FATORY LETTER

BERMUDA,

_March 15, 1860._

"MY DEAR HAWKINS,

"You are aware that I have ceased for some years to forward to the
Society the Journals of my Voyages of Visitation.[1] It did not appear
to me that the cause of the Society, or of my diocese, would be much
advanced, or individuals much interested or edified by detailed
reports of visits and services with which those who had read the
former Journals would be familiar.

"The sad state of religious destitution in many settlements in
Newfoundland and Labrador had been, I thought, sufficiently shown; and
the benefits and blessing conferred, and to be conferred, by the
Society, thankfully stated and fully demonstrated. I have, therefore,
considered it better and more becoming to confine myself to a bare and
brief newspaper statement of the places visited, and the services
performed, without any particular mention of the condition of the
inhabitants, and other incidents of the voyage.

"In my late visitation, however, I have been enabled to reach a
portion of the island, in which, though several hundred members of our
Church have long resided, no clergyman had ever before been seen. I
refer to White Bay, a remote district on the so-called French Shore of
Newfoundland. A large portion, nearly one-half of the coast of
Newfoundland (from Cape St. John on the N.E. to Cape Ray on the S.W.),
is called and known in the island by that name (the French Shore); in
consequence of the permission, granted by treaty, to the French to
fish for cod on, or round that portion. The natives and inhabitants of
Newfoundland, and the British generally, have not considered it worth
their while to prosecute the fishery to any extent in these parts, or
to settle in them; the operations of the French fishermen, being
assisted and systematized by their Government, are on such an
extensive scale as to exclude competition, and to render their
privilege practically an exclusive one. Nevertheless, as the parts of
the island so assigned, or given up, are among the most productive,
not only in fish, but in game, and occasionally in seals (which are
there taken in nets with comparatively little trouble or expense),
families have from time to time migrated to and settled in these
remote districts, scattering themselves widely, with the view of
obtaining the means of subsistence in larger abundance and with
greater ease. Now, as there are no roads to, or on, this shore, and
each settlement