a large island of North America, belonging to Great Britain, lying between 46° 50' and 51° 30' N. Lat. and between 53° 30' and 58° 20' W. Long. from London. The form is that of an irregular triangle, the base or south side being 80 leagues in extent; the east side is the longest; and the whole circumference about 150 leagues. It is bounded on the north by the straits of Belleisle, which separate it from Labrador; on the east and south it hath the Atlantic ocean, and on the west the gulf of St Lawrence. The climate is rather severe; and the soil, at least on the sea coast, which is all that we know of it, is poor and barren. A few kitchen vegetables, with strawberries and raspberries, are all its produce. The country within land is mountainous, and abounds with timber; there are several rivers which are plentifully stored with various sorts of fish, abundance of deep bays, and many good ports. St John's and Placentia are the two principal settlements, and at each of these there is a fort; the number of people who remain here in the winter hath been computed at 4000. The French, by the treaty of Utrecht, were permitted to fish from Cape Bonavista on the east side round the north of the island to Point Rich on the west; and by the treaty of Paris, they are allowed the isles of St Pierre and Miquelon, upon which they are to dry their fish, but not to erect fortifications of any kind.

The great importance of this place arises from its fishery, which is in part carried on by the inhabitants at the several harbours, which are about 20 in number, who take vast quantities of cod near the coast, which they bring in and cure at their leisure, in order to have it ready for the ships when they arrive. But the great and extensive fishery is on the banks at some distance from the island. The great bank lies 20 leagues from the nearest point of land from the latitude 41° to 49°, stretching 300 miles in length and 75 in breadth.—To the east of this lies the False Bank; the next is styled Vort, or the Green Bank, about 240 miles long, and 120 over; then Banquero, about the same size; the shoals of Sand Island, Whale Bank, and the Bank of St Peter's, with several others of less note, all abounding with fish.

The cod are caught only by a hook; an expert fisher will take from 150 to 300 upwards in a day; for the fish never bite in the night: the labour is very great. The season is from May to October, in the height of which there are from 500 to 700 sail upon the banks at a time. The fish caught in the spring months are best; they are cured in very different ways. Some are styled white fish, others mud fish, which are stowed and salted in the hold, and will not keep long; but the best and most valuable are the dried cod. The quantity taken is prodigious: yet in some seasons and in different places varies considerably, as the fish frequently change their stations. The fishing ships, as they are called, lie upon the banks, with the help of their boats take and cure their own fish, and as soon as they are full sail for a market. The fack ships proceed directly to the island, where they purchase fish from the inhabitants either by barter or bills of exchange. The principal markets for cod are Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the West Indies. The value of this fishery is computed at some hundred thousand pounds annually; employing, besides several hundred ships, some thousands of seamen, and affording a maintenance to a number of tradesmen of different occupations, by which many large towns on the west side of England accumulate much wealth, and at the same time contribute in many respects to the benefit of the public.

The great utility of this fishery was very early seen, and very vigorously pursued; for in the beginning of the reign of King James I. we had two hundred and fifty sail employed therein. It is computed, that three quintals of wet fish make one quintal of dried cod. Besides, the livers of every hundred quintals make a hoghead of oil; and exclusive of these there are many lesser advantages that go in diminution of the expense. The fishery, as we have said above, produces differently in different seasons; but it is judged to be a very good one when it produces 300,000 quintals of fish and 3000 barrels of oil, both equally saleable and valuable commodities. As every ship carries twelve, and each of their boats eight men, and as these return home in six months, there cannot be a more noble nursery for seamen. Newfoundland. The artificers and traders employed in building, victualling, and repairing these vessels, are very numerous in the respective ports from which they sail. These circumstances justify the particular attention paid by government to this branch of the public service; in respect to which they may be well informed, an annual and very distinct account, by which the whole is seen at one view, is delivered by the proper officer to the governor of Newfoundland, that is, to the commodore of his majesty's squadron. Mr Pennant, in the appendix to his Arctic Zoology, gives us, from what appears to be very good authority, the following account of this island.

"Within the circuit of 60 miles of the southern part, the country is hilly, but not mountainous. The hills increase in height as they recede from the sea; their course is irregular, not forming a chain of hills, but rising and falling abruptly. The coasts are high, and the shores most remarkably bold. The same may be said of almost every part of this vast island. The country is much wooded, and the hills (such as have not flat tops to admit the rain to stagnate on them) are clothed with birch, with hazel, spruce, fir, and pine, all small; which is chiefly owing to the inhabitants taking off the bark to cover the fish stages. This peninsula is so indented by the fine and deep bays of Placentia, St Mary, Conception, and Trinity, that it may be penetrated in all parts, which is done for the sake of fowling, or the procuring of spars for masts, oars, &c. The island is on all sides pierced with deep bays, which peninsulate it in many places by isthmuses most remarkably narrow.—The mountains on the south-west side, near the sea, are very high, and terminate in lofty headlands; such are Chapeau Rouge, a most remarkably high promontory, Cape St Mary's, and Cape le Hune. Such in general is the formation of the island; on the north-east, most of the hills in the interior part of the country terminate pyramidically, but form no chain. The interior parts of the country consist chiefly of morasses, or dry barren hummocks, or level land, with frequent lakes or ponds, and in some places covered with stunted black spruce. The rivers of Newfoundland are unfit for navigation, but they are of use in floating down the wood with the summer floods. Still the rivers and the brooks are excellent guides for the hunters of beavers and other animals, to penetrate up the country, which as yet has never been done deeper than 30 miles. Near the brooks it is that timber is commonly met with, but seldom above three or four miles inland, and in valleys; the hills in the northern district being naked and barren.

"In some parts of Newfoundland there is timber sufficiently large for the building of merchant ships: the hulk is made of juniper, and the pine furnishes masts and yards; but as yet none has been found large enough for a mast for a large cutter. The fishery is divided into two seasons; that on the shore, or the shore season, commences about the 20th of April, and ends about the 10th of October; the boats fish in from four to 20 fathoms of water. The most important, the bank fishing season, begins the 10th of May, and continues till the last of September, and is carried on in 30 to 45 fathoms deep of water. Banking vessels have sailed from St John's to the bank as early as the 12th of April. At first they use pork or birds for a bait; but as they catch fish, they supply themselves with a shell fish called clams, which is found in the belly of the cod. The next bait is the lobster; after that the herring and the lance, which last till June, when the capelan comes on the coast, and is another bait. In August the squid comes into use, and finally the herring again. The greatest number of cod fish taken by a single fisherman in the season has been 12,000, but the average is 7000. The largest fish which has been taken was four feet three inches long, and weighed 46 pounds. A banking vessel of 10,000 fish ought to be filled in three weeks, and so in proportion; and 80 quintals (112lb. each) for a boat in the same time.

"In 1785, 541 English vessels fished on the bank, a number exceeding that of the French. A heap of dried fish, 20 feet long and ten wide, and four deep, contains 300 quintals. Such a heap settles, in the course of 48 hours after it is made, about 1/4. An extraordinary splinter will split five quintals of fish in an hour. The average in that time is two. There is no fishing during winter, on account of the inclemency of the season. It is supposed that the fish in a great measure quit the banks before that time, as in general they are very scarce when the fishing vessels go upon the banks early in the spring.

"There are a few small towns on the coasts, which have gardens sown with English pulse; but many of the inhabitants quit the country in winter.

"An admiral or some sea officer is generally governor of Newfoundland."