Ch.VII. south AMERICA. 375 



fair. In winter, however, this harbour is totally im- 

 pra6ticable, being entirely frozen fo as to be walked 

 over that feafon begins here at the end of Novem- 

 ber, and lafts till May or June ; fometimes the frofts 

 fets in fooner, and arc more intenfe, as in the year 

 1745 ; when, by the middle of October, a great part 

 of the harbour was already frozen. 



The inhabitants of Louifbourg, which at that time 

 was the only town in the ifland, confided of French 

 families, fome Europeans and others Creoles, of the 

 place itfelf, and from Placentia in the ifland of New- 

 foundland, from whence they removed hither on the 

 ceding of that ifland to the crown of Great-Britain. 

 Their principal if not only trade is the cod-fifliery, 

 from which alfo large profits accrued to them, not 

 only on account of the abundance of this fifli, but 

 that the neighbouring fea affbrds the befl: of any 

 about Newfoundland. The wealth of the inhabitants 

 confifl:ed in their ftorehoufes, fome of which were 

 within the fort, and others fcattered along the fliore, 

 and in their number of fifliing barks and of thefe 

 more than one inhabitant maintained forty or fifty, 

 which daily went on this fifliery, carrying three or 

 four men each, who received a fettled falary, but 

 were at the fame time obliged to deliver a certain 

 number of fl:andard fifli fo that the cod llorehoufes 

 never failed of being filled againft the time the fliips 

 reforted hither from mofl: of the ports of France, 

 laden with provifiops and other goods, with which 

 the inhabitants provided themfelves in exchange for 

 this fiOi or configned it to be fold in France on 

 their own account ; likewife vefiels from the French 

 colonies of St. Domingo and Martinico, brought 

 fugar, tobacco, cofi^ee, rum, &c. and returned load- 

 ed with cod •, and any fi^irplus, after LouiflDourg 

 was fupplied found a vent in Canada, where the return 

 was made in beaver flvins. and other kinds of fine furs. 

 Thus Louifl:)ourg, with no other fund than the fifliery, 



B b 4 carried 



