FISHERIES OP THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 11 



for years the manager of the Fruing Co., has estimated for me 

 that the number of fish taken at his stations amounts to an 

 average catch of three to four millions, and if this is a fair 

 figure, certainly the entire Gaspe coast must afford from 

 twenty to thirty millions of cod every year. The wonder is 

 that after these nearly three hundred years of fishing there 

 is a cod left in all the Gulf. Perhaps no one could find a more 

 effective illustration of the profluence of that alma mater of 

 all life the sea." 



WALRUS FISHING AT MAGDALEN ISLANDS. 



Captain Crofton, in his Report of the Fisheries in 1798 1 

 gives some interesting details of fishing on the Magdalen Is- 

 lands. Prior to the war with America, the fishing rights had 

 been leased to Colonel Richard Gridley, of Massachusetts 

 a fact which is also noted by Sir Joseph Banks in 1766. Dur- 

 ing the war, Gridley played an important part in the 

 American Army, laying out the works at Bunker Hill, and 

 afterwards becoming the head of the Engineers' Department 

 under Washington. Lorenzo Sabine says he had not been 

 able to learn whether Colonel Gridley retained his grant of 

 the Magdalens after the war. Captain Crofton, however, re- 

 ports : 



"That the only British fishery on the Islands is carried 

 on by Mr. John Janvrin, of Jersey, who has but one boat 

 and three men. He bought a house, etc., from Mr. Gridley, 

 of Boston, who had been resident here many years before and 

 since the last war. Mr. Gridley carried on the Sea Cow 

 fishery, and was then in partnership with Mr. Read, of Bristol, 

 but by what authority he established himself here since the 

 war I cannot learn, as he received all his stores and pro- 

 visions from Boston, in New England, and sent the produce 

 of the Islands thither in return. I was much surprised at 

 finding a British merchant's establishment here, on so small 

 a scale, but am informed that the Island has been so much re- 



Quoted by Gosling in his History of Labrador. 



