236 BRITISH AMERICA.

complaints were made by the English, who had es- tablished a very extensive and profitable fishing at Canso, in Nova Scotia, against the French, who an— noyed them, by every means in the power of those who commanded the fortress at Louisburg and other places in the neighbourhood.

About this period, the inhabitants of New Eng- land had about 1200 tons of shipping employed in the whale fishery; and with their vessels engaged in the cod fishery, they caught upwards of 23,000 quintals of fish, valued at twelve shillings per quin- tal, which they exported to Spain, and different ports Within the Mediterranean, and remitted in payment for English manufactures, L.172,000.*

Notwithstanding the value of the fishery carried on by the people of New England, and the import- ant ship fishery carried on by the English at New- foundland, both together were of far less magnitude than the fisheries followed by the French before the conquest of Cape Breton. By these fisheries alone, the navy of France became formidable to all Europe. In 1745, when Louisburg was taken by the forces sent from New England under Sir William Pep- perell and the British squadron, the value of one year’s fishing in the North American seas, and which depended on France possessing Cape Breton, was stated at L.982,000.]L In 1748, however, at the treaty of peace, England was obliged to restore

* Anderson on Commerce. -|- Sir William Pepperell’s Journal.