8 A PEEP AT 



4,500,000 dollars. Of the imports, X 230,000, or 

 1,150,000 dollars worth are from the United States, 

 while the exports to the United States amount to only 

 £20,000, or 100,000 dollars. Nearly the whole of 

 the export produce consists of fish and oil. New- 

 foundland employs upwards of 300 vessels in the seal 

 fishery. The number of seals annually taken is about 

 500,000. Taking into account the fisheries and for- 

 eign and coasting trade, Newfoundland annually em- 

 ploys about 2,500 sail of vessels. St. John's, the 

 capital of the island, contains a population of about 

 22,000. It has been visited by three terrible confla- 

 grations, by which, each time, nearly the whole town 

 was destroyed. The last occurred on the 9th of June, 

 1846, when over 2,000 houses were destroyed, and 

 property to the amount of X 800,000, or 4,000,000 

 dollars, consumed. On the 12th of February, 1816, 

 a most destructive fire desolated a great part of the 

 town of St. John's. When the intelligence of this 

 calamitous event reached the city of Boston, a deep 

 and powerful sympathy was excited among her citizens 

 for the destitution of 1500 human beings, left home- 

 less and penniless amid the frosts and storms of a 

 Newfoundland winter. Burying in oblivion the recol- 

 lection that the year previous the two countries were 



