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 schooners remain from the fleet of more than ten score which formerly bore "St. Pierre" at the stern.

Most of the inhabitants descend from those Norman, Basque and Breton companions of Champlain and de Razilly who were the forefathers of the exiles ruthlessly driven from New France by the English. Acadian outcasts found an asylum on these islands which had been known to Norse, French and Spanish voyagers in the Middle Centuries, and which Jacques Cartier is said to have visited before touching the mainland of America. In 1713 a troublous history began when they were granted with Newfoundland to Great Britain. Following Wolfe's victory on the Plains above Quebec, they were conferred upon vanquished France as a sop, with the stipulation that they be used henceforth only as an unfortified fishing-station. During the next fifty years, England and France were the alternate masters of Miquelon, but in 1815 the islands were definitely ceded to the French.

Recognising that Britain's prowess on the sea was first established by the ancient crews of Devon and Dorset who sailed a stormy tract to the Newfoundland feeding-grounds, France utilised the advantageous depôt of St. Pierre as an aid in training her naval recruits. The cod industry was encouraged for two reasons: it yielded boundless riches,