Having several times in the preceding pages mentioned the Fisheries of the Island, I shall now attempt to give my readers some idea of their nature, and the extent to which they may be carried.

The herring fishery is the first that commences in the spring; the bays and harbours, particularly on the north side of the Island, are no sooner clear of ice, than they are filled with immense shoals of these fish, which may be taken in any quantity; though they appear to be more plentiful some years than others, they never fail coming in great abundance. They are not so fat, though generally much larger than the herring taken on the west coast of Scotland, and on the coast of Ireland; they are more like the Swedish herring, and properly cured, answer very well for the West India market; they are taken at much less expence than on the coast of Scotland or Ireland, as the whole business is carried on in the harbours, and no craft above the size of common boats is necessary; such a train of nets as is commonly used in a herring buss of 70 or 80 tons on the coast of Scotland, would with ease take ten thousand barrels in a week or ten days, in general, however, large seins for dragging them on shore, will be found a better kind of net. They come into the harbours generally as soon as the ice is gone, the first shoals are always the best, and the whole business does not last above a fortnight, and if shipped off immediately for the West Indies, from the shortness of the voyage, and the nature of the fish, being a large full fish without oil, they will arrive there in a better state for that market, than any other herrings that can be carried to that climate. Besides what may be exported salt, great quantities might be smoaked, or cured red, for which there is a great demand in the United States; the wood necessary for smoaking herrings will cost little more than the trouble of cutting it down and carrying it to the curing houses, in this country it constitutes the greatest part of the expence of the business. In the months of October and November, large shoals of herrings of a much superior character, such as would be fit for the European market, come upon the coast, but do not come into the harbours in such large bodies as in the spring, but they might be as easily taken by buss fishing as they are on the coast of Scotland.

Ale Wives, or Gasperaus (Clupea serrata) are taken in many parts of the Island, and in the adjacent harbours on the continent, in very considerable numbers, and though not so plentiful as the common herring, there is no doubt but many thousand barrels of them might be exported from the Gulph every year, they generally sell at a dollar a barrel higher in West Indes than the common herring, which is a considerable object; they are taken in the months of May and June, in rivers and brooks where very short nets only are required.

Eels of a very superior kind have long been known to be taken on the Island, they are too valuable for the West India market, but have occasionally been sent to the Italian market, where they are sold by the barrel for double the price of salmon, and the demand for them is much greater than can be supplied; some judgment of the value of them may be formed from the circumstance of them selling, in so plentiful a country as Canada, at sixteen dollars a barrel: the only method at present in use for taking them, is by spearing for them in the muddy flats in our harbours, and even in that way very considerable quantities are taken; there are many situations in the Island in which the method of taking them by placing eel pots in the rivers may be practised, and the only attempt that has hitherto been made in that way was very successful.

Mackerel are in great abundance on the coast and in the harbours, from the middle of June till November; taking them with nets has never yet been much practiced in our own harbours; the gut of Canso which divides the Island of Cape Breton from Nova Scotia, and the adjacent harbours, are the places where this fishery has been chiefly carried on, the distance being only twelve to twenty leagues from the Island; the quantity taken at these harbours is some years very great; it has been known that at the harbour of Port Hood, on the coast of Cape Breton, after thirty vessels had been loaded in a week, a heap of fish, supposed to contain at least a thousand barrels, have been left on the beach to rot, for want of salt to cure them. Many American vessels from the New England states load annually in these harbours with mackerel.

Cod are caught in great plenty in almost every part of the Gulph of St. Lawrence, but more particularly on the coast of the Island, the Bay of Chaleur, and the Straits of Belleisle; our principal fishing ground extends all along the north coast of the Island, from the east point to the Orphan Bank, which stretches considerably to the northward of the North Cape, and the fishing vessels have seldom to go above three or four leagues from the shore, where there is only from ten to fifteen fathoms water; from several parts of the Island an advantageous boat fishery may be carried on part of the season, as great abundance of fish may often be had at little more than a mile from the shore, and sometimes at a less distance; two men will at times load a boat twice in a day.

The fishery carried on from the American States in the Gulph of St. Lawrence for some years past is very extensive, and is known to be one of the greatest sources of the wealth of the eastern states, from which about two thousand schooners of from seventy to one hundred tons, are annually sent into the Gulph; of these about fourteen hundred make their fish in the Straits of Belleisle, and on the Labrador shore, from whence what is intended for the European market, is shipped off, without being sent to their own ports: almost six hundred American schooners make their fares on the north side of the Island and often make two trips in a season, returning to their own ports with full cargoes, where their fish are dried; the number of men employed in this fishery is estimated at between fifteen and twenty thousand, and the profits on it are known to be very great. To see such a source of wealth and naval power on our own coasts, and in our very harbours, abandoned to the Americans, is much to be regretted and would be distressing were it not that the means of re-occupying, the whole with such advantages as must soon preclude all competition, is afforded in the cultivation and settlement of Prince Edward Island.

The principal advantage the Americans have hitherto had over the British fisheries on this Coast, arises from the cheapness of the necessaries of life among them, whereby they are enabled to build, fit out and provision their fishing craft at a small expence in comparison to what can be done from the ports of Great Britain and Ireland, which enables them to undersell us in every market; I believe there is no person acquainted with the soil and climate of Prince Edward Island, but will admit that it is as fit for producing provisions of all kinds in abundance, as the eastern states, and has even some advantages over them in that respect, as it is well known that from the nature of their climate, they do not produce wheat enough to supply themselves with bread corn, which they are obliged to import from their southern neighbours. Not only Prince Edward Island, but a great part of the country round the Gulph of St. Lawrence will produce wheat, and every necessary of life in great abundance, and from their extent, situation, and natural resources, are calculated to support as numerous, and as powerful a population as the New England States; into whose hands in the natural course of things this fishery (being on their coasts and harbours) must fall, to the exclusion I trust at no very distant day of our republican neighbours; and to the great benefit of the trade and naval resources of Great-Britain and Ireland.

Besides the fisheries which have been mentioned, great quantities of salmon are taken in different rivers which run into the Gulph, particularly the Restigush which runs into the head of the Bay of Chaleur, and the River Miramichee in the Province of New Brunswick, from the former, four thousand tierces of three hundred pounds each, has often been exported in a year* the salmon fisheries in the rivers on the Coast of Labrador and the Straits of Bellisle are at present chiefly in the hands of the Americans, as is also a considerable share of the Indian trade on that coast, both without any other right than sufferance.
*I think I may venture to say that ten thousand tierces have frequently been exported from the Gulph in a year. If the Americans at such a distance, find the fishery in this coast so profitable, what must it be if carried on from Prince Edward Island, so much nearer, and where every thing necessary can be produced in as great perfec(tion) as in New England; there is nothing in the American system of management if superior to our own, of which the knowledge is not easily obtained, * and situated as we are, with so many fine harbours close to the fishing, ground, and with a country in which the population, and almost every thing necessary for the business can be produced and supported, it must be manifest that the greatest part of the fisheries in the Gulph and Straits of Bellisle, must fall to the people of the Island as soon as their numbers, and the cultivation of the country, will enable them to attend to the business, and to reap the benefit of their local situation and circumstances. * And thousands of their fishermen if it should be thought proper to encourage them The principal fishing posts in Lower Canada are at Gaspe, Percee, and Bonaventure Island, and labour under the disadvantage of being situated in a part of the country incapable of producing the necessaries of life they consume, and in which, after the fishing season is over, there is no employment for the people, who are mostly obliged in consequence to go to Quebec, in the autumn; there they scatter over the country to seek for employment till the return of the next fishing season; they are then to be collected and sent a distance of four hundred miles down the River St. Lawrence, and from the prevalence of the easterly winds in the spring, they are often three weeks and a month on wages and provisions before they ever wet a line for their employers, and sometimes lose the first part of the season entirely, which is always the best: the Nova Scotia Fisheries are also under the same disadvantage of depending on the importation of provisions for their daily consumption, these are chiefly brought from the United States, at an expence which has become much too heavy latterly, in consequence of which, the fisheries on this coast are now become very inconsiderable to what they have been: and the greatest part of their produce, instead of being directly exported to the market where it is consumed, is sent to the American States to pay for provisions, from thence it is exported to the West Indies.

These are circumstances of an unchangeable nature; which point out Prince Edward Island, the adjacent coasts of the Continent, and the west coast of Cape Breton, both in point of situation, and all the necessary natural advantages, as furnishing the only means by which the entire occupancy of the fisheries in the Gulph and the Straits of Bellisle, can be restored to Great-Britain. *
.*The Magdalen Islands in point of situation, are also extremely valuable, I do not know whether they will produce wheat, but they will maintain a great many cattle, and have in other respects great advantages. I have been informed that if the southern whale fishery was attempted from the harbour of George Town or Three Rivers on an extensive scale, that a great many people from Nantucket and other ports in New England, accustomed to that business, if encouraged, would readily settle there, to which, it is said, they would be induced, from the consideration that they would be enabled to employ the working part of their families that do not go to sea, in the cultivation of small farms, to have cattle and gardens, whereby they could maintain their families at a much less expence than when settled in a situation where every thing necessary for their consumption is to be purchased. It is said that the want of the benefits of such a situation was the chief reason which induced the people who had been settled at Halifax in Nova Scotia, in the southern whale fishery, to abandon that place, where there was no means of employing their families, and where every thing they consumed was to be purchased.

If the information which the author has humbly attempted to bring forward in the preceding pages, has the effect of attracting the attention of those to the affairs of the Island, on whose judgment its future progress depends, his object will be completely attained: and should the prospects of advantage to be derived from settling the country, which he has pointed at, be so far attended to, as to induce some person whose abilities are more equal to the subject, to enter thereon, and to put it in that light which its importance to the public requires, he will not doubt of seeing in a short time a considerable proportion of that capital, and still more valuable sprit and industry, which is now attracted by the United States, directed to the improvement of a British possession whose settlement and cultivation, he is confident will not only amply reward those who may adventure therein but materially contribute to increase the Naval power and resources of the British Empire.