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NOTES TO BOOK III.

NOTE A, page 182,

“ AMONG all the settlements with which the Europeans have co- vered the New World, there is none of the nature of Newfoundland. The others have generally been the destruction of the first colonists

they have received, and of a great number of their successors: this ‘ climate, of itself, hath not destroyed one single person; it hath even i'

restored strength to some of those whose health had been affected by less wholesome climates. The other colonies have exhibited a. series of injustice, oppression, and carnage, which will for ever be holden in detestation. Newfoundland alone hath not offended against humanity, nor injured the rights of any other peoplefi" The other settlements have yielded productions, only by receiving an equal value in exchange. Newfoundland alone hath drawn from the depths of the waters riches formed by nature alone; and which furnish subsistence to several countries of both hemispheres.

“ How much time hath elapsed before this parallel hath been made 1 Of what importance did fish appear, when compared to the money which men went in search of in the New World! It was long before it was understood, if even it be yet understood, that the representation of the thing is not of greater value than the thing itself; and that a ship filled with cod, and a galleon, are ves- sels equally laden with gold. There is even this remarkable difl'er- ence, that mines can be exhausted, and the fisheries never arexl-

Gold is not reproduced, but the fish are so incessantly.”——Raynal, vol. v. p. 296.

* The sufferings of the Red Indians form an exception which the Abbé was unacquainted with.

1- An able naturalist, who is said to have had the patience to count the eggs contained in the roe of a single cod, found the number to be 9,344,000.

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