1764 – Of the Newfoundland Fishery, and the Cession of Miquelon and St. Peter’s.

THIS fishery is allowed to be the greatest nursery for seamen we have, not left than 86,000 men and boys being constantly employed in that branch of commerce, which is almost double the number employed in the coal trade. The fish also taken out of the sea are clear profit, the labour and materials, for catching them, bring all of our own mother country ; loch as hooks, lines, boots, barrels, nets, all manner of coarse clothing for the fishermen, provisions from Ireland, sugar, rum, molasses from the West Indies, &c. and not one article from any foreign country is made use of in this noble and beneficial traffick, excepting salt from Lisbon.

Now I come to show you what the fatal consequence is of giving up to the French any part of this invaluable fishery by the present peace : It is well known that they had no right to it but by the imprudent leave given them to fend three or four ships to the banks of Newfoundland, to supply an English convent with codfish, mudfish ; that it, fish salted down in tire ship’s hold, not carried on shore to dry, and which when so dried is termed by the Spaniards Bacalao. This is what is carried to Spain, Portugal, and Italy, and for which we receive good used gold ; but the French having found out the sweets of this grand and noble fishery, they got permission by the infamous treaty of Utrecht, to tend ships as above mentioned, and to dry and cure their fish on shore in the west parts of Newfoundland : Thus they have brought that trade to be one of the most valuable articles they have, and I will make bold to say, that this branch alone has enabled them to bring out those fleets they have. According to the nearest  calculation I can make, they annually employ in it, men and boys, to the number of 30,000 persons; by means of these they under sell us at all the Italian markets, and the time will come, when our eyes will be open to the fatal cessions made them in the islands of St. Peter and Miquelon, &c. For the island of Cape-Breton, the principal harbour in that is Louisbourg, where I have been, and traded with the French for thousands; I did it because almost all the merchants of North America did the same. I think it was in the year 1754, when I watt there, and I reckoned 37 English vessels then loaded there. This trade I will explain as near as possible, that my readers may be their own judges. The people of North-America, like people of other parts of the world, love to get money, no matter how :  They load their new vessels with lumber, staves, hoops, beef, pork, butler, live flock of all kinds, and carry them to Louisbourg, where they sell ship and cargo to the French. In return for these useful articles which they load their ships with, and send to the West-Indies, they pay us in a sort of red wine, by them called claret, which sells at four or five pounds a hogshead ; in molasses, sugar, rum, sweet meats, preferred fruit, linnens, Cambricks, silks, and various other sorts of trinkets, all of French work, and impossible for me to enumerate. But there are the kind of goods they pay our North America people in, who carry them home, and smuggle them into creeks and small harbours.

Now that the Islands of and Sr. Peter will be converted to the fame use and advantage to the French as Louisbourg, is a fact which I think we may look upon as certain, though with this great advantage, that whereas Louisbourg is a barren island and very rocky, Miquelon is a noble and fertile spot, and absolutely the best piece of ground belonging to Newfoundland. I have eat as good butter, made by captain Clives there, who had a large farm on the island, as I ever did in England ; and there are as fine oxen, sheep, etc. The situation also of Miquelon and St. Peter, are such as will explain the great advantages of these islands have over Louisbourg, and show that instead of the French being loser by the exchange, they are great gainers : For first, the fertility of being placed against the barren rocky island of Louisbourg, renders the latter as nothing. Next, the nearness of to the shore of Newfoundland, Is another great advantage. Then being so much, nearer the noble fishing banks of Quero, Vert, and several others, on which all the New England fishing schooners catch most of their fish ; and where they are obliged to come 160 leagues from home, in order to load their vessels, is a further addition to it. For in the height of summer, when the ships are detained to their return by contrary winds, the fish will often rot and spoil before they can get home ; whereas the French will have nothing of this kind to do, but may go out one day, and return back again the next. What fine advantages smuggling will derive from it, I leave my readers to judge.

How easy then is it to see through the artifice and cunning of the French in than getting permission to fish in the gulf of St. Laurence, within three leagues of the shore. This is a high stroke, not only as there are more fish on the banks of Quero, Vert, &c. than in other parts, but likewise as this contiguity will furnish them with frequent opportunities to traffick and tamper with the French inhabitants in the bay of St Laurence, as well as with the Indians all along that shore and the Labrador coast, who, we shall fee, will be supplied with all manner of French goods and merchandise, under the cloak of fishing. And, how very easy this is to be accomplished, any one may judge, when he considers what a number of vessels it will require to guard a coast of 100 leagues and more. The expence of keeping guard coast as sufficient for this purpose, would amount to more than the whole trade of Canada is worth.

As the French were so very cautious of letting an Englishman go up the river St. Laurence I never was up there, and of course never could come at the true knowledge of the number of shipping they employed in the Canada trade, but I have been informed that it was no more than 5 or 6 a year. The advantage to be reaped from the cargoes of five or fix ships of a 2 or 300 tons, annually, everybody knows must be but trifling in itself. So that we are in fact, most certainly, rather losers than gainers by the change we have made, saring the protection our colonies derive from having no enemies at their backs.