So long as Newfoundland remained in possession of the French, the traffic of Europeans with the Esquimaux went little farther than the bartering of fish hooks, knives, or trifling wares, which they had brought with them to the fishing for whale fins. But when that Island fell into the hands of the English, they and the Americans, who promised themselves great advantages from opening a trade with the natives, brought with them a more extensive assortment of goods. The traffic at first was mis-managed. In order to ingratiate themselves with the savages, the traders both took and allowed greater liberties than were calculated to preserve mutual good understanding. The foreigners excited the cupidity of the natives, which, though easily satisfied at the moment, soon became a constant, increasing, and insatiable appetite; and when their whale-fins, furs, or blubber were exhausted, and they could purchase no more of the articles they had learned to prize, they first quarrelled with those friends who would not make them presents of what they wanted, and then proceeded by fraud or force to supply themselves. Having a thorough contempt for the _Kablunat_, they imagined that they displayed a virtuous and praiseworthy superiority, when they overreached, deceived, and stole from them. The traders who entertained similar notions respecting the Esquimaux, acted in a similar manner, and their intercourse soon became productive of murders and robberies, in which the numbers and cunning of the latter enabled them for a time to be the most successful. A band of Esquimaux from Avertok, a place not far from where the settlement of Nain at present is, commenced their plundering expeditions upon system, evincing a depraved ingenuity, converted now to better objects. They went regularly to the south with whale fins, which they bought up from their neighbours, and under the pretext of trading with the Europeans, contrived, either by stratagem or open violence, to rob them to an extent far beyond the value of what they pretended to barter; this succeeding for a while, they were joined by others from various quarters, till they were able to equip a fleet of boats amounting to eighteen. In 1763, they so infested the straits of Bellisle, that it was not safe for a fishing vessel to enter them alone. And so successful were these pirates, that they supplied the whole coast, not only with iron utensils and European arms, but likewise with boats, sails, anchors, cords and nets; and boats in particular were in such plenty, that a good one could have been got for a few skins, twelve whale-fins, or two or three dogs. The excesses and cruelties with which these depredations were accompanied, filled the Europeans and colonists with such extraordinary terror, that if but the cry of a bird was heard in the night, every one trembled, and made ready to flee.