88 FISHERIES OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 



other game, and used turf instead of wood for fuel. He 

 described the men of still another nation, which, like the 

 others, he claimed to be very numerous, as having only half 

 a body, one arm, and one leg, while the women, on the 

 other hand, were perfectly formed. With this tribe was a 

 man who had been a long time married and the statement 

 was apparently unaccompanied with any apology for the 

 slur thus cast upon all the other members of the tribe. The 

 married man was also described as knowing how to write, 

 but when the prisoner was asked whether he was a member 

 of the tribe, he replied in the negative, saying that he was a 

 savage; which left Brouague to understand that this was 

 the name which they, in their turn, gave to Europeans. 



Brouague did his best to open negotiations with the 

 Red Indians of Newfoundland, the ancient Beothic tribe, 

 whose subsequent extinction is such a pathetic reflection 

 upon the European civilization of the 17th and 18th cen- 

 turies. The Commandant of the coast sent some of his men, 

 both Frenchmen and Indians to winter on the coast of 

 Newfoundland, because of the insufficiency of subsistence 

 furnished by the hunt of the autumn of 1718, and charged 

 them to enter into negotiations with the Beothics. They 

 failed to meet with them, however, though they reported 

 to have heard that they were very numerous. 



A BAD SEASON. 



The fishing of the Labrador coast proved a partial 

 failure in 1719. Twenty-seven vessels from France caught 

 and dried codfish that season on the Labrador coast, and 

 the largest of them only cured 2,000 quintals of dried fish. 



The Spring was so late, to start with, that eight or ten 

 fishing vessels which arrived off the coast on the 16th May, 

 were forced, after spending four or five days in the ice, 

 to withdraw to Newfoundland, where they were compelled 

 to remain until the commencement of June for the ice to 

 disappear. 



The fishermen had varied experiences that year with 



