Grade 5 Social Studies · nothing is recorded
Send a ship west. Do the numbers.
You are a merchant in France in 1600. A ship costs money for every week it is away and every sailor aboard. Cod, fur or settlers — pick the venture, set the crew and the weeks, and see what comes back. The motives come with the cargo. Prices and yields are simulated.
cod at Newfoundland, home by fall
What comes back
Cost of the voyage2,480 livresship + 20 × 14 crew-weeks
Brought home616quintals of cod
Sold for7,392 livresat 100 % of the usual price
Profit4,912 livresone ship in eight never comes home: expected 3,888
Motives this venture shows:resources
Fishing pays in one summer, which is why the boats came back for a hundred years before any town. A fur post loses money unless it stays the winter — and it can only stay the winter with First Nations partners. Settlers never pay for themselves; the king paid, for land, control and faith (A3.3).