par En 1769, le gouverneur de Nouvelle-Écosse, Lord William Campbell, fit parvenir des instructions précises à Joseph Woodmass, haut fonctionnaire de l’administration coloniale, pour une mission aux îles Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. Ci-dessous, vous trouverez la lettre d’instruction, et plus bas, le rapport intégral de Joseph Woodmas.
Lord William Campbell to Joseph Woodmas. 17th May, 1769
INSTRUCTIONS TO BE OBSERVED BY MR. WOODMASS REGARDING THE ISLANDS OF ST. PETER AND MIQUELON .
- Ist. The number of Houses and Inhabitants.
- 2nd. The Towns, how situated .
- 3rd. If any Store Houses belonging to the King. What they contain .
- 4th. If any Troops, their Number, & Name of the Corps they belong to.
- 5th. If any works, which are allready fortified or which seem to be layed out for that purpose.
- 6th . The number ofFishing Vessels belonging to each place, their general bulk or burthen and number of Hands each carrys.
- 7th. If any Savages there to be very particular in finding out what Tribe they belong to .
- 8th. If any Canadians or Accadians, to what Districts they belong.
- 9th. What quantity of Fish may be made and remitted to Europe yearly by each place.
- 10th. If any King’s Ships or Frigates, their Names, Rate & Commander’s Names Number of Men, Guns, &c.
- 11th. The Governor’s and all the principall officers of Governments, Names with Whatever other Intelligence or observations which can be thought usefull.
WILLIAM CAMPBELL.
To Joseph Woodmass, Esqr.
Woodmass to Lord William Campbell,
1769, July 9 last, I have been at the Islands of Miquelon and St. Peter and according to the best Information I cou’d get & the Remarks I was able to make the State of those Islands are as follows.
The number of Families on the Isle of Miquelon is from fifty to sixty, the whole of whom went from Nova Scotia and Cape Breton but chiefly from the former .
Their sole business is the Fishery in which they have this year employ’d Fourteen Schooners and Fifty shallops of which Schooners Eight were bu last Winter on a part of the Island called Langley, where I am told they have timber enough for building, for many years to come, altho’ it is not very good and at a great distance from where they live, which makes their Boat Fishery be attended with a great many Inconveniences as the stages on which they salt their Fish are oblig’d to be rebuilt yearly, the sea always washing them away in winter. There are Ten Stages here this year.
There is at Miquelon this year a ship of about 300 Tons from Bayonne, to which sixteen of these Shalloops belong, this is the only large vessel from France there at present, but two others have sailed from thence this Spring loaded with green Fish for Dieppe.
The quantity of dry Fish generally made upon this Island in former years, I am informed, has been about seven or eight thousand Quintals, but they expect that by the addition of Eight new Schooners, they may have twelve thousand Quintals this year.
The Houses here are all built with Spruce Picketts very small, in General covr’d in with boards and shingles which are brought there from New England, from whence there was one schooner which together with her cargo of Boards & Plank had been sold before my arrival, & was then unloading, but the master and crew had got some oppor tunity of going away.
There are no store houses here but what are very small and built with Picketts on Stony Beach as all the Houses are and there is only one French Merchant here who has anything tosell & he was almost without goods of any sort even Provisions which sell at the rate of Five French Crowns p. cwt. for ship bread, and four & a half French Crowns per Hundred Weight for Flour.
West India produce was much dearer here than in any part of the English Colonys I ever heard of. Common Sugar little better than molasses was at 7d p. pound Coffee ls 6d per pound, Rum three shillings and sixpence per Galn .
There was no sort of Cattle here for Killing all I saw was some lean Milch Cows & a few starv’d Ewes and Lambs which they told me came from France for that they never have had any Cattle or Provisions brought from any part of America.
In Miquelon there is a House built for the officer the Second in Command with a small place to contain Fifteen Soldiers ( being the Command allotted for this place) & a Storehouse for their Provisions but there is not any appearance of Fortifications or of any sort of Military Stores here.
There being a great many of the Acadians here whom I personnally knew at Hali fax. I had an opportunity of asking them of their situation .
The general account they gave me was that they went to France to beg protection but were by Order of the French King sent out as the most proper People for these Islands.
That all the encouragements they had was an allowance of Bread for the three first years, but that being no longer allowed they find very difficult to live there, for the dearness of Provisions &c.
Many of these People requested of me to give them a Passport that they might re turn to Nova Scotia again which when I refus’d they declar’d their Intentions of com ing back at the fall of the year at all Events.
As to Any Intercourse they have with the Coasts of this Province I found out that there was two Shallops came from Miquelon to The Isles Madam last October that one of them brought some French Sail Cloth, & Exchang’d for a small vessel : with one of the Acadians living there, and that the other Shallop brought a Hogshead of Rum & sold it there.
I was also told there was a Shallop went from the Coast of Nova Scotia Loaden with Indian Corn, Turnips & Potatoes & that she was cast away and lost in the Harbour of St Peters.
St. Peters Island being the Principal place the governour Mr. Dangeac lives here and has under him two officers and thirty five men when compleat, but this he told me he was not having had seven or eight died last winter.
There is Commissary and his Deputy to take care of the Provisions.
There is a Comptroller of the Commissary’s Accounts, There is a Surgeon and his mate at St Peters and one Surgeon at Miquelon.
There is also a Priest for each Island .
There does not appear to be any sort of Military Stores nor any Artillery except six guns three pounders, which are laid on a high part of the Beach with Skidds under them & the carriages of them laying at a distance near the storehouses yet the guns are laid in such a manner as to command the passage from the road into the Harbour of which I took notice to the Governor, who assur’d me they were only there for Signal guns in Foggy weather & least it should be imagined they were for any other use he would not let them be mounted on the carriages.
There is no Fortifications here nor any appearance of any.
This Harbour of St Peter’s being better anchorage than Miquelon causes most of the Ships from France to come here and of course the principal business is transacted here yet the whole of that as at Miquelon is in the Fishery entirely.
The number of Vessels in this harbour is about Forty Schooners, of which they built six last Winter, on the part of Miquelon called Longley there is besides about Eighty Boats carrying 304 men each these belong cheifly to the Merchant Ships which come here annually from Bayonne, Rochelle & Bourdeaux (tho’ there was none from Bourdeaux this year) & many of the people return to France every year so that there are not so many Families in Winter as in Miquelon .
In this Harbour there is twenty stages this year, for the Convenience of the Boat Fishery, attended with the same Inconvenience as those at Miquelon or rather worse, the woods for building them being much further from them.
The most of the People residing here were formerly from Louisbourg.
As all the vessels from France come to this port so all the goods that are for sale are lodged here, for which reason I visited all the stores in the best of which I found very small Quantitys of goods & those are very coarse ordinary & excessive dear in so much that I dont think there is a possibility of their having any trade with the English Colonys on these Accounts.
The only Article I could suspect for Illicit trade was wine which when I came to enquire after I found there was not a cask of good wine in the place & very little of any sort that there was, was a very small kind of French wine of very little value and Quality.
The principal merchant in this place told me that about four years ago he was obliged to reship for France a great Quantity of all sorts of goods & wine and having been totally disappointed in their views of having an open trade with the English Colonys as when Louisbourg was in their possession . There was two vessels here from the Island of Hispaniola with the produce of the West Indies, the Masters oi which I spoke with about their trade and was confirmed in the prices of their goods being very high, by what I learnt they do not take more than three thousand Quintals of Refuse Fish from this to the West Indies per annum for which they told me they generally pay the high price of 16/ per quintal.
The Houses at St. Peters are much the same as at Miquelon, very small houses with little Difference only that the Houses built for the Governor and the rest of the officers and a few store houses are regular framed houses such as are built here and in New England.
In this Port I found the Master of a New England Vessel & his Crew he told me be had sold his vessell and cargo about two months before & had been ever since that time waiting for a passage, as to any intercourse with this part I cannot discover how it can be carried on by any other but the lumber vessels from New England, and these Mr. Dangeac told me he should be glad to prohibit as they never brought any Bread Flour or other Provisions which they want much more than they do Lumber.
The price of Fish here is generally at 20 Livres per Quintal and I was assured here that there is a Fish goes from hence any where but directly to France, where it bears a better price than it does any where in Spain or Portugal.
The Quantity of Fish made in both Islands have usually amounted to about forty thousand Quintals, and this year they expect to get near Fifty thousand Quintals which makes the whole of the trade of these Islands, which I find is maintained at a consider able expense to the government which not only supports the officers but have also to supply the Inhabitants with bread at a Lower price than they give for it almost all the Winter and thereby sink a great sum of money yearly.
Notwithstanding the French from these Islands have not much intercourse with this province yet in pursuing my voyage having put into all the Harbours near Canso where many of the Acadians live I found most of these people clothed with French Slops which I found on enquiry they had been supply’d with by the Jerseymen who came upon this coast to carry on the Fishery. The Clothing I saw was chiefly woolen Jackets Blankets & are very easily distinguished from the English made goods and as it undoubtedly interferes with the trade of Great Britain I humbly presume to report this to Your Lordship, &c . JAS. WOODMASS. HALIFAX, 9th July , 1769.
