At thirty-six, bereft, brimming with grief and thwarted love,Quoyle steered
away to Newfoundland, the rock that had generated
his ancestors, a place he had never been nor thought to
go.
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"At Newfoundland, it is said, that dried cod performs the office of money,"
jean-baptiste sayWe retain nothing, although we have conquered everything...France is chiefly, if not solely, to be dreaded by us in the light of a maritime and commercial power; and therefore by restoring to her all the valuable West India islands, and by our concessions in the Newfoundland fishery, we have given her the means of recovering her prodigious losses and of becoming once more formidable to us at sea...all the Spanish treasures and riches in America, lay at our mercy.
Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below. O, my America, my Newfoundland My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd, My mine of precious stones, my empery; How am I blest in thus discovering thee:;! To enter in these bonds, is to be free:;; Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be."
john donne