This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852 Excerpt: ...who, from curiosity, or necessity, or hope of gain, explored the coast; but their purposes were transient, or their stay short. There had been here and there little establishments for fishery or trade, successively taken up and abandoned, from the rigors of the climate, the unprofitableness of the employment, or the disappointments naturally following upon such novel enterprises. Few persons, comparatively speaking, had turned their thoughts to this, as a land favorable for the cultivation of the soil, or the arts of social life. It promised little to the European, who should leave his native country with a fancy warm with descriptions of the luxuriance of this western world, and hoping to pass the residue of his life, as "one long summer day of indolence" and ease. It offered no mines, glittering with gold and silver, to tempt the avarice of the selfish, or to stimulate the hopes of the ambitious. It presented an irregular and rocky front, lashed by the waves of a stormy ocean, and frowning with dark forests and bleak promontories. Its rough and stubborn soil yielded with reluctance to the labors of the husbandman; and the severities of a northern winter, for almost half the year, stripped the earth of its vegetation by its bitter blasts or drifting snows. It required stout hands and stouter hearts to encounter such discouragements; to subdue the ruggedness of nature, and to wait the slow returns, which perseverance and industry alone could reasonably hope to obtain. Men must have strong motives to lead them, under such circumstances, to such a choice. It was not an enterprise, which, being conceived in a moment of rashness, might by its quick success plead its own justification. It had none of the allurements of power, or the indulgences of plea...