seignelay, and emanating from a friend of Denis Riverin, 

 or at least from a 

 strong sympathizer 

 with his project, and 

 with the development 

 of the rich fisheries 

 of New France. 



"All the coasts of 

 the King's lands are 

 so rich in fish," says 

 the author of the 



memoir in question, ^he Marquis de Seignelay' s Autograph. 

 "that it is much to 



be desired that nobody but the King's servants should fish 

 there, and that His Majesty should be powerful enough in 

 those waters to drive foreigners from the fishery on the Grand 

 Banks. At all events we ought to keep them away from the 

 fisheries of the King's coasts. 



"The Spaniards go every year to the coast of Labrador 

 from the Straits of Belle Isle, and the Bostonnais do more 

 business than we do. 



"Up to the present, all the inhabitants of 

 Acadia as well as those of Canada, have thought more of 

 the beaver trade and of the sale of brandy than of establish- 

 ing the fisheries, which offer, however, the surest and most 



i Collection de Manuscrits relatifs a la Nouvelle- 



France Quebec, 1883. Vol. I., p. 452. 



