INTRODUCTION 31 



dred and fifty settlers. In 1848 the bishop of Newfound- 

 land visited Labrador. "No bishop or clergyman of our 

 Church/' he said, "has ever been along this coast before, 

 and yet the inhabitants are almost all professed members 

 of our Church and of English descent." The good man 

 found plenty of work to do. He consecrated several 

 graveyards. At one settlement "great numbers were 

 married, and both here and elsewhere an offering [of four 

 dollars] was very cheerfully paid." At Battle Harbour 

 fifty-seven children were admitted into the Church. 



The statement is made in some of the books that when 

 the Acadians were driven from their homes in 1753, a 

 number of them took refuge on the Labrador coast, and 

 erected a fort at Chateau Bay. For this statement there 

 is no authority whatever. The only invasion of the shores 

 of Labrador by Acadians took place in the years 1857-1861. 

 During these years a number of Acadians came from the 

 Magdalen Islands, whither their ancestors had fled a cen- 

 tury before. Some of them, braving the threats of seig- 

 neurs, settled at Pointe Saint-Paul, not far from the ancient 

 harbour of "Brest," and others squatted near Natishquan, 

 ninety miles east of Mingan. In all, they numbered 

 about eighty families. Their children still live on the 

 Cdte du Nord, scarcely distinguishable from the French 

 Canadians about them. 



Something must be said about the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany. It is probable that until 1870 the Hudson's Bay 

 Company was at law the proprietor of a large part of the 

 Labrador peninsula. Under their charter they claimed 



