332 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

CHAPTER IV.

Trade, 8w.

WHEN this island was possessed by the French, the population being unimportant, little trade was carried on by the inhabitants; and the government, aware that its superior natural advantages would drain off most of the settlers at and near Louisburg, discouraged its fisheries, by not allowing them to be carried on except in one or two harbours. The inha- bitants were, in consequence, confined to agriculture.

0n the colony being settled by the British, a trade, of no great extent, however, was carried on in the articles of fish, oil, sea-cow skins, and seal-skins, which were exported to Quebec, Halifax, and Boston. The people then engaged in the fisheries were principally Acadian French, who built them small shallops and boats on the island.

As the best fishing banks within the Gulf of St Lawrence lie in the immediate vicinage of this island, it seems, at first, rather surprising that extensive fisheries have not before this time been established. There have been, it is true, some attempts of the kind made, which, from different causes, have failed. The American revolutionary war affected the first