73 



eighty barrels of fat mackerel, after being abseiit only one week. The 

 fish were taken, however, in two days, the weather interfering with 

 operations during the remaining part of the time. 



The exports of Prince Edward Island are not large, and often merely' 

 nominal ; the catch of the various kinds of fish hardly exceeding the 

 demand for domestic consumption.* 



^ During the season for fishing our vessels frequent the coasts in fleets ; 

 and as many as six or seven hundred have been- seen in the vicinity of 

 the island in a single year. 



Captain Fair, of the royal navy, in command of her Majesty's 

 ship the Champion, who was upon the station in 1839, passed the 

 number here stated, and bears honorable testimony to their good con- 

 duct. 



The feelings of the inhabitants towards our countrymen may be 

 ascertained irom the following resolution, which is understood to have 

 passed the House of Assembly unanimously during the session of 1852 : 



"Resolved, That a committee be appointed tp prepare an address to 

 her Majesty the Queen, praying that she will cause to be removed the 

 restrictions of the treaty of 1818, prohibiting Anierican citizens from 

 fishing within certain prescribed limits on the shores of the island ; 

 provided the American government admit articles the growth or pro- 

 duction of this island into the United States duty free, in accordance 

 with the act 12 Vic, cap. 3, including fish ; also, vessels built on this 

 island to American registry; and that the legislative council be re- 

 quested to join in the said address." 



FISHERIES OF THE MAGDALENE ISLA^IDS. 



The Magdalene Islands fisheries are of con§equence. These islands, 

 seven in number, are in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and about forty 

 miles northwesterly of Cape Breton. They originally belonged to the 

 French, and were first granted, I suppose, in 1663, to the Sieur Dou- 

 blett and his associates, as a fishing station, under the feudal tenure, as 

 a fief of the royal company of Miscou. After they became possessions 

 of the British crown they were granted to Richard Gridley, of Massa- 

 chusetts, who served under Pepperell at the siege of LoiiisboUrg, who, 

 in 1775, laid out the- works on Bunker's Hill, and who was retained by 

 Washington as chief of the engineer department of the continental 

 army.t 



The Magdalene islands are thinly inhabited, at the present time, by 

 fishermen, many of whom are the lineal descendants of the Acadians', 

 who made the first permanent settlement in North America, under De 

 Monts, the original French grantee of Acadia, or Nova Scotia^ The 



* The value of the products of the sea exported in 1851, was only $38,776; while of the sin 

 gle agricultural article of potatoes, the value was $47,568. 



t Whether Colonel (Jri^ey. retained the ownership of these islands until the Revolution, and 

 lost them in consequence of the part he took in that event, is unlinowu to me. But the Mag- 

 dalenes were a second time granted by the British crown. The last grantee was the late 

 Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, who, at his decease, is understood to have bequeathed them to 

 Captain John Townsend Coffin, of the royal navy, to be held by him and h's. heirs male, in 

 strict entail. Captain Coffin leased these islands for the term of his life, it is believed, in the 

 spring Of 1853, to Benjamin Wier, of Halifax, and John Foutana, a resident at the Magdalenes. 



