Life and Labour in Newfoundland: Based on Lectures delivered at the Memorial University of Newfoundland 9781487595166

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND Based on Lectures delivered at the Memorial University of Newfoundland

BY

C. R. FAY, M.A., D.Sc. of Cambridge and Toronto

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS TORONTO,1956

Copyright, Canada, 1956 by University of Toronto Press

First published 1956

Printed in Great Britain at the Works of W. HEFFER & SONS LTD., CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND

CONTENTS CHAPTER

PAGE

1.

WEST COAST, NEWFOUNDLAND, and WEST COUNTRY, ENGLAND .. .. .. .. .. ..

2.

SOUTH DEVON AND THE NEWMAN RECORDS

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13

3.

JOB'S, BOWRING'S AND FURNESS WITHY

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31

4.

THE NEWFOUNDLAND TRADE AND FISHERY ..

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38

5.

EPIC OF THE SEAL FISHERY

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56

6.

THE MASTER BUILDERS ..

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70

7.

THE ARCHITECTS OF LAW AND LIBERTY

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105

8.

FROM FISHERY TO COLONY

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128

9.

THE ST. JOHN'S CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

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146

10.

ORDEAL BY FIRE ..

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163

11.

GRAND FALLS AND CORNER BROOK

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191

12.

WABANA, AGUATHUNA AND INTRODUCTION TO KNOB LAKE .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 212

13.

THE LABRADOR POTENTIAL

APPENDIX I.

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1

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225

STATUTES ..

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239

APPENDIX II. TREATIES ..

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246

v

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PREFACE These Lectures were delivered at St. John's before the University in the Fall of 1953. They are based on two tours, the first in 1952 around and across Newfoundland, the second in 1953 over and along the Labrador, with intermediate work on the documentary material in London and the West Country. Friends on both sides of the water assisted my researches throughout, but I owe a special tribute of thanks to the officers of the Canadian Fishery Board in St. John's, who planned and facilitated both tours, in so far as they were by sea. A good map is an indispensable tool of travel, and I hope that the one inserted at the end of this volume will encourage others (and may they be many!) to follow in my footsteps and break new ground for themselves. If this should be the fortunate outcome of the Lectures, no one, I feel sure, will be more pleased than my friend and ally in the venture, the President of the Memorial University of Newfoundland. C. R. FAY. Belfast, December, 1955.

C. R. Fay, M.A., D.Sc., Cambridge University, England: formerly Professor of Economic History, University of Toronto. vii

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CHAPTER ONE

WEST COAST, NEWFOUNDLAND AND WEST COUNTRY, ENGLAND Coast lines, like nations, figure by comparison. But how introduce to one another two coastal regions so far apart and seemingly so unconnected as the West Coast of Newfoundland and the West Country of England? Let them do it for themselves. First let West Coast, Newfoundland, speak of "To-day and To-morrow," and then Wessex, time honoured Wessex, shall speak of "Then and Now." They have indeed a common factor of agricultural fertility, but that in Newfoundland has only disclosed itself recently: the traditional contact of the West Country of England was with the East and South of Newfoundland by way of trade and fishery. Many engaged in it, but three are household names, alike in the old country and the new—Newman, Job and Bowring—Newman's of Dartmouth, Job's of Teignmouth, Bowring's of Exeter; and of these more later. The South Coast of the English West Country from Poole to Dartmouth is not altogether dissimilar from the West Coast of Newfoundland looking north for say 150 (flight) miles. Poole. St. Alban's Head. Weymouth with The Isle of Portland—"The Gibraltar of Wessex." Exmouth, leading to Exeter. Teignmouth, Torbay, Dartmouth.

Port aux Basques. Cape Ray. Stephenville with Port au Port Peninsula—"The Gibraltar of the West Coast." Bay of Islands, leading to Corner Brook. Bonne Bay and Lomond.

The sea contacts, too, are rather similar. The passage around Cornwall from Bristol to Poole is rocky and dangerous. So is that from St. John's to Port aux Basques. From Poole there is a straight run south to the Channel Islands and South Europe. From Port aux Basques another straight run south to Sydney and the North American Mainland. No country is incapable of agriculture if it has plenty of rain, but the process of soil-making may be very laborious. As you approach i

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

the harbour of Pushthrough from Hermitage Bay, and St. Pierre and Miquelon disappear over the horizon, you see on the hill a green field surrounded by a concrete wall, growing what seem to be giant daisies. On a nearer view it proves to be a cemetery, and the wall was put around it to prevent the contents from slipping into the sea. The sixty-five year old Church is braced down by iron cables to withstand the winter storms. Barrowful by barrowful the cemetery soil was wheeled up. It cannot be gainsaid that much (but by no means all) of the land surface in the Avalon Peninsula and the South Coast is in Pushthrough's case:—rainfall abundant— and nothing else. The West Coast is very different, as far north at least as Bonne Bay. Here is an abundance of light sandy soil which, when appropriately strengthened, can support an intensive agriculture, as it already provides the gravel from which the TransCanada Highway is being made. Good documentary material based on recent surveys is to hand, but certain over-all observations may be made first. (1) A country's agriculture develops in relation not only to the quality of its soil, but also to the performance of its neighbours. As Aguathuna feeds Sydney with limestone, so Prince Edward Island feeds Stephenville with potatoes and milk. In these days of aeroplane freight, ice is not the barrier it was to the transport of essential foodstuffs. And since Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island are now provinces of the same Dominion, there can be no tariff or currency restrictions between them. (2) Knowledge, too, is unaffected by the round-about route; and carried over the air is instantaneous. At Mount Pearl outside St. John's is the provincial experimental farm of 280 acres, which conducts a variety of tests on seeds, grasses, dairy cattle, poultry, pigs and vegetables. The results of work done there are at the service of the whole Island. The agricultural officers on the West Coast are men who have trained in St. John's. There is good land, too, in the neighbourhood of St. John's: as the people of St. John's a century ago knew full well—"Not a farm, a mere paddock, a little field, nothing worth mentioning." "And the garden," cried the lady, "and the poultry yard, and the sheep pens, and the stables, and the outhouses and the kennels, do you call them nothing?" R. B. McCrea, Lost Amid the Fogs (1869), p. 7. (3) The conflict of labour demand:—summer fishing, summer logging, summer harvesting, is transient. For machine power

WEST COUNTRY—NEWFOUNDLAND AND ENGLAND

3

economizes the labour force and gives elasticity to it. An increasing percentage of the population, male and female, is engaged in industry and commerce. From these pools an agricultural army, male and female, could in an emergency be raised. Moreover, the drain to industry is compensated by the labour saving devices of modern farming. (4) The West Coast has high scenic values. It is earmarked for tourism. This means a market at the door for just that class of produce which the soil is suited to yield, dairy produce, vegetables, fruit; and since asparagus is only a cultivated seaweed it should be possible to raise it in quantities on the sandy neck of Port au Port. Bread and cod are necessaries of life. But a country can import bread and export salt cod or cod fillets, as the substratum of its economy, and in addition find its most extensible source of income in the provision of travel and sport. Switzerland is the outstanding example of such an economy. (5) The West Coast may one day have what Wessex has to overflowing, rich literary associations. Think of what Thomas Hardy has done for Dorset (and notably for Weymouth-Portland in The Trumpet Major and The Well-Beloved). Think, too, of what Jane Austen did for that little harbour from which Hardy with instinctive delicacy kept away. For she came from Bath to visit Lyme Regis in 1804 and put its Cobb on the map of literature for all time. Scott has done the same for Solway Firth and the Scottish border: Blackmore for the Doone country of North Devon: Wordsworth for the English Lake District. "Communities are lost, and Empires die And things of holy use unhallowed lie; They perish; but the intellect can raise, From airy words alone, a pile that ne'er decays." The fellow-countrymen of E. J. Pratt will not be slow to subscribe to this dictum of the Lakeland poet. B. V. Gutsell in his Introduction to the Geography of Newfoundland, Ottawa, 1949, describes the face of the country—Section V. SOILS. Variety in the soils of Newfoundland has been produced by differences in the parent rock formations. Along the West Coast there are younger Silurian and Carboniferous rocks covered by relatively good soils, but east of the Long Range Mountains, where

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

the bed rock is of a crystalline nature, the soils are highly acid and unfertile. The highest elevations lack soil cover and the surface is bare rock with many erratic boulders and frost-riven chips of rocks. Soil surveys are being undertaken, but little of the island as yet has been covered. The chief areas surveyed are those with agricultural potentiality and are confined to the upper Humber Valley, Deer Lake, the Codroy Valley, Grand Falls, the north-west coast and St. Mary's Bay (S/E of Placentia). The Donald Ross Survey, Industrial Survey of the Resources of the Province of Newfoundland, prepared by Donald Ross & Co., Montreal, Que. for the Newfoundland Industrial Development Board, 1950 (typescript), continues the farm analysis. About 5,200 commercial farms on the island: 6 per cent, over 50 acres; average 12 acres: 1,200 full-time farms. In addition to farms, numerous gardens and small holdings. [The figures for the chief agricultural areas show the outstanding importance of the West Coast.] Area. St. John's Eastport (Bonavista Bay) Humber Valley Stephenville-Port au Port St. George's Bay Codroy Valley

Acreage Cleared. Suitable for Agriculture. 8,000 25,000 4,000 800 45,000 1,500 2,000 10,000 20,000 3,000 3,000 30,000 18,300

134,000

In the whole Island, including gardens and small holdings .. 76,000 [Thus of cleared farm land, over half is on the West Coast, and of potential farm land nearly 80 per cent.]

In the Humber Valley in the west the development of agricultural land is of comparatively recent date, and at present potatoes, turnips and cabbage are the main crops. These find a market in the town of Corner Brook and in the nearby logging camps. A few farms are now producing milk. The growth of population in the Corner Brook area should support an expansion in dairy and truck farming. The potential farm land in the Humber Valley should make this possible. In the Stephenville-Port au Port area in the south-west, mixed farming is carried out, with the production of cattle and sheep predominating. Although, in general, production of vegetables has not been extensive, one of the largest vegetable producing farms on the Island is located in this area. Beef, mutton and wool are marketed in limited quantity. The hay lands in general yield poor crops and an improvement in soil fertility is urgently required if production is to be maintained. In the St. George's district further south there are fairly extensive

WEST COUNTRY—NEWFOUNDLAND AND ENGLAND

5

areas of cleared and cultivated land. The farms are about 80 acres in size, and have approximately 12 acres of cleared land. Production of vegetables is the chief source of income. Usually 5 to 8 acres are planted with vegetables, such as potatoes, turnips and cabbage, with a lesser acreage in beets, carrots and parsnips. The land is heavily fertilized with mixed commercial fertilizer and good yields are obtained. Land not growing vegetables is used for hay and pasture but yields are, on the whole, unsatisfactory. Milk is produced for consumption on the farm, and some beef and mutton are produced for sale. The Codroy Valley is one of the main farming areas of the island. Substantial quantities of both live stock and vegetables are grown. More live stock is produced here than in the St. George's area, although vegetables are probably the most important crop. Beef, mutton and wool are marketed. Unfortunately the yield of hay is declining not only on the uplands but also on the soils of the alluvial flats. But for Treaty restrictions the West Coast would have been developed at least a century earlier. The diary of Archdeacon Wix for 1835 is testimony to this. "Monday, May u, 1835. Between Cape Ray, indeed, and the Bay of Islands, there is decidedly more land capable of being brought, with very little trouble, into cultivation, than in all the parts of Newfoundland with which several pretty extensive tours had made me previously acquainted. There is another advantage, too, peculiar to this part of the coast; there is so little fog and dampness of atmosphere, that fish may be laid out to dry here with much less risk than elsewhere of its becoming tainted." "Monday, June I, 1835. Started at 3 a.m. in a fishing schooner for the Barrisways [Cormack's Barachois—identifiable as the Fishel's, Crabbe's and Robinson's of to-day], three settlements about twenty-three miles from this harbour [St. George's], and half way down the bay. It is much to be lamented that so fine a nest of settlements should not be acknowledged and recognised by the Government. They have some of the best land in the island, along the shore and in their rear: yet, through the discouragement which the English Government gives to settlers west of Cape Ray, and an over-delicate dread of encouraging any extensive settlements which might discourage the French, this, which is certainly the best portion of the island, is entirely lost to us as regards revenue. . . . They live here, indeed, entirely on the produce of the soil, and of the cattle which they keep, and they live well. They are so far independent of the merchant that they never apply to him for butter, pork or beef. Indeed, if they could only find a market for their produce, they could rear more cattle and vegetables, B

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

and could cure more meat, than their families require. There is no other part of Newfoundland like it."

Edward Wix, Six Months of a Newfoundland Missionary's Journal, Feb.-Aug., 1835, and edition, 1836, pp. 135-6.

Thus much for authority; next for a personal glimpse. James Cook's map of Port aux Basques needs revision now.1 For they, to wit, Messrs. McNamara of Toronto, are blasting out a new port, which will avoid the awkward entrance to the old one: increase harbour and transit facilities; and make ready for the augmented ferry service of the Trans-Canada Highway age.2 This highway, in the rough, runs already with short gaps from Port aux Basques to Comer Brook, and from Corner Brook, without a gap, through Grand Pah's to Gander airport. The big gap is between Clarenville (just about where Cormack set off for the interior) and Gander; but we are told that we shall motor in comfort from Port aux Basques to St. John's, with no four dollar ferry tolls on the way, before the 1950*5 have run their course. From the dry fog of Port aux Basques (three hours sunshine in the four-and-a-half days of mid-July when I was there) you pass, inside an hour, between the round breasts of "Mae West" to the sunshine, sparkling streams and thick foliage of the Little Codroy Valley. Everyone has a fishing rod at the back of his car, and summer visitors are opening their bungalows. In the winter the wind may be high, and first landmark is the railway hut in which the watchman used to sit waiting for the train of the day, ready to wave it back if the gale was so strong as to make it dangerous to proceed. Little Codroy is one of half a dozen of river systems, essentially the same in type—Little Codroy, Grand Codroy, Robinson's, Humber, South and East Arms (Bonne Bay), leading to the West Coast from the Long Range, with estuaries of varying widths, which in places are deep enough to admit a criss-cross of roads, east-west, as well as the main road north-south. In the Codroys the terrain is of two sorts, the foothills with trout and salmon streams and wild fowl and rich inter-vale meadows, showing already the ripple of new growth—farmed by the pioneer; and the longer settled coastal stretches—yet not so very much longer settled. I sat with Mr. F. Mclsaac in his valley farm on 1 This map is an inset to Cook's large-scale chart of the South Coast of Newfoundland from Cape Ray to the head of Fortune Bay. 2 "The new ferry will have a capacity for 300 passengers and load 25 automobiles, 6 trucks, 2 trailers, 50 head of cattle, and 650 tons of cargo per trip." (Public Relations Release, Ottawa, 1952.)

WEST COUNTRY—NEWFOUNDLAND AND ENGLAND

7

Grand River Codroy, conning his land grant. After reciting in part the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, Treaty of Paris, 1763, Treaty of Versailles, 1783, the document concluded, in ink, February, 1899, "one of the orders incumbent on you is that for the present no permanent buildings or establishments of any description shall be constructed on any part of the land in the annexed grant except with the approval of Her Majesty's Government." Fee for grant five dollars. The original grant was to John Blanchard from whom Mr. Mclsaac bought it, Blanchard fils signing for his father, since the old man could not write. The present owner commenced farming in 1914. He has now 240 acres, of which one half is cleared; and as in Finland, the wood cut is a valuable source of supplementary revenue. (It goes as pit props to Buchans.) Between Codroy Pond and Robinson's the railway runs through and over wooded ravines, and by the side are recent clearings, awaiting their road bed. For here, as elsewhere, it is railway first, and highroad later. The embankments are steep and stone faced and must have required a mass of labour. The coastal motor run past Cartyville, Heatherton and Fischell's left one with a curious feeling. On top was the dominant race, a postmaster, a gentleman farmer, a store-keeper with land to sell—clusters of related families, Butts and Leggs galore. Down below by the shore were settlers of French descent, of lower standing economically and socially, but goodhearted and thriving. But this was only a first impression. I went over the ground again in 1953 with the help of a professional friend who had done survey work on the West Coast. There are three streams of French stock—French of Old France, descendants perhaps of deserters from French ships; French of Quebec; and French Acadians. Among the last in particular are numerous families of substance—LeBlancs (now Whites), Cormiers, Gaudets, LeCoeurs, and the Gallant family, whose senior representative died recently at 95, and after whom Stephenville, the American airbase, is named. On the west of the fertile Port au Port peninsula are old world settlers from Brittany. On the south of it is the Scottish settlement of Campbell's Creek: while at Codroy, St. Andrew's and MacKay, Nova Scotian Scots are strongly represented. Much indeed of the West Coast settlement, whether English, French or Scottish, is a back-flow from the mainland. In the Humber Valley there are again two types of fanning. First, the established farmers of Pasadena—Midland; Mr. Leonard Earle's model farm and strawberry grounds; Mr. Atkinson's Holsteins

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

and the great barn built by himself (he was a road surveyor and sensed the values to come, and could clear and build with his own hands, the Government helping with bull-dozers): the whole of this area neatly set back behind a belt of trees. Secondly, northwest of Deer Lake the agricultural frontier on the Lomond Road, which was started as a settlement scheme after World War I, and named Cormack after the explorer. They brought up fishermen as settlers, some of whom made good, and the present population owes much to the agricultural officers who lived with them and worked for them. It is a far cry from West Coast, Newfoundland to West Country, England, and yet there are analogies. The Great Western Railway of England and the Great West Road have their counterpart in the coastal communications by rail and road on the West Coast of Newfoundland. I would think that there are on this West Coast of Newfoundland almost as many gravel pits as farms, and almost as many men employed in road making as in cultivating the land. And what of a Newfoundland woollen industry ? Is there any sign of this ? There are certainly hundreds of wiry sheep, mostly on the road side, alike on the east and west coast of the Island, which marvellously escape being run over; and in Grand Codroy I went to Gale's Wool Combing Mill, where the raw wool is carded. "It should be made into jerseys in Newfoundland," said the foreman, and I heartily agreed. "Good-bye now! West Coast": and so over to Wessex. Bristol on the Severn, the second city of Elizabethan England, just as it was inwards the gateway to the Midlands, so it was outwards the gateway to the High Seas of Empire in North America, the West Indies, the Brazils and the Guinea coast of Africa. At the exit of the Bristol Channel in North Devon are two small ports, famous in their day, Bideford and Barnstaple, situated in what the atlas calls "Bideford or Barnstaple Bay." They drew their commerce from Bristol and continued to send fishing boats to Newfoundland long after the other ports of the West Country had given this up. Bristol itself soon had bigger ventures in view—sugar, tobacco, slave-carrying, and might there not be a new passage by north-east or north-west to far Cathay? Bristol Grammar School, which in our time has sent out T. R. Glover to profess the classics at Queen's University, Kingston, Ont., and Sir Oliver Franks to be our ambassador to Washington, celebrates 1534 as its charter year.

WEST COUNTRY—NEWFOUNDLAND AND ENGLAND

9

Among its founders was Robert Thorne, and he in a letter of 1527 writes: "As some sicknesses are hereditarious and come from the father to the son, so this inclination or desire of this discovery I inherited of my father, which with another merchant of Bristol named Hugh Eliot were the discoverers of the Newfoundlands." Tradition, says the school historian C. P. Hill, History of Bristol Grammar School, pp. 3-4, attributes the voyage, of the father to 1494, and if this is so, it is pre-Cabot: three years before John Cabot sailed on the Mathew from Bristol, May 2,1497, to make his landfall at Cape Bonavista on the eastern coast of Newfoundland on June 24, 1497. C. Bona Vista a Caboto Primum Reperta (English map of 1617). The ascription of the landfall to Cape North in the Island of Cape Breton is ill-founded, and for sailing reasons highly improbable. Between Bristol and the south coast of the West Country projected the county of Cornwall and its rocks were as much a graveyard on this side of the Atlantic, as was the Cape Race coast from Cappahayden to Mistaken Point on the other. Therefore, this south coast was not satellite to Bristol. In so far as its merchants did not get their supplies locally, they drew them from London or abroad, and yet they were not, as maritime adventurers, in the orb of London. They built up their own system, in conjunction with the Channel Islands, rich in uncustomed liquor, and with the south of Ireland, rich in butter, bacon and (human) brawn. Waterford or Cork would be the last port of call on the way to Newfoundland. As the Victoria County History (Dorset, Vol. II, 203) well says, "The recovery [in Elizabeth's time] of Weymouth and Melcombe and the continued progress of Poole were mainly due to their share of the Newfoundland fishery, which for many of these western coast towns was replacing medieval overseas trade soon to be engrossed by London and other of the great ports. It would be impossible to overrate the national value of this new school for the production and training of seamen, which with the previously existent North Sea and Iceland fisheries largely created the marine which overwhelmed Spain in the sixteenth century and the Dutch in the seventeenth century, thus clearing the way for trans-oceanic expansion." But Wessex must be prepared to hear the historians of the Coal Industry make claims almost as large for the North Sea colliers. Plymouth was, and is, the great naval dockyard of the West Country, and it built many ships. But in former days shipbuilding centres were numerous along the coast. Bridport, for example, specialised in making war sloops in the late eighteenth century: as

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

for Poole, at this time the main builders there were doing so well in the Newfoundland trade that they did not enter for the Admiralty contracts. The threat of invasion and the bathing fancy of a King,1 raised Portland and Weymouth to eminence at the turn of the century; and Portland's place in the scheme of naval defence was enhanced by the construction of the breakwater, 1847-75: completed in the 1890's by the addition of two new breakwaters to make secure against torpedo attack. In the south of England naval bases and watering places grew side by side and were some compensation for the loss of industry to the North—Portsmouth, Portland, Plymouth: Bournemouth, Weymouth, Torquay; and above all of these in maritime significance was the great port of Southampton, with its superb tidal system and ideal situation vis-d-vis Europe. But Southampton rarely enters into the Newfoundland story. Dorset was never an industrial county par excellence. Over the centuries it was a rich pastoral county with strong interests in maritime enterprise. It lived in an atmosphere of piracy, privateering and potential invasion, as did Devonshire also—though the latter, officially, was at once more powerful and law-abiding. Somerset, an Old-Country Arcadia, was in a more sequestered position—"the flower of all the West Country," the saying went, with rich, well-watered soil and ample rainfall. Rich in agriculture, it was richer still in social life; and the clergy, parish priests and monastic foundations (while these remained) were the centre of it. Towns grew up around their great parish churches. The glow of Glastonbury illumined the whole of Wessex. Fifteenth century Glastonbury to eighteenth century Bath was progress at a price; and Henry Hunt, the radical rebel farmer of Upavon, Wilts, exposed the heaviness of it—poverty in the cottage, and the tortures of Ilchester gaol. The solitary cell, flogging, and loading with irons were frequent punishments as late as 1821: a cat of nine tails in the open air would have been more merciful. The schools inherited a little portion of the monastic wealth, but the bulk of it passed into lay hands, and the new industrial merchant class of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries too often combined progressive business with abuse of corporate property. The pleasantest feature was the love of sport in all classes, which in the 1 In 1748, R. Prowse and J. Bennet of Weymouth secured twenty-one year leases for the erection of two wooden bathing houses on the north side of the harbour, and in 1789 George III visited the town for the first time.

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West Country at least, the Puritans failed to quell. Before the days of the mechanical roasting jack turnspit dogs did the work. On the morning of an important feast day in the reign of Charles II the consternation of Wells was complete, all the turnspit dogs were missing. But horror turned into relief, and relief into joy when it was found that a sporting midshipman had taken the pack for a run on the Mendip hills and brought them back in time in the best of form. The coincidence of rapid industrial change with a generation of war, 1793-1815, left its mark on every part of Britain. In Somerset it gave a fillip to agrarian revolution. War conditions made it profitable to bring under the plough land hitherto below the margin of profitable cultivation, and the urban demand for meat led to the enclosure for stock raising of land hitherto open. But the labourer's standard was not high. Wessex was a region of low wages and generous (customary) allowances. The Tolpuddle Martyrs of 1834 incurred transportation for having the audacity to form a trade union to resist the reduction of their weekly cash wage from 75. to 6s. The West Country of England had one county that was altogether inland—Wilts, and a second that was very nearly so—Gloster. In seventeenth century England Wiltshire with Gloucestershire and Somersetshire in its rear was the chief industrial region not merely of Wessex but of all England. Its famous woollen industry survives in select places still, but in Bradford-on-Avon, an ancient centre, it is no more. Only the churches and great stone mansions on the terraced escarpment of this most beautiful town remain as evidence of the "golden fleece" that built them. Centuries ago trains of pack horses took the broad cloth to London by road for sale to factors in Blackwell Hall, who passed them on to merchant adventurers for export to the Continent. The metropolitan tie is still present, but the commodity is liquid milk moving in tank cars by road or rail; and as a side speciality, Wiltshire bacon, the staple product of modern Calne, which came in this curious way. Came was a stage on the road by which Irish pigs were driven to the London market. When the famine of 1846 cut out Irish supplies, the Harris brothers went to America and learning there the art of modern curing with the aid of ice, took out an English patent for it, and on this built up their famous business. Famous, too, are the cultural associations of this inland county— Bowood, where Priestley discovered oxygen: Lacock Abbey, once a nunnery, and later the manor house of the Fox Talbots, where

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W. H. Fox Talbot of Cambridge University invented modern photography; Corsham Court, the home of the rich clothier Paul Methuen and his son John who negotiated the Methuen Treaty of 1703 with Portugal: Hardenhuish Church with its cenotaph to David Ricardo: Sloperton Cottage where Thomas Moore wrote his Irish Melodies: George Crabbe's rectory at Trowbridge1—where else would you find so close together so rich a cultural feast ? For our immediate purpose it is sufficient to note that the ports of the West Country could never lack export goods of a quality order—from Exeter serges to Grandfather clocks. Now, by long established rule, necessaries for the fisheries were free of duty. But what were necessaries—ladies' stockings, straw hats, wax candles, time keepers? The decision of these delicate points caused Poole and St. John's many a headache. 1 George Crabbe, 1754-1831, of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, author of The Village and other poems. In 1814 he went to Trowbridge, where the rest of his life was spent. Edmund Burke was his patron and good friend.

CHAPTER TWO

SOUTH DEVON AND THE NEWMAN RECORDS EXETER AND DARTMOUTH: The Devonshire volume (economic and social) of the Victoria County History has yet to be written. South Devon is the southwest of the West Country; and here one half at least of the Newfoundland story was enacted (most of the balance belonging to Poole). Fortunately we can supplement the Customs Records of Poole, Dorset, from those of Plymouth, Exeter and Dartmouth, and we also have the business papers of the Newman firm and the excellent history of Dartmouth by Percy Russell (Batsford, 1950). Plymouth was a naval headquarters; and on the supremacy of the Royal Navy, from the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 onwards, the trade and fishery of Newfoundland depended. Sir Bernard Drake by falling on the Spanish fishing fleet off Newfoundland (1585) made the English, who had got off to a slow start, masters of the harbour of St. John's. In the Napoleonic War the suburb of Dock grew into the great shipbuilding centre of Devonport and was incorporated eventually with the parent which it had outgrown. Plymouth, like Portsmouth, was important to Newfoundland because it was a seat of naval power; and the Navy provided the convoys. Exeter and Dartmouth were interested as merchants in the Newfoundland trade. Indeed it was this which brought them wealth and reputation. Exeter in addition was the centre of the serge trade (serge meaning a durable cloth with warp of long wool and weft of short wool). Teignmouth, an outpost of Exeter, midway between Exeter and Dartmouth, was like Dartmouth concerned primarily with maritime trade and the fishery. Dartmouth has a deep fiord-like estuary, with a good sheltered harbour and no bar. From it sailed Richard I's flotilla of no vessels on his Crusade, and later the first English ship to East India. At Dartmouth the Mayflower put in for refreshment on her way to Boston. It was a famous harbour of refuge and by the same token the stronghold of a famous fourteenth century buccaneer, John Hawley. The Customs Records are full of references to British or foreign ships that were wrecked on the coast or took refuge in the 13

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

harbour. The Newfoundland trade is no more, but for compensation Dartmouth has the Royal Naval College, and on D-day in the flotilla that sailed from here and hereabout for the beaches of Normandy there was many a Newfoundland skipper. Dartmouth's first fishery was the pilchard, and in the days when England held Aquitaine the merchants of Dartmouth exchanged their fish for the wine of Bordeaux. The first cod was obtained from Iceland, and the cod fishery then was based on East Coast ports. But with the discovery of Newfoundland the West Country came into its own. 1580-1640 was an era of high prosperity, when the harbour of Dartmouth was deepened, quays built, churches enlarged and noble merchants' houses erected. Dartmouth and Exeter were influential in mercantile policy, being themselves early examples of merchant capitalism. The West Country, with its high parliamentary representation, was at the height of its power around 1700. By an Act of 1698 the Newfoundland trade was regulated in accordance with the wishes of the Western Adventurers—"by West and by law"; and in the same year the Irish woollen industry was sacrificed to that of the West Country—Irish wool could be exported to England only, while its woollens were excluded by a prohibitive tariff. In time Exeter's interest in the Newfoundland trade became secondary to a growing coastal trade, especially in coal, which came at first from Wales and Newcastle; later, mostly, from Liverpool and Sunderland. Its cloth industry brought contacts with Holland and Germany. There was a profitable two-way trade in English woollens and German linens. The Barings came from Hamburg to settle in Exeter and their descendant, Sir Francis Baring, became the first merchant of London. From the woollen trade came the first local bankers. But by 1800 as a manufacturing centre Exeter was losing ground to East Anglia (Norwich) and the West Riding of Yorkshire. Dartmouth's merchant capitalism was maritime. Moreover, the Newfoundland trade was free to all; and this offered a premium to industrial enterprise. It was a true nursery of seamen and marketing adventure. Its citizens explored and invented. It was proud to number among its great ones John Davis, the discoverer of Davis Straits, and Thomas Newcomen, the inventor of the fire-engine and predecessor of James Watt. By trade the West Country, with Dartmouth at its head, erected a great triangle of ocean commerce —salt, wines and fruits from Latin Europe to England: ships with

SOUTH DEVON AND THE NEWMAN RECORDS

15

personnel and materials (calling at South Ireland for a part of their supplies) to Newfoundland: fish to the West Indies, Brazil, Spain and Portugal and the Mediterranean: oil and skins direct to England. There was no company monopoly. Its place was taken by the trading community acting through the corporation of the town. The town controlled the parliamentary representation; and merchants, not land-owners, controlled the town. Families like the Roopes, Hunts, Newmans, Holdsworths intermarried. The corporation was virtually a perquisite of the Holdsworth family from 1700 to the era of municipal reform (1835). The second Arthur Holdsworth, born 1668, was the recipient of a famous trophy, the Holdsworth Punch Bowl, with its motto "Prosperity to hooks and lines." He was for long "admiral of the fishermen" at St. John's— the last and most powerful of the fishing admirals. Theoretically the first-comer was admiral, but in fact the lot fell year by year to the representative of this veteran. For he controlled the town authorities to whom appeals from the admiral lay; and so year after year he sent out fishing ships and fishermen for whom he secured the handiest rooms and beaches. It was only when French expansion threatened the safety of the fishery that the need of a royal governor, himself an admiral of the Royal Navy, was recognized. THE NEWMAN FAMILY. For over 300 years, say from 1604, when John Newman bought train oil from the fishing ships for sale to London, down to 1907 when the fishing establishments in Newfoundland were sold, the Newmans played a leading part in the trade: especially "to the Westward," as the South Coast of Newfoundland was designated.1 Thomas Newman, 1740-1802, assisted by Robert Newman and William Newman, made the fortunes of the firm. In the parliamentary enquiry of 1793 William Newman was recognised as the doyen of the trade. The family had interests in Dartmouth, London, Oporto and St. John's; and as partners changed, the style of the several businesses was altered. Thus Thomas's son, Sir Robert William Newman (1776-1848), first baronet and M.P. for Exeter, was a partner in Newman, Hunt & Co., London: in Hunt, Roope, 1 J. Oldmixon in British Empire in America, 2 vols., 1708, says in his preface, p. ix, "To begin with the History of Newfoundland, all the Account of its Trade and Present State was communicated to him by Mr. Newman, lately a servant to His Grace the Duke of Somerset, who dwelt there as a merchant several years."

l6

LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

Teage & Co., Oporto: and in Newman & Co., Newfoundland. In the next three generations came: T. H. Newman, 1825-1894. R. L. Newman, 1865-1937 (director of the Bank of England, 1896-1936). And the present representatives: Sir Ralph Alured Newman, 1902-, and his brother Mr. Thomas Newman, 1906-. I was privileged in March, 1953, to spend some days, studying the firm's records both in the London office, now n Eastcheap, E.C.3, and in Sir Ralph's London residence, 36 Wilton Crescent, S.W.I. But before dealing with these, two things must be made clear. (1) The style of the firm. The periodic changes of name, and the relation of one part of the business to the others, as they are puzzling to the historian, so they were puzzling to contemporaries. Thus in December, 1894, the London Office writes to a St. John's correspondent: "Please take note in case of future mutual transactions that our firm in London is Newman, Hunt & Co.: in Newfoundland Newman & Co., and in Oporto Hunt, Roope, Teage & Co." And to their new agents, Baine Johnston, they write at the same time: "We wish to keep two accounts as stated: 1. Newman, Hunt & Co. comprise everything connected with our business at the Westward and with the stock of wines in St. John's, but you must be careful not to confuse our stock of wines with those of Hunt, Roope, Teage, as the latter are not for sale at St. John's. 2. R. L. Newman's account will comprise all buildings and rent charges, connected with any and all buildings in St. John's." (2) The matter of port wine.1 Mr. Tom Newman, whose early training was in Portugal, has obliged me with a short report on the Shipping of Port Wine from Oporto to Newfoundland:— There are two types of Port Wine in Portugal, viz.: (a) Port Wine from the Wood, which is a blend of different years. (b) Port of a Vintage year, which is shipped two years after the Vintage. 1 Cf. McCrae, Lost Amid the Fogs, p. 271. "If tha's a', banker, I'll send ye a turkey and a dozen of port" said the Governor; "some of that cask Walter Grieve imported for us. It's vera fine?"

SOUTH DEVON AND THE NEWMAN RECORDS

17

With regard to (a). The older vintage years are refreshed in cask with a younger wine, to give the older wine body and something to "feed" on. A wine say 15 years old is refreshed with a 14-year-old wine, and a 12-year-old wine is refreshed with an n-year-old wine, etc. This is the sequence. Old wine is never refreshed with a very young wine. In olden times, Port Wine was shipped as ballast in sailing vessels across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, and was there bartered for Cod (Bacalhau). It was found that the shipping across the Atlantic had a very beneficial effect on the wine. The rolling of the vessel blended the wine very well, and made the different blends very "married" into one wine. It was also found that the climate in Newfoundland had a very beneficial effect on the wine, and gave it a very special flavour and character. Hence this wine was shipped to England and became very popular as a high-class wine in English clubs and amongst the Aristocracy, and was known as "Hunt's Port Matured in Newfoundland." The wine was shipped to a Bond either at Harbour Breton or St. John's, Newfoundland, the latter is still in existence, and the practice of shipping wine from Oporto to St. John's is still carried on to-day. The wine stays in Bond in St. John's for four years, and is then shipped to England, where it has great popularity.1 THE NEWMAN RECORDS. Except for 1809, the extracts which follow are from the Newfoundland Letter Books, i.e., Letters from the London House to Newfoundland. These run to several million words, and they are but part of a much bigger collection of General Letter Books, Cash Books, Ledgers, etc. There can surely be no other firm in Great Britain with such full and continuous records yielding, as they do, a unique insight into the working of the business mind over a long period of time. The firm's monograph, prepared for the Festival of Britain, 1951, gives the following foundation years: 1679. Dartmouth House. 1700. Newfoundland House, Newman & Co. T 735- Oporto House, Holdsworth, Olive & Newman. 1782. London House, Newman, Hunt & Co. 1 Hence the lettering R.L.N. (Robert Lydston Newman) on the metal boundary mark at the corner of the Liquor Control Board's store on Water Street. For this was once the agent's house, and next door to it is the Bonded Warehouse, where the port matures.

l8

LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

WAR TRADE.

EXTRACTS FROM THE RECORDS

1794.

"This country is drained of all kinds of cattle for the Navy at Plymouth and large Fleets so continually at Torbay." "The French cruisers are making great havoc to the Westward.1

1808.

"We have account from Spain of the Northern Provinces being in arms against the French. If it becomes general and they keep their ground, we shall give all the assistance by sea that can be done, and their success will give a sudden turn to the trade of Newfoundland."

1809. LETTERS TO OPORTO. Jan. "The disastrous news of this day from Spain makes us hope you will have attended the directions to sell for ready money, even if obliged to make a considerable sacrifice to obtain it." British residents, fearing disaster, are offering high rates for evacuation of their property. "Tho" we have reasons to credit a report that Sir John Moore has written to his particular friend that at some particular passes he should retire to in Galicia he will defy Bonaparte, still we hear Portugal is in a critical condition. . . . If you have to quit, bring a parcel of good wine." May. "If Sir Wellesley and the British troops are gone against Soult, I have little doubt they will free Porto from the French. While our troops remain in Portugal, exchange will naturally be high: when they are removed, it will go down again." Nov. "If troops are sent over from England and the Portuguese armies kept up, they will use much wine and brandy in Portugal."

From this point onwards the letters are to Newfoundland.

1812. Aug.

"The Americans have formally declared war, but we flatter ourselves it will cease when they receive the news of the Orders in Council being revoked."

1813. April

"An order goes out by the Admiral to sell all the American prizes at St. John's, and we think you may be able to purchase a good vessel or two for us there. On no account buy a low-built vessel, as they do not answer." Nov. 3 "We have great news to-day from Saxony. The allies beat the French and on the igth stormed Leipsic. . . . Bonaparte saved himself by flight."

1

Torbay and the Westward here refer to England.

SOUTH DEVON AND THE NEWMAN RECORDS

IQ

1814.

June

Announcing return of St. Pierre and Miquelon to the French. "All idea of our having a small store to the N. of Cape Ray must of course be given up and we must leave it to your judgment whether it will be prudent to build a small store at Port aux Basques or other place in that neighbourhood. At present there are not sufficient inhabitants along that coast to make it worthy of our attention, but if the people who are now to the N. of Cape Ray are obliged to leave their habitations, they probably may come to places to the East of Cape Ray and settle there if they are assured of having a store from where they can be supplied with goods and that we will take their fish, etc., in return."

1815. April

"The landing of Bonaparte in France and being joined by the army has thrown everything into confusion again. All the powers of Europe are again preparing for war; and provisions, freight and insurance are again advancing very much. Therefore everything will be high that is sent to Newfoundland." June 23 "We have this day accounts from Lord Wellington who with Blucher has had a sanguinary conflict with the French army commanded by Bonaparte in person, who was defeated with the loss of upwards of 200 pieces of cannon and part of Bonaparte's luggage. . . . We think he will soon be done up now."

YOUNGSTERS. 1813. "We have agreed with a young man at Dartmouth as a clerk for 3 years, to the 15 November, 1816, at the salary of ^35, ^40 and £60 and his passage home at the expiration of the term if he returns in one of our ships." 1814. "We shall be glad to send out English youngsters, if we can get them, which we could not do last year. If we have peace with America we may probably be able to get some next year, as men will be wanted neither for the Navy or Army as they have been hitherto." "The vessel that loads with oil this year for England should . . . likewise bring the men who are to come to this neighbourhood, as there is a difficulty in getting men to go out if they have no opportunity of getting home without going to St. John's. One vessel must suffice both for Little Bay [Fortune] and St. Lawrence [Burin]." 1815.

"We have desired between 60 and 70 youngsters to be sent from Waterford in the Resolution. Mr. Thorn wants 20, including a master of voyage, a mason, and 2 youngster

2O

LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

coopers for St. Jervis; and if we do not get English youngsters enough, some Irish will be wanted."1 TECHNIQUE or THE FISHERY. 1812. "The roes should be broken to pieces into a tub with water and stirred round with a stick till every particle or pea be separated from each other, and thrown by degrees into the sea, where you wish the bait to come. The roes will sink gradually, some faster than others, till it gets to the small fish that you want for bait, and they will come up to the surface in search of it, and probably get into the net set for them." 1813. Good salmon and cod in St. George's Bay. "To manage a salmon fishery we understand a cooper and one or two men is sufficient for each brook; and when salmon is plenty, they can catch cure and pack a large quantity in a short time, and by having people on the spot we might secure the cod caught by the planters in the neighbourhood." 1814. "During the winter you will have time to pack and screw the fish properly. The casks should be proper fish casks and not old molasses, hogsheads, etc., as when fish goes in old dirty casks, the people will not buy it. You should have casks of different sizes—for convenience of storage." 1815. "In the curing of salmon with common salt, planters should let it lay about 10 days in bulk and then have every fish washed clear and all the fat or slush taken off with a soft brush, which will prevent its turning rusty, which is the general complaint of what has been shipped from Fortune Bay." CREDIT TRADING. 1806. "It is chiefly in the fall it [payment for fish in goods] can be done. In the spring any planters having fish would rather sell at 20 per cent, less for bills and their summer supplies on credit." 1815. "It is not our wish to ship goods for people in Newfoundland, unless the money is remitted beforehand, because we purchase almost everything at ready money, and for the tea and West India goods we purchase at the sales at the India House a 1 The despatch of youngsters was a highly organised business. The firm had collecting stations at Sherborne, Crewkerne and Newton Abbot, the agents getting so much a head. The youths (normally) signed on for two summers and a winter. In Newfoundland they either worked on the premises of Newman & Co., where they boarded, or they were handed on to master fishermen, "planters," to help work their boats. Many such boys married planters' daughters. The service rendered by Newman's youngsters on board the Shannon in her action against the Chesapeake in Boston Harbour (1813) was rewarded by the grant to the firm of permission to fly henceforth the White Ensign from its establishments in Newfoundland.

21

SOUTH DEVON AND THE NEWMAN RECORDS

great part is always paid at the time of the sale and the remainder before we can receive the goods." 1816. [Post-war]. "We have heard the sentiments of most of the Houses at Poole and other places, particularly of all those who carry on the trade to the Westward, and they are all determined to give strict orders to their agents not to supply the planters unless they will submit to different regulations from what they have been accustomed to of late years. The price for fish taken in payment for goods must be at least 2s. per quintal under the general price at St. John's, for this difference will scarcely pay for the expense of collecting and the risk, and no bills are to be given in future except for balance of payments, unless they will allow 33. per qtl for all fish for which bills are given. If the planters object to this, they may carry their surplus fish to St. John's after paying for their supplies from the house, for no house is now anxious for fish, as the more fish they have, the more money they may lose by it, unless the price be very low indeed. Most of the bills that are given to planters are sent to England to purchase shop goods, etc., to the great detriment of the merchants who are at great expense in keeping up their establishments for the purpose of supplying the planters, and therefore, if the planters will have bills, they must make a great abatement in the price of the fish to compensate for it to the merchants. Many of the merchants say they will not give bills at all, for if the planters will not give them the fish and let the amount lay over to provide for losses that may happen in a future year to the planters, they will not take their fish at all, after receiving sufficient to pay for the supplies taken up by them. Directions must likewise be given to those who collect the fish to be very strict in the culling. We must be fully as strict as the sworn cullers at St. John's, in order to diminish the quantity of refuse at the markets abroad, which of late has been very great." PREPARING FOR BAD TIMES. 1824. To agents at St. Lawrence and Harbour Breton. "With fish low and pork high, it is essential to practice greater economy. The times promise badly for Newfoundland, and we recommend you to look to yourself in all respects, or you will soon find that the fishery will prove a very poor livelihood. Europe is settled into peace. The high duties in Spain are again exacted, and bad times are in prospect for the Newfoundland trade. Poole merchants give positive orders

c

22

LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

to their agents and partners in Placentia Bay to assent to only low prices for fish and oil, and to reduce the rate of wages. You must economise." To Messrs. Harrison Slade & Co., Poole. "We have written to Dartmouth to request some memorial to Mr. Canning may be got up respecting the Spanish decree, and to desire the Teignmouth merchants may be requested to do the same—letting their Masters be deputed to present the memorial. We think it highly proper that Mr. Canning should have the matter impressed on him but we doubt that any beneficial result will emerge from the Spanish Government." 1833. Harbour Breton now the principal establishment "to the Westward." Fire Engine. "We are sending out the fire engine. There should be a place near the water appropriated entirely for the engine, so that it may always be wheeled in and out of it at a moment's warning. The hose should be kept in the same place. In the winter there should be a hole always kept open in the ice." Routing of produce. "The Micmac is ordered home direct from W. India. Therefore the Westward must look to St. John's for rum and molasses. Our own vessels' catch [of seal] at the ice will be the limit of what we should feel inclined to invest in oil." Clergyman for Fortune! "If the clergyman be not an unexceptionable person in his morals, he might be a curse instead of a comfort to the inhabitants." 1839-42. Correspondence is now moving by steamshipt e.g., Aug., 1840, per s.s. Britannia via New York. INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCES. 1839. The prices of tea are rising in consequence of the trade being interrupted with China. 1840. Whale oil is very low in consequence of great shipments from South Australia. TRADERS AND PLANTERS. 1. "The St. John's merchants coming round to Fortune Bay and the neighbourhood proves that they are not satisfied with their own trade where they are already settled, but they will soon find it is not better in one part of Newfoundland than in another." 2. "Traders must take all their supplies from us and deliver us all their fish. The planters are the persons with whom it is our interest to trade, and therefore in all cases, when their interest differs, the planter is the person to be most considered. If stocks are low, you must not supply the trader till the planter is provided for."

SOUTH DEVON AND THE NEWMAN RECORDS

3.

4. 5. 6.

7.

23

"If you have to meet competition by reductions, proceed with caution—for the purpose of satisfying and conciliating the planters, and to prove to the traders that they will have little chance of carrying on a profitable business." "We send you better stuff than what goes to St. John's. A really useful and durable article is the cheaper to the planters in the end." "Only supply local traders, and then merely to prevent actual want." "Opening fish prices don't last long. As the year's collection proceeds, the prices are frequently reduced to a very low figure, and some of the W. India produce is often as low as 53. or 6s. per qtl." "Traders, if supplied from any other house, are not protected from paying their debts, as the old principle of the current suppliers being secured first does not now prevail."

1846-50. The Newman interest in Newfoundland comprises now:— 1. "The Westward"—with 3 establishments, Harbour Breton: Gaultois: Burgeo. 2. Wine cellars and trading premises at St. John's. 3. "Newman's Plantations" at St. John's: a landholding body, seeking to let land "to respectable mercantile establishments"— very prominent after the Fire of 1846. THE GREAT FIRE OF 1846. 1846. July 4 To the Westward. "You will of course have heard of the fire at St. John's by which almost the whole town has been destroyed. It is a result which every person must deplore for the sake of those who have suffered thus. But as regards our business at the Westward, the effect must be to prevent the St. John's people attempting to interfere with us, and we think it will be particularly felt by those in St. John's who were most disposed to supply traders at the Westward." 1846.

July 18 To St. John's. "We have received Mr. Morris's letter of the 23rd ulto. containing an account of the manner in which the fire was stopped at our premises and have to thank him for his great exertions on the occasion, of the importance of which we are now sensible." "The owners of Newman's Plantations have not yet determined whether to build or let on building leases."

24

LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

SHARING THE MARKET. Agreement reached between Newman Hunt & Co. of London and P. Nicolle of Jersey.1 Their agents at Burgeo and La Poile are to abstain from hostile competition. They should be "on friendly and visiting terms," and should not "interfere with each other's planters." PARTICIPATION IN THE SEAL FISHERY. "Our object in fitting out sealers from the Westward is to give additional and profitable employment to people who deal at our stores, instead of annually hiring strangers at St. John's and if we should find that after paying the ship's expenses, the crew can earn a few pounds at the ice, we shall not object to encourage this fishery to a reasonable extent both to the Western and Eastern Ice." "No objection to some of the unemployed on our own rooms joining the sealing crews. During the sealing trip they ought not to be on wages, but on shares. Otherwise there will be slackness and discontent. Pale seal oil is £28 per ton: the loss from the Fire and the failure of the Greenland Fishery has not yet raised the market." ' 'See that our men get away by March i. One vessel at least should force north to get as near the large body of seals as possible and intercept them on their passage down, where the Channel is narrow. As the Western Coast has not been explored during the winter and it is now probable that seals may abound there, we have no objection to your sending one of the small craft, with a small crew, round to St. John's Island [P.E. I] before the ice sets in; and if you think there is any way of their being as profitably employed as they would be in the Bay of Despair, to make what observations they can on the numbers and habits of the seals and the state of the ice during the winter. Shelter in some safe spot. Preliminary returns of last sealing shew that crews got 8 guineas each, and the merchants who ran the whole risk and found the ship and outfit, are left with a heavy loss on the portion brought by the crew as well as on their own share. You ask 1 The Channel Islands played a great part in Newfoundland history. From E. C. Saunders' Jersey Before and After the Norman Conquest, I take the following:— Bonavista was first called Primavista, and later named Bonavista after a Cape Verde island. From the early sixteenth century Jersey men participated in the Newfoundland fishery, at first in French vessels. Later they built their own. Havre Grace, Conception Bay, St. John's, Bay Bull and Fortune Bay were headquarters of the Jersey fishermen. But although the inhabitants of the Channel Islands were intimately connected with the Newfoundland fishery and many of the present-day inhabitants must be descended from Channel Islanders, few were prominent in the building up of the colony. Many of the French place names (outside of Placentia Bay) were given by the Channel Islanders. In the eighteenth century, being under suspicion of illicit trade, they had to fight hard for equality of fiscal treatment; and it was not till 1787 that their shipping was granted the same rights as shipping registered in Great Britain. The late W. A. Munn, of Harbour Grace and St. John's, in various papers testified to the range and importance of Jersey settlers in Newfoundland.

SOUTH DEVON AND THE NEWMAN RECORDS

25

why we can't pay the same for seals as St. John's. Answer:—The St. John's merchants for the most part fit out vessels belonging to the planters, just as you used to do the traders in Fortune Bay—but as the voyage to the ice is very hazardous, they charge the planters very high prices for every article of outfit and are consequently able to pay a corresponding advance of price for the seals. Frequently these vessels, ill found and hardly sea-worthy, are the joint property of entire families who with the sons and servants make up a large portion of the sealing crew; and yet with all their economy and joint labour, a couple of bad seasons suffice to ruin them, and then the merchant takes the vessel as his debt and sells her to another, who in his turn shares a similar fate. This was the fate of all those that were supplied till we entirely abandoned the system and the Black Prince was forced on us at nearly double her worth to liquidate a bad debt of this sort. . . . If the fishery cannot be followed on terms of mutual interest we will sell our sealers and have done with it." This was written in 1846. In February, 1850, we read: "The unfortunate Black Prince after being within a degree of St. John's bore up and came to anchor at the entrance to Milford Haven [S. Wales], when she drove from her anchor in a very heavy gale and was totally wrecked. About one half of the cargo of wine has been saved. We have desired Messrs. Hunt, Roope, Teage & Co. to make you another shipment of about 20 pipes at the first opportunity." THE LABOUCHERE DESPATCH. 1857 was a notable year in two ways, a year of commercial crisis in England and America, and of constitutional triumph in Newfoundland. 1. Nov. 6, 1857. "The commercial difficulties in America and this country have not diminished, but there have not yet been so many failures as might be expected. In America . . . it will be some years before they will regain the prosperity which they appeared to enjoy before, but which was not so real as it appeared." 2. Despatch from the Colonial Secretary, Henry Labouchere, stating that: "The proposals contained in the Convention [between Great Britain and France] having been now unequivocally refused by the Colony, they will of course fall to the ground. . . . The consent of the community of Newfoundland is regarded by H.M.'s Government as the essential preliminary to any modification of their territorial or maritime rights." London had strongly supported St. John's. March 25, 1857. To President of Chamber of Commerce, St. John's, Newfoundland. "Since the publication of the Convention between H.M. and the Emperor of the French relative to the Rights of Fishery at the Coast of Newfoundland, we have not failed to give the several

26

LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

articles of the Convention the fullest consideration and we are unanimous in opinion that British interests are so seriously affected by the proposed convention that the passing of the same into law should be firmly resisted. We take the earliest opportunity to assure you and all other members of the Commercial Society that we are prepared to co-operate with you in any manner in our power, to prevent the proposed convention being passed into law." Newman Hunt & Co. T. H. Brooking & Co. Charles Holmwood. Hunt & Henley. March 27, 1857. To Newman & Co., Newfoundland. "We were most surprised to hear of the Convention with France which we extremely regret. As, however, the consent of the Newfoundland Legislature appears to be required to give it validity, we hope the Government of Newfoundland will have sufficient firmness to resist it in the most decisive manner." 1872-8. Messrs. J. & W. Stewart are now their St. John's Agents; and some of the letters are to them, e.g.: (i) "In a former letter we told you of the sale of Jersey Harbour to Clement & Co." (ii) "We are glad to hear your government has signed a contract with Sir Hugh Allan [founder of the Allan Line] to give you communication with this country which will be a great boon to the people of St. John's, tho' of little use to us." (iii) Purchase of coals from Sydney, Nova Scotia, approved. "You will of course not allow the Steam Coal sent out of Wales to be used for any other purpose." But the majority are to the Westward, though passing perhaps through St. John's. (iv) "We have ordered the women's and children's boots and shoes from Messrs. Thomas of London. With regard to the salmon, we have no objection to your giving the St. John's price for it, as we do not think it is desirable that traders should be encouraged to traffic with our planters." (v) 1872 prices of wood and iron soaring, 1873 prices breaking. Serious bank failures in J ersey. "All merchants there rely ing on assistance from the banks will have to curtail their trade, particularly in Newfoundland where the money is so long coming round." (vi) From time to time lists of planters (half a dozen names or so) having credit balances with the firm—amount of each, and interest due.

SOUTH DEVON AND THE NEWMAN RECORDS

27

(vii) "We have often written you respecting the planters who spend their time in taking herrings to the French instead of catching fish, with which to pay for the goods they take up at our stores for the winter's consumption. . . . If they are planters with independent means in our hands of course we shall not surfer, but if we handled goods on credit, we run the risk of not being paid. If they catch herrings by the assistance we give them, they should pay us with the proceeds of their sale in St. Peter's." (viii) Sept., 1876. Newman & Co. shipping 13,000 qtls. viz.:—by Retriever to Brazil 3,200 Chanticleer to Oporto 3,000 Terrier to Oporto 3,000 Beagle to Brazil 2,400 "and a West Indian cargo next spring." (ix) "We think it a very unjust and arbitrary act to tax unproductive land, and unfair advantage taken of the absence of the owners. The thin end of the wedge having been introduced, it is impossible to say to what extent it may be driven. Has the act received the sanction of the home government ?" (x) Diptheria in Gaultois, owing to bad sanitation. (xi) 1878. "The fisheries the last years have certainly been bad, but previously to 1875 good, and yet debts then increased, instead of old ones being paid off. Although the quantity of fish caught has been a third less than it was, the price has been doubled and a great many of the goods are cheaper than they were: we do not understand how the planters have increased their debts so enormously Business in Newfoundland cannot be continued much longer, if carried on as you have been doing it of late years." (xii) "We quite approve of your only dealing with the Indians on barter" [Micmac Indians in Bay d'Espoir]. 1889-1894. 1892, April. "Price you should offer for fish per quintal: $ Large, over 24 inches .. 4^50 Medium .. .. .. 4-00 Brazil and W. Indies .. 3-00 Madeira .. .. .. 3-50 Haddock 2-80" (The. dollar is now the unit of account.) THE FIRE OF 1892. To Newman & Co., Newfoundland. July 19. "We were very sorry to hear of the disastrous fire in St. John's. Fortunately the Messrs. Newmans' property in Water St. was partially insured."

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

To J. H. Stewart (Agent, St. John's). Aug. 2. Awaiting a full report of the present and future of the Messrs. T. H. & A. Newman's property in Water St.1 "We hear Mr. Ayre is now in this country and Mr. Knowling is expected by the same boat. We are sorry to hear they are heavy losers by the fire from not having been insured." Aug. 16. To the same. "The Imperial will pay on this side when our claim has been established. We quite understand that with telegraph and steam communication supplies from all quarters were quickly poured in. Our wine, we are quite aware, is not insured, but we think the risk is small where it is." To Newman & Co., Newfoundland. "The disastrous fire of St. John's leads us to remind our agents of the dangers of fire at our establishments and to warn them to take every precaution possible to prevent a like occurrence, involving not only our people but also the planters; and we think notices should be put up against the careless use of matches which are a common source of danger, as seen by the fire at St. John's. You should also frequently have the engines out to see that they and the hose are in good working order, and practice the men in handling them quickly, as their utility depends on efficiency all round—as well as the available water supply." 1894: THE "YEAR OF THE CRASH." Death of T. H. Newman, senior partner: "We may mention that he had virtually handed over the management of his St. John's Estates as well as other business to Messrs. Baine Johnston of your city"2 upon the retirement of Messrs. Stewart, the former agents. And to their new agents they write: "How many pipes of wine in the Lodge at St. John's belong to T.H.N. ?" As to insurance on the bond store "we expect the lowest rate, as in the event of fire we do not imagine for one moment that the wine inside the stone vault will be injured." To Baine Johnston & Co., St. John's. Nov., 1894. "We hear from Oporto that Messrs. Hunt, Roope, Teage & Co. have shipped 15 pipes of port to your address. . . . As this Newfoundland port business is going well and likely to be a success, we are desirous of starting a bonded warehouse in Harbor Briton. There is a Custom House Officer there. . . . As our own vessels come direct home and as often as not to London it seems a pity we should not be able to utilise them to bring back 1 On Duckworth Street, a few paces beyond Devon House and Canadian Red Cross H.Q., one can see the dark red property post of "T.H. & A.N." •Established in Greenock, Scotland. Prior to 1780 in name of Lang, Baine & Co.: c. 1780 branch opened at Port de Grave, Newfoundland: 1801 head office moved to St. John's. A letter from P.M.G., London, November 21, 1856, to Colonial Secretary, Newfoundland, states that a box containing the first Newfoundland postage stamps had been sent to Baine, Johnston & Co.

SOUTH DEVON AND THE NEWMAN RECORDS

2Q

our wine and save all sorts of landing and shipping expenses at St. John's." "It must be a store where the action of the frost must be felt, and the windows continually open, as the cold has a great beneficial effect on the wine. We would suggest that the best place would be in the old engine room of the dryer, and with the windows open to the westward would afford plenty of air and cold to get in." After some demur the H.B. bonding warehouse was sanctioned by the Government. The "crash" came as a bolt from the blue on "Black Monday," December 10, 1894. It was precipitated by the failure of Prowse, Hall and Morris, the London agents of leading Newfoundland firms exporting fish to European markets. Dec. 12, 1894. To Baine Johnston & Co., St. John's. "Of course you telegraphed to our Western firms the closing of the Commercial & Union Banks, in order to prevent them taking useless paper. We have sent you a telegram asking about Ayre & Knowling [the answer was 'are safe']. Let us know what you can regarding the present position of affairs in St. John's and the damage done by the commercial crisis." "We request that you will keep on our agency for the present at any rate, with the hope that when you have re-organised your affairs, you will find you are still able to continue the business." "To-day we have sent you a wire saying that you are not to accept as payment either Commercial or Union Bank notes, as we are sorry to hear that both of these banks have failed and have brought to the ground several of the leading houses in St. John's. . . . We hope that you will get off the Retriever as soon as possible, as later on there are sure to be forced sales of fish, poured into European markets, probably sacrificed to raise cash." To Hon. A. W. Harvey, St. John's. Dec. 21, 1894. "We much regret to hear of the failure of several of our old friends at St. John's, and hope that, when their affairs have been sifted, matters will not turn out as badly as anticipated. We also think that the present crisis may clear the atmosphere and deal a death blow to the insane but unavoidable credit system that has been sapping the vitality of the Colony for generations. We were glad to hear the reports of your own firm proved absolutely unfounded." Jan. 14, 1895. To Newman & Co., Newfoundland. Union notes guaranteed by Government at 80 cents per $. The current rates Commercial notes guaranteed by Govern- of their exchange. ment at 20 cents per $. "Any moneys that are paid to us will be on this basis. Anyhow, collect all the Union Bank notes you can, and send to B-J. to be stamped at the Savings Bank in our names.

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NEWFOUNDLAND

In taking bills in the stores, it is better to get unstamped bills than stamped ones, and give away in change stamped bills, as the Union Bank are expected to pay in full, and giving 80 cents for their bills and sending them to St. John's to be registered in Newman & Co.'s name will show a profit of some 20% when they are redeemed. The less you have to do with Commercial notes the better. Bank of Montreal notes can be taken at par. We hear that Messrs. Job have offered 6s. 8d. in the £ and that it has been accepted." Same date. To Baine Johnston. "We owe the Bank (Union Bank) so many dollars and we will pay in dollars at the current rate at present 80 cents for the $ and no more, and we must stick out for this. Exchange is a big and very complicated thing, and for any one to say that the Newfoundland Government can fix the value of bank notes, when everyone here knows that the financial state of the Colony itself is in a most desperate state, is perfect nonsense. No doubt you have kept our Western firms fully posted as to the situation and have advised them that the Colony has guaranteed at 80 and 20% for Union and Commercial notes (not that we have the least faith in the guarantee), but at the same time we presume something had to be done to remove the deadlock. We foresee most hideous complications over the registering of notes at the Savings Bank. When you receive any monies for us, we think you had better open an account at the Bank of Montreal, who will no doubt take Union and Commercial bank notes at their respective values—but get them registered in our names first." March 7, 1895. To Newman & Co., Newfoundland. "Situation at St. John's is somewhat easier and trade slightly better, and we are glad to say that Messrs. B.-J. & Job start business again on the no-credit system." Oct., 1895. To Newman & Co., Newfoundland. "We think that Mr. R. and Mr. G. [their local agents] both ought to go round oftener and see the planters personally and talk with them and come to arrangements with them that they should bring their fish to the rooms. Business nowadays is greatly personal, and we think that if both agents were to go, say two or three times a year, round their respective bays, it would be advantageous. If you find any smuggling on our part of the coast do not hesitate to give all help and assistance [to the authorities]. We'll back you up through thick and thin to stop the nefarious trade, which we have no doubt accounts in a great measure for the traders being able to undersell us in the way they do." The Newman Records rank as No. i of Newfoundland material in England, and I am pleased to report that this material is available now in micro-film in Ottawa and St. John's.

CHAPTER THREE

JOB'S, BOWRING'S AND FURNESS WITHY It is not my purpose to present the history of Job's and Bowling's in detail, for they were St. John's houses and St. John's is a central thread in my story. Accordingly there are numerous references to them in the chapters dealing with the Seal Fishery, the Chamber of Commerce, Fires and Fire Insurance,, and the fight for representative government under William Carson. I limit myself here to their origin and their continuing activities in Great Britain and Newfoundland. To-day, 1953, the senior representative of Job Bros. & Co., Ltd., in St. John's is Hon. R. B. Job, born Waterloo, Liverpool, 1873; and like myself an Old Boy of Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby, Liverpool: and in Liverpool his nephew T. Warren Job, born in Newfoundland 1907, a director of Job Bros. Ltd., Liverpool (deceased December, 1954). For more than a century there have been Jobs both in St. John's and Liverpool, with frequent interchange between the two establishments. It was not until 1909 that the relationship between the Newfoundland and Liverpool Job firms was divorced by the incorporation of the St. John's partnership as a limited liability company.1 The letter-heading of the St. John's house reads: Established 1780 Job Brothers & Co. Ltd. Steamship managers, general managers, agents, importers and exporters. Dried codfish, cod oil, medicinal cod-liver oil, seal oil, canned lobsters and salmon, fresh frozen and smoked fish of all descriptions and blueberries. "Hubay" "Labdor" and "Flag" brands.

The first style of the firm was Bulley & Job. Bulley is a name prominent in the Customs Records as owners, masters and builders of ships. John Job, 1764-1845, was apprenticed to Samuel Bulley, whose daughter he married; and in the early years there were many 1 For interesting detail on Job's and other leading houses in St. John's, see P. K. Devine, Ye OJde St. John's, 1750-1936.

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Bulleys in the firm or doing business with it. Their home base was Teignmouth and from it they traded to St. John's; after 1815 the West Country's share in the trade was on the decline, and they shifted their home base from Teignmouth to Liverpool—St. John's being the pivotal point of their growth. EXETER CUSTOMS RECORDS, 1806-7. Certificates of protection for Thomas Bulley, master: John Bulley, mate: Richard Bulley, splitter—"being engaged in the Newfoundland fishery." An increasing number of entries reads "Masters bound from hence to Liverpool, and thence to Newfoundland for the Fishery." Officially Teignmouth was only a creek in the Exeter Customs limits; and when it asked for a separate customs service (1806) Exeter replied to the Honourable Commissioners, London: "With respect to the Newfoundland trade we have to observe that of the vessels employed therein very few return to Teignmouth, the small craft in general being laid up in Newfoundland to be in readiness for the ensuing season, and the large vessels in general proceeding from Newfoundland (in peaceable times) to France, Spain, Portugal and the Mediterranean with fish for a market, and from thence return back to Newfoundland for another cargo or proceed on a circuitous voyage to any place they can procure freights for, and the few that return to Teignmouth are either in ballast or laden with salt for the use of the fishery for the ensuing season (not to be landed here), or with fish, oil and blubber to supply the home markets, and a few presents of figs, raisins, oranges, etc., the duties whereon amount to a mere trifle." Admiralty Records 1/477 (Public Record Office). Teignmouth, 5 March, 1810. "At the request of the merchants of this place we beg leave to say that you will confer new obligations on the trade of this port by using your influence with the Lords of the Admiralty, in the appointment of the first convoy to Newfoundland as soon as possible after the loth inst. and that the ship be directed to touch in Torbay and wait there the usual time of 24 hours for a fair wind, to enable the Trade to join from the Western ports and the employers to collect their fishermen from the country. We are, Sir, Your most obliged humble servant, Bulley & Job. To Admiral Holloway, Wells (Somerset)." The sons of John Job, namely Robert Job and Thomas Bulley Job, who constituted the St. John's co-partnership, played a leading

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part in the public life of the capital in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, e.g.:— C.O. 194. 88 (1834). Heavily signed memorial praying for additional schools under the School Society, headed by: Bulley Job & Co. Robert Job, J.P. Wm. Thomas. James Stewart & Co. C.O. 194. 98(1837)Dr. William Carson, whose daughter Jessie married T. B. Job in 1834, was in 1837 Speaker in the House of Assembly. There was friction at this time with Portugal, and the Brazilian market (Brazil now being independent of Portugal) was growing in importance. Hence these two entries of December, 1837:— R. Job1, as President of the St. John's Chamber of Commerce, heads a memorial protesting against "the enormous and almost prohibitive duty recently imposed by Portugal on salt cod." And on December 6, a letter from Lord Palmerston, at the Foreign Office, runs: "As no Brazilian ships frequent Newfoundland and as the only official function of the Vice-Consul seems to be to levy a tax on British shipping in a British port, the undersigned has to state that there does not appear to be any adequate reason for the appointment of Mr. Bulley Job as Vice-Consul at St. John's by the Brazilian Government in London." Palmerston. It looks as though Mr. Bulley Job had been trying to get one step ahead of the British Government! At the close of the century the great figure in the firm was William Carson Job, born in St. John's and coming back to St. John's in 1886 after his education in England. He saw the firm through the Fire of 1892: and pulled it through the Crash of 1894. In 1895 he enlarged the dry goods side of the business and formed in association with Campbell Macpherson the Royal Stores of to-day.2 Thus Job's now have on the south side of the harbour their fishing establishment—filleting plant, fish meals, cold storage and wharf, with 1 The same Robert Job in 1833 presented the prize flag to Capt. George Carew of the brig Dido for the best catch of the season, heralding thus the century-long interest of the Job firm in sealing. * The present manager of the Royal Stores (dry goods department) is Campbell Macpherson's son, the Hon. Harold Macpherson, of Westerland, the famous breeder of Newfoundland dogs.

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their own vessels, including draggers; and on the north side (Water Street) offices and stores, wholesale and retail. By courtesy of my friend, Hon. R. B. Job, I conclude with the following note on the changes in the financial structure of the firm in the present century. "In 1927 and for nearly 16 years thereafter, the business of Job Bros. & Co. Ltd. was controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company, who purchased in 1927 the controlling interest in the business, and a few years later the balance of the shares. The Company, however, continued to be nominally administered by members of the Job family and other local directors, but naturally enough the actual direction during this period came from London, the headquarters of the H.B. Co., whose control continued until 1943, when a new deal was made with the Job family to buy back all the shares. In 1945 the Job family sold the controlling interest in Job Bros. & Co. Ltd. to a new company known as the Northallantic Fisheries Ltd., but the family retained and retains to-day a considerable interest in Job Bros. & Co. Ltd." The prowess of the Job family in football and cricket was known to me as a boy; because, though junior by some years to R. B. and his brother Sam, I lived in the same Liverpool suburb. The family history describes a thrilling cricket match in the i86o's between St. John's and the Army and Navy, in which Tom Job (Thomas Raffles Job, father of R. B.) "the popular idol" made the winning hits with a couple of fives, clean out of the ground, on to the roof of a neighbouring tavern, whereupon the crowd "with a shout that could be heard on Nagle's Hill" made for the wickets and carried Job and his partner in triumph around the field. As with the Jobs, so with the Bowrings. They originated in the West Country—in this case Exeter: became a leading house in St. John's; and while some of the family remained in Newfoundland, others returned to England to Liverpool and London, to conduct in conjunction with their Newfoundland trade commercial operations of various kinds. To-day in London their large head office is interested especially in Marine Insurance: while Liverpool is the headquarters of the modern Fish Oils business of the firm. The firm's style in St. John's is Bowring Bros. Ltd., and in England C. T. Bowring & Co., London & Liverpool. The personal history of the firm has been written by A. C. Wardle Benjamin Bowring and his descendants, 1940. The "C.T." in the firm's style is from Charles Tricks Bowring, the founder's son. After a visit to the Island in 1811 Benjamin Bowring, a watchmaker and jeweller of Exeter, took his family to St. John's in 1815

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35

and settled there. He was a prominent non-conformist; and it has been suggested that his stand for the abolition of the slave trade made him unpopular in Exeter.1 By the 1830*5 he had become a merchant of the normal type, trading in fish and supplies, and retired then to Liverpool, leaving his three sons to manage the business as Bowring Bros. In 1849 the firm became (and still are) the Newfoundland agents of The Liverpool and London and Globe Insurance Co., Ltd. In 1850 C. T. Bowring, now retired to Liverpool, entered into marine underwriting. The family had relatives in London connected with textiles, groceries and the like; and this helped them to expand their business in Newfoundland. From 1850 onwards they became increasingly interested in shipping, as agents, owners and builders. Liverpool was the centre of their shipping operations, which were on a world scale— with U.S.A., Canada, South America, India. They were to the front in the adoption of iron and steam. They pioneered the carriage of petroleum from New York. For their Newfoundland trade they maintained a fleet of sealing vessels, with a famous line of sealing masters. In St. John's they came through "the crash" unscathed. In the currency foment which followed they issued wages notes "Two dollars: on Demand to pay bearer in Goods." In 1899 the English house was converted into a public company as "merchants, shipowners, insurance and general brokers" with sister houses—Bowring Bros, at St. John's and Bowring & Archibald at New York. In 1918 their passenger ship the Florizel was wrecked on the way from St. John's to New York (the disaster is the subject of a famous folk song) and soon after their Red Cross line was sold to Furness 1 Since the abolitionist cause was then in favour in high quarters, the following is perhaps the sufficient reason for his move. "Joseph Pitts of Exeter and Lance Cove, Bell Island (at a time when that island was well timbered and built ships) went to Exeter in connection with a shipment of codfish. There he bought three Grandfather clocks—one for each of his three sons—from Benjamin Bowring, a prosperous watchmaker and jeweller of Exeter. Bowring enquired as to the prospects of starting a watch-making establishment in St. John's and on the strength of the account given by Pitts he came to Newfoundland in 1811 and started a branch in St. John's. It was not till Christmas, 1815, that he closed out his business in Exeter and brought his wife and family to St. John's. Between 1811-1816 Bowring was several times back and forth, once being captured by an American privateer. One of the three Grandfather clocks is now in the office of Hon. Harold Macpherson (great-grandson of John Pitts, one of the sons who received the original clock). Another, left by the last of the Pitts family on Bell Island to her doctor, was traced to the Middle West, United States, by Hon. Sir Edgar Bowring, K.C.M.G., then head of the firm in St. John's. He bought it from the doctor and it is now in the office of Eric Bowring, C.B.E., in Bowring Brothers, Ltd., St. John's." (Authority, Dr. Cluny Macpherson.)

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Withy. But they continued to operate tankers and cargo-steamers between England and America. Like Job Bros, they operate Departmental Stores—in the Bowrings' case under their own name; and it is of interest to note here that Charles Robert Ayre, the founder of Ayre & Sons, Ltd.— the store adjacent to Bowling's in Water Street—came out in 1833 from Teignmouth, the home town of the Jobs, and after serving an apprenticeship with Benjamin Bowring & Son entered into partnerships out of which grew the family business of to-day. Jobs and Bowrings have been closely identified with the public life of Liverpool and St. John's. The Bowrings have supplied two Lord Mayors to Liverpool—William Benjamin Bowring and Frederick Charles Bowring, and they are commemorated in St. John's by their gift of Bowring Park, with the Peter Pan statue in it. Incidentally W. B. Bowring and T. R. Job raised the funds in Liverpool for sufferers from the fire of 1892. Perhaps the two main lessons to be learnt from the Bowring record are (i) the continued strength of a real family firm—Bowring after Bowring figures in the list; (2) the emergence of new, yet appropriate interests as the tunes change. Of this the Fish Oils business is an admirable example. Bowring's, as a Newfoundland house, had always dealt in cod and seal oil. In 1917 C. T. Bowring & Co., London, became producers of fish oil and meal, purchasing in Grimsby, the North Sea fishing centre, two established concerns. In 1921 a fish oil department was opened in Liverpool, and despite strong competition made such progress that by 1925 they were the largest single operator in Europe in this branch of trade. In 1934 it was decided that the firm's fish oil business could be conducted more efficiently by forming a separate company, in which the two departments of distribution (Liverpool) and production (Grimsby) were combined. Accordingly C. T. Bowring & Co. Fish Oils, Ltd., was set up as a separate company, purchasing from the parent company the two Grimsby factories.

FURNESS WITHY.

In February, 1953, I lunched in Liverpool on s.s. Newfoundland,, the sister ship of s.s. Nova Scotia, and watched for a while the loading of cargo for St. John's, Halifax, Toronto, Boston. In an adjacent dock lay the overturned Empress of Canada, burnt out a month before.

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37

The Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are modern passenger-cargo ships, carrying 152 passengers in addition to refrigerated and general cargo. They replace ships of the same name lost in World War II, and they maintain a fortnightly service: Liverpool-St. John's, Newfoundland-Halifax-Boston. Sir Christopher Furness, the West Hartlepool ship-owner (later Lord Furness) founded the Furness Withy line in 1891. Edward Withy was a Hartlepool shipbuilder who, when he emigrated to New Zealand, sold his ships to Furness. Before World War I the Allan and Furness lines shared the transatlantic service between England and Newfoundland and were members of the Shipping Conference, which operated the system of Deferred Rebates. In the course of growth Furness Withy acquired two old established lines, the Johnston (1910) and the Warren (1912). The Johnston line (Wm. Johnston & Co., Liverpool) was engaged in the Baltimore-Liverpool cargo and cattle trade. The Warren line, named after George Warren of Boston, was based on Enoch Train's sailing clippers. When Train failed in the slump of 1857, Warren continued the business under the British flag, and in the i87o's went over to iron screw steamers, designed for the cargo and cattle trade. The services of these two members of the Furness Withy group—the Johnston and the Warren—were combined in 1934. The passenger service is advertised to-day as the "Furness Warren Line: managers Furness Withy & Co., Ltd., Liverpool"; and the passage from Liverpool to St. John's takes six days. Furness Withy also operate the Red Cross Line from St. John's to New York, via Halifax, which they bought from Messrs. Bowring after World War I.

D

CHAPTER FOUR

THE NEWFOUNDLAND TRADE AND FISHERY THE COD FISHERY.

Cod gadus morrhua abounded in the coastal waters and on the banks of Newfoundland, feeding there on the bait fish of herring, caplin and squid. "It was," says W. G. Gosling (1863-1930) in his Life of Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1911) "the quest of the codfish that first took England's mariners from the home waters, and it was from the ranks of the codfishers that the sailors were largely recruited for England's ever victorious fleet from the days of Elizabeth to Victoria" (p. 2). The Icelandic stock fish was a cod dried in frost and cured without salt—the "poor John" of Newfoundland and only half as valuable as salt cod. The French fishermen, having an abundance of salt, took their fish home "green" in layers of salt and prepared it for the market on arrival. The English, having to buy their salt (and this brought them into relations with the Portuguese) used it sparingly and cured their fish on land, thus making a hard dry cure lightly salted, which, because of its excellent keeping qualities, was admirably suited to the Mediterranean and the tropics, as well as for consumption by a Navy constantly serving in tropical waters. There was a variety of cures, but in one form or another it was a commodity in general demand, providing a much-needed protein food for the peoples of Southern Europe. The Banks were an international fishing ground, and from first to last the English had no greater rights there than any other nation, but the power that possessed the territorial sovereignty of Newfoundland had two big holds on the cod fishery. It owned the coast line on which were erected the stages for making the fish, and it owned the coastal waters in which the bait fish were caught (together with the firewood necessary for existence in a cold climate). THE NAVAL OFFICER AND THE CUSTOMS SERVICE. By the Act of 15 Cha. II, c. 7 (1663) the Governor of a Colony appointed an officer, known as the naval officer, whose duty it was to make out a list of exports and imports and to give security to the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs for the performance of his 38

THE NEWFOUNDLAND TRADE AND FISHERY

39

duty. Newfoundland, not being considered a colony, had no such officer at first, but in 1787 a certain Mr. Buchanan received from Governor Elliot a commission appointing him naval officer in Newfoundland with authority to appoint deputies in the outports. In 1790 the Privy Council found that the naval officer's returns were inaccurate and therefore instructed the Captains of H.M.'s ships to deliver to the Governor a Scheme of the Fishery for the districts to which they were appointed—which in fact was taken from the Custom House Records. This statistical return appears year by year in the Colonial Office records, and forms an appendix to the Governor's Annual Report. It is a large sheet headed "A General Return of the Fishery and Inhabitants at the undermentioned Ports in the Island of Newfoundland." Along the top run the different ports and the entries under St. John's are, of course, much the largest. Down the side are the various topics:—number and kind of ships and boats: quantity and price of fish and train oil made; and markets to which exported: number of stages and families, distinguishing winter and summer inhabitants. The Naval Officer, however, was not abolished, when his original duty was given into other hands. "Some years later," says Governor Hamilton in a memorandum of 1820, "the Naval Officer was directed to make a return of Seal, Bank, Shore and Labrador Fisheries, which duties have been performed by the Deputy Naval Officer of St. John's for the last 16 years." In 1820 the nominal naval officer was a Mr. R. H. Noble at Whitehall, and he made his deputy an allowance. The operative service throughout was the Customs; and in regard to genesis, T. Irving, Inspector General of Imports and Exports, stated in evidence before the Select Committee of 1793 on the State of Trade to Newfoundland: "The first custom house was opened in St. John's in 1764: in consequence of representations, particularly of officers commanding ships of war on the Newfoundland station, that a clandestine trade to a very considerable amount was carried out not only by vessels from Guernsey and Jersey; but also through the means of the Islands of Miquelon and St. Pierre in possession of France. The subject was referred to the Board of Trade and an enquiry was made into the facts. And upon a report of the Board to the Treasury an establishment of Officers of the Customs was made and sent over in the summer of 1764. Furthermore, a Custom House Establishment was necessary at St. John's in order to keep a more accurate register of the

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Trade, and of the State of the Fishery, than could be obtained from the Reports of the Admirals in their account commonly called the Floating Scheme." The first Collector at St. John's, a Mr. Dun (happy name), introduced the Halifax scale of customs fees: to which the merchants took exception until Parliament enacted by 16 Geo. Ill (1775-6) that the officers of H.M.'s Customs in the said Island of Newfoundland were entitled to the same fees as those at Halifax in Nova Scotia, as at 1768. These fees were paid without demand till 1785, when another fight was put up, but without avail. A clause in Palliser's Act, 15 Geo. Ill, c. 31 had placed the Newfoundland Customs as from January i, 1776, under the management of the Commissioners of H.M.'s Customs in England: and consequently we have (over and above the Colonial Office and Admiralty records) not only the incidental references to Newfoundland in the West Country Outport Letters to London, but also the direct customs correspondence between St. John's and London. The records of the Customs (Plantation Series) are preserved in the muniments of the Customs and Excise Office, Kingsbeam House, London, and there is a continuous series for Newfoundland from c. 1800 to c. 1850. SMUGGLING AND SEAMANSHIP. To smuggle: "To convey (goods) clandestinely into (or out of) a country, in order to avoid payment of legal duties" (Oxford English Dictionary). Smuggling and seamanship went side by side. In seventeenth and eighteenth century Britain there were two great nurseries of seamen—the colonial trade (and outstandingly the Newfoundland trade), and the smuggling trade (especially on the South Coast between Cornwall and Kent). In two of his best short stories Thomas Hardy presents the pith of each. "To please his Wife" is a story of the Newfoundland trade: and "The Distracted Preacher" is a story of brandy running. The former is set in Havenpool Town [Poole]: the latter in Nether Moynton [Owermoigne]; and both are in Dorset. The Custom House Records in Poole present a lively picture of the smuggling trade, and especially of that part of it which came from the Channel Islands. The Royal Navy, when war was on, welcomed the services of the smuggler. Thus on July 10,1758, at the height of the Seven Years War, the Glasgow Courant announced: "We are assured that a great number of smugglers whose cases are the most favourable, and who have been confined several years in the

THE NEWFOUNDLAND TRADE AND FISHERY

4!

county jails of the Kingdom, for large debts, at the suit of the Crown, will speedily have their enlargement, on condition of serving at sea for a certain number of years."

They suited an age when naval warfare consisted largely of commerce raiding and privateering. For they knew from experience the enemy's whereabouts and habits, and they were fast sailers. "Their luggers," said a Dover correspondent in 1807 "could outsail the fastest Revenue cutters." To ensure a perfect finish one smuggling skipper coated his craft with a "preparation of eggs and beer"! There was smuggling outwards (e.g., of wool), as well as smuggling inwards; and a smuggling of men as well as of goods. Early settlement in Newfoundland was largely "clandestine." But, although (till 1824) tne export of wool from England was illegal, this did not injure the revenue; and the chief purpose of the Customs Service was to prevent the entry of uncustomed goods. In the Poole area the great source of illicit supply was Guernsey, in the Channel Islands; and the operations thence were highly organized. The seamen landed their goods smartly and quietly, once they had got the "all clear" signal from the land; and the landsmen carried the goods inland on horseback or on their persons, one tub in front and another on the back, slinking along lanes and deserted paths, but quite ready, when strong enough, to assault the preventive guard with loaded sticks. It was a dangerous trade, but very profitable; and it was hard to secure convictions because the jurymen as often as not were themselves smugglers or the customers of smugglers. In the end the law triumphed, aided by the formation (after 1815) of a strong coastguard service under competent command and the reductions of duties to what Huskisson and his generation found to be the level at which smuggling became unprofitable. The Poole Customs Records are full of smuggling affrays, in which as often as not the customs officials were worsted, and this violence was matched by the ruthless operations of the press gang. (Read again Mrs. Gaskell's classic Sylvia's Lovers.) Indeed, eluding the press was a form of smuggling—of the person. "Terror of the Press gang," says the author of Glasgow Past and Present II. 139, "halted ships in the Fairlie Roads. When ships arrive from the colonies, signals warn when it is safe for sailors to land. If so, the sailors rush off, leaving the captain and mate to bring the vessel to anchor."

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Poole reported in 1770: "Seamen, when they hear that 'the Press is hot,' insist on going ashore to escape being impressed, before we could inform them that they were subject to quarantine. This habit is on the increase. A Lulworth lad declared he would not go on board again 'unless they carried him dead,' so they let him go. 'Many others sneaked home.'" And again in 1772: "We have several vessels belonging to this port gone up the Mediterranean with fish from Newfoundland, which may possibly call at Cadiz or Lisbon, or any other port for a cargo of salt or other goods. They say they touched at no infected ports. In one such case the men are already gone ashore, and several to their families in the country." ILLICIT TRADE IN NEWFOUNDLAND WATERS. On the South Coast of Newfoundland lay the French islands of Miquelon and St. Pierre. These were the Channel Islands of Newfoundland; and there in the nineteenth century the same sort of illegality took place, with bait and firewood in the place of wool and West Indian rum in the place of (or in addition to) French wines and spirits. St. John's Customs reported in 1844: "Such intercourse facilitates an illicit or barter trade with these Islands, which is practised to an extent that cannot be ascertained or detected by the sub-collector, in the purchase by H.M.'s subjects, in exchange for such bait, of brandy, spirits, tobacco, tea and provisions, which are often clandestinely landed in distant parts of this Colony, as the coast of this Island affords numerous harbours and indentations for the resort of persons desirous of concealment when engaged in unlawful traffic, where they may readily land or tranship the articles they may be desirous to." But it had to be admitted that many poor families eked out an existence by this traffic; and therefore St. John's added: "To suppress the traffic would be not only inexpedient but positively unjust. The traffic in bait is not the merchant's or the planter's, but the poor man's trade." It must not, however, be supposed that the French were the only rum-runners on the coast. This was merely the illegality against which it was easiest to get action. Native traders in West Indian rum were the principal offenders. Archdeacon Wix (Journal, pp. 93 el. seq.} tells how in the last week of April, 1835, they rowed

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through "the young ice" to Muddy Hole and Richards Harbour, where: "I found that one of those scourges of the coast, a floating grog shop under the name of a 'trading vessel,' had been sojourning in Muddy Hole last week and had kept 'all hands' during the time of its stay in a state of intoxication." Newfoundland history, indeed, is a long battle between rum and religion, with religion slowly gaining the upper hand. THE CHANGING STRUCTURE OF THE FISHERY. R. G. Lounsbury in his well-documented British Fishery at New foundland, 1634-1763, summarizes the policy of the period thus:— "Because the Navy found the Newfoundland trade a bountiful source of recruits and because the West Country shipowners and operators had become increasingly dependent upon the Navy during the wars with France, Spain and Holland for protection of their shipping, there had developed an alliance between the Crown and the Western Adventurers which sought to protect and extend the training facilities offered by the fishery. Therefore, both the adventurers and the royal officers were keenly aware of the necessity of maintaining the fishery in an undisturbed condition, and they constantly sought to eliminate any factors which threatened to destroy its usefulness as a training school" (op. cit. 171). "The great defect of a fishery, conducted either by planters or by boatmen, was its tendency to divert men from employment in general shipping and its failure to train them beyond the status of mere fishermen, leaving them ignorant of the higher beauties of seamanship and useless as recruits for the carrying trade or navy" (ibid. I74).1 As we shall see in a later chapter "From Fishery to Colony," the "Transient" or Visiting Fishery from the West Country steadily lost ground in competition with the Resident Fishery, throughout the eighteenth century. But the unwillingness of the legislature to 1 There were three classes of vessels in the Newfoundland trade—-the fishing ships, from the decks of which (or the boats belonging to which) the fishing was done: the sack ships, so-called from the French sec or dry wine, which was a common cargo for the freight type of ship—in modern parlance a "tramp": and the by-boats. The by-boat belonged to a merchant or fisherman in England, who employed a crew to operate his boat—the word "by" may refer to its being laid "by" for the winter, or to its being an "extra" to the fishing ship. It represented a break from the fishing ship, inasmuch as the merchant concerned came out independently of the ship or bought his passage and worked with the crew during the season. At first the crews returned to their home base at the end of the fishing season, but increasingly they remained in the island and became resident fishermen. Thus in time the category disappeared.

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admit and legalize the change created problems for the merchants and customs officials, of which the following are good examples. Poole Customs to London, 29 Sept., 1794. "We conceive 29 Geo. Ill, c. 26 is subject to evasion in respect of the importation from Newfoundland of oil, blubber and seal skins. For by the clauses in the yth and 8th sections these articles may be admitted to entry duty free, the master taking oath that the same and every part thereof is really and bona fide the oil and blubber of fish or creatures living in the sea or the skins of seals all actually taken on the Banks and Shores of the Isle of Newfoundland and parts adjacent wholly by H.M.'s subjects carrying on the said fishery from H.M.'s European Dominions and usually residing in the said Dominions. . . . We are well informed that in some circumstances oil blubber and seal skins which have been purchased of the resident planters in Newfoundland are regarded as of their own taking and curing, they considering themselves as the Principal Parties concerned, on the consideration that they supply such resident planters with fishermen, provisions, cloathing and implements of all kinds for the fishery in the same manner as if the concern was their own and receive in return a payment of the produce of the voyage, and accordingly do import the same duty free, an evident violation of the law." Memorial of Messrs. Ledgard & Gosse of Poole to the Treasury:— Aug. 8, 1809. "From the manner in which blubber and oil are made in Newfoundland and on the coast of Labrador the Act cannot be carried out, inasmuch as the fish from which blubber and oil are produced are not caught by the crews of ships, but by your memoralists' servants hired for the purpose, or by persons residing in Newfoundland or on the Coast of Labrador, who fish in boats and usually every night bring the fish caught in the day on shore: where the oil and blubber is made and from whence they are in the proper season shipped for Great Britain." Poole Customs confirmed this Oct., 1811. "Hon. Sirs. The principal part of Newfoundland fish are caught by fishermen resident in Newfoundland some of whom are in the service of persons residing in Great Britain and carrying on the fishery from thence, and others fish on their own account but dispose of the produce of their voyage to persons carrying on the fishery from Great Britain."

IN THE DAYS OF PHILIP GOSSE. Sir Edmund Gosse in the biography of his father, P. H. Gosse, describes the mercantile scene of that day.

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Philip Gosse, having served as a junior clerk in Garland's of Poole, went out to Newfoundland in the service of Harrison, Slade & Co., and lived there from 1827 to 1835, first at Carbonear, in Conception Bay and then at St. Mary's on the lonely South Coast. "In general, business was carried on upon the following terms. The mercantile firm, having a house in England as well as one in Newfoundland, imported into the island, from various parts of Europe and America, all supplies needful for local consumption and for the prosecution of the fisheries, the colony itself producing no provisions except fish, fresh meat, oats, and a few vegetables. The planter was supplied by his merchant, and always on credit, with everything requisite, the whole produce of the voyage being bound to be delivered to the house. The planter shipped a crew averaging about 18 hands to each schooner, who (in the seal fishery) claimed a half of the gross produce to be divided among them; the other half going to the owner who in most cases commanded his own vessel. The names of the crew having been registered at the counting house, each man was allowed to take up goods on the credit of the voyage, to a certain amount, perhaps a third or even half of his probable earnings. The clerks were the judges of the amount. For these goods both planter and crew applied at the office, in order, and received tickets or 'notes' for the several articles. In the busy season the registering of these notes, and clearing the goods, and entering the transactions in the books would occupy the whole staff until well into the night. . . . In the coves round about and especially along the 'North Shore,' that is the Coast of Conception Bay from Carbonear to Point Baccalao, there resided a hardy population, mainly English and Protestant, who possessed no schooners, but held small sailing boats, with which, mostly by families, they pursued the cod fishery in the bay. The fish they took were commonly of larger size, were better cured and commanded a higher price than the Labrador produce, but the quantity of it was strictly limited. . . . What society Carbonear possessed was mainly to be met with in the houses of the planters, several of whom were worthy and respectable. The name 'Planter'. . . had no connection with the cultivation of the soil. In Newfoundland the word designated a man who owned a schooner, in which he prosecuted one or both of the two fisheries of the colony, that for seals in the spring and that for cod in winter. In Carbonear a town of some 2,500 inhabitants in 1828 there were about 70 planters, whose dealings were distributed amongst the mercantile houses of the place. Of these, about 25 were fitted out by the firm in which my father was a clerk. . . ." (Edmund Gosse, The Life of Philip Henry Gosse, F.R.S., London, 1890, pp. 47-8.) When a friend of his—an Ulsterman, though at the time he did

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not know it—once asked him what he thought of Newfoundland, the gentle Methodist replied, "Nothing but mad dogs and Irishmen." THE ATTAINMENT OF FREE PORT STATUS. The Warehousing Act of 1803 was Pitt's great contribution to freer trade: and it fell to Huskisson to adapt this to the colonial trade, which he did by grafting it on to an institution of old standing in imperial history, the so-called "Free Port." After the reduction of Jamaica, 1655, a profitable trade developed between the British West Indies and the Spanish American Mainland, by which England obtained bullion and certain raw materials, such as dye stuffs and hides, in return for her manufactures. After the Seven Years War this trade was legalized; and by 27 Geo. Ill, c. 27 (1787) certain Free Ports, all in the West Indies, were established. These ports were allowed to import from, and export to, foreign colonies certain classes of enumerated goods. This was the parent act; and in time other Free Ports were established, not only in the West Indies, but in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic, so that Free Port came to mean an overseas port licensed for the conduct of particular trades which would otherwise have been contrary to the Act of Navigation. The colonies coveted the status and tried to convert it into a channel of unrestricted trade with the United States when these became independent. Huskisson's solution of the problem was to enlarge the privileges of Free Ports at the same time that he restricted sharply the share of American shipping in the colonial trade; and the enlargement took the form of granting to Free Ports warehousing privileges such as were enjoyed in England under the Act of 1803. Hence in 1829 the Chamber of Commerce of St. John's addressed to the Colonial Secretary a Memorial praying to be made a Free Warehousing port, on the same terms as those already enjoyed by certain ports of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It was not for the first time of asking, but this time the application succeeded. An order in Council put the business in hand: and before the close of 1830 seven bonding warehouses had been authorized in different parts of the town. The essence of the bonding privilege was that goods could be warehoused without payment of duties, and if re-exported no duty was payable. In 1835 Carbonear and Harbour Grace petitioned similarly for Free Port status; and after examination of the competing claims the Treasury decided in favour of Harbour Grace, which accordingly

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became "a Free Port and a Free Warehousing Port," with the necessary officers, as from July, 1836. In chapter IX I give some account of the activities of the St. John's Chamber of Commerce, but none of these meant so much to the trade of the town as the Free Port grant; and therefore I give here in full the case which they presented, viz.:— "That the great inconvenience which this trade suffers from want of a warehousing port arises from its intercourse with H.M.'s West Indian Colonies and in the fluctuating and uncertain value of West Indian produce in this market. That the trade carried on between this Island and the West Indies is chiefly one of barter—the West Indies taking the lower qualities of fish, and in return this colony receives their produce. That if an excess of any article of West Indian produce but more particularly rum, which is subject to a considerable duty, be brought into this port, the importers must submit to a great sacrifice in the disposal of it, because your Memorialists have only one place, namely Canada, to which they are permitted to export rum after the duty of 6d. per gallon has been paid, without entirely losing that duty. That under existing laws rum exported hence to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island or Cape Breton would be subject to the whole of their provincial duties without any drawback, your M.'s cannot obtain the drawback of duty paid upon rum exported to foreign Europe, nor do the officers of the Customs at this port (acting under certain old instructions from the Hon. the Commissioners of Customs, which have not been rescinded) feel themselves at liberty to allow rum to be entered for exportation and exported to foreign Europe, without first demanding the duty on such rum, and further your M.'s would beg to state that if rum, proved to be the produce of the British West Indies, be exported to Great Britain, after having been landed here, it would not only be liable to duty upon importation into this Island, but be also subject when its being exported into Great Britain, under the Act of 4 Geo. IV, c. 114, s8, to the same duty as foreign rum. That since the passing of those Acts which have permitted the importation of provisions from foreign Europe for the sake of the fisheries and in which this Island has been materially benefited, the intercourse between Hamburg and Newfoundland has become extensive, and may according to your Memorialists' views be continued with every prospect of beneficial effects on British interests, if more facilities were allowed in the interchange of British colonial produce in bread, flour and other articles, fit and necessary for the Fishery, which latter articles are required in large quantities for the supply of the fisheries of this Island. That your M.'s are now obliged to pay for such supplies as they may have occasion to direct from Hamburg and other ports in foreign Europe by bills upon London, which make the trade necessarily subject to much loss and inconvenience, but if your M.'s were permitted to deposit British

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Colonial produce in warehouse for exportation, they would be enabled to forward considerable quantities of rum to Hamburg and other places for the purpose of procuring those supplies without which the Fisheries cannot be sustained, and thereby also afford the means of employment of numerous British shippers and enable your M.'s to get rid of a large quantity of the surplus produce of the British colonies, generally without loss. Your M.'s would also beg permission to state that the fisheries of this Island are furnished with supplies issued generally upon credit and the payments usually made at the close of the season, consequently the difficulty of realizing most kinds of imported articles for cash to any amount is very great; that your M.'s having lately been informed that all duties must be paid upon entry or a deposit equal to cover the amount laid down on importation, forms another ground for preferring this petition, and your M.'s are induced to hope that under the recommendation of His Excellency the Governor of this Island, which they have reason to believe will accompany it, you will be pleased to promote a measure calculated to facilitate the operation of the Trade and Fisheries, and thereby greatly benefit the commercial interest of this Ancient Colony." EXPORT AND IMPORT DUTIES. It was a rule of old standing complementary to the Caroline legislation prescribing the free export of fish that supplies for the Fishery were exempt from the duty of IDS. per £100 of the value of goods exported from the United Kingdom. This duty continued into Peel's time. In Huskisson's time the exempting clause ran, "except any sorts of craft, food, victuals, clothing or implements necessary for the British Fisheries established in the Island of Newfoundland. ..." But what constituted "necessaries"? What about candles? Poole asked for guidance on this delicate matter, for "they are a very essential material in the prosecution of it and are used in various ways by night as well as day, in every boat as well as on shore." And so candles were exempted. But when the merchants of Poole tried to include silk bonnets and straw hats, on the ground that "women as well as men were employed in the fishery," the customs kicked. "We do not conceive it was in the spirit and intention of the law that a milliner's shop should be set up in the Island of Newfoundland." As regards exported fish and fish oil the position was this:—under Palliser's Act of 1775 bounties were given on the taking of fish: and under the Act of 1801 (at a time of food shortage) a bounty was granted on the importation of salted and pickled salmon and salted

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dry cod into the United Kingdom. Fish oil had no longer a statutory right to enter duty free, but Huskisson in 1825 reduced the rate to the nominal figure of is. per ton. The position was altogether different in respect of duties on produce entering Newfoundland. For only by such duties could revenue be raised. Liquor was the chief source of revenue. Thus in 1815 rum and other spirits imported into Newfoundland in thousand gallons amounted to: from British West Indies .. .. 371,000 .. .. .. 443,000 " elsewhere The duty on rum from B.W.I, was 6d. per gallon: on rum from other parts and on other spirits the rate was higher. When Huskisson came to the Colonial Office (1827-8), he considered that additional revenue was necessary and recommended a duty of 2\ per cent, on imports (with the exception of salt and potatoes), an additional duty of 6d. per gallon on spirits, and an increase in the duty on wines: "as (in his words) the most unexceptionable means of meeting the annual expense incurred in the colony for the maintenance of the Civil Establishment." This was approved by the Treasury, with the proviso that the produce of the said duties were to be appropriated to the expenses of the Island, and not to be remitted to England. Thereafter Newfoundland went through the same sequence as other colonies. When it got representative government, it voted its own duties: then for a period there were two classes of duty: "colonial" duties, imposed for revenue by the colonial assembly, and imperial duties, known as "differentials" designed to foster imperial trade. The "differentials" were abolished in the late '40*5, and the last use made of them was in aid of the rebuilding of the Customs House of St. John's after the Fire of 1846. SUPPLIES FOR THE FISHERY. (0 Salt. Throughout its history and until the modern era of the fresh frozen fillet, the Newfoundland fishery depended on salt, whether the fish left the Island in a "green" or wet condition, salted down in layers of salt, or whether it was cured on the Island with the aid of salt, impregnated into it. Salt was formerly obtained by the evaporation of solar salt from the lagoons in the Bay of Biscay. Portugal had similar deposits,

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and the West Country got its salt chiefly from that country, in particular from Lisbon and Setubal, south of Lisbon—called by English sailors St. Ubes, after an imaginary St. Ives. It was obtained also from certain West Indian and Cape Verde islands. Since in England down to 1823 salt was subject to a heavy excise, exceptional care was taken to ensure that salt on its way to Newfoundland via English ports did not enter the consumption of the country. We find a Poole merchant complaining in 1811 that the customs, upon finding casks containing salted fish, insisted on the salt packing being dumped, with the result that "the produce will be ruined by quick decay." With the abolition of the salt excise, 1823, and the exploitation of the rock salt of Cheshire, salt became abundant and cheap, and Liverpool's advantageous position in this respect contributed to the shifting of the Newfoundland trade from the West Country to Merseyside. («') Provisions. The hold of the West Country on the Fishery was loosened further by the decline of the export trade in provisions, in wheat and flour from Britain and in salted butter and beef and pork from the South of Ireland: for these after 1815 could be supplied more cheaply from New York and Montreal. But right down to the close of the Napoleonic War there was a steady export of grams not only to Newfoundland but to the West Indies and the troops in the Spanish peninsula. Quotas of export for flour were assigned to different ports, to London, Poole, Teignmouth and Dartmouth. In 1813 we find Poole protesting against the invasion of their quota by London. If this is permitted, the Newfoundland trade would be injured. "The merchants at this port trading to Newfoundland have certain fishing establishments to keep up, with a vast number of servants and others to maintain. If the allowance of bread, flour and pease was exported by non-resident merchants, thousands in that Island would be in a state little short of starvation." When the war ended, the British Government's policy of excluding the U.S.A. from the colonial trade had to be modified to the extent of permitting the importation of foodstuffs by licences, provided that they came in British ships. Imports from B.N.A. were, of course, welcome. T. C. Haliburton in his Account of Nova Scotia (1829) says, "The agricultural exports of Cape Breton consist principally of livestock, potatoes, oats, butter, salted beef and pork, which find a market in Newfoundland" (II. 252).

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(Hi) Tea. Newfoundland, like the British Navy, drank tea in preference to coffee; and a Chamber of Commerce petition of 1835 shows the angle from which they regarded it. "That ever since 6 Geo. IV, c. 114 (1826) this Island has derived its supply of tea chiefly from the importations of the Hon. East India Company into the neighbouring colonies, that 3 and 4 Will 4 c. 101 (1833) having opened the direct trade to all H.M.'s subjects, a ship belonging to an enterprising house in this Island is already on the way from China with a cargo bound for this port. That by the construction put by the Collector of H.M.'s Customs on the 2nd section of the Act, it is alleged that notwithstanding the express permission given by 3 and 4 Will 4, c. 59, the importation of that article in any one of H.M.'s possessions from any other is prohibited. That from the very extensive use of tea for a great number of years by all classes of H.M.'s subjects in the North American colonies, it has become to them an article almost of necessity, and were they forbidden to draw supplies from each other in case of need, occasionally, to relieve an overstocked market in one colony by sending it to another, great hardship would be suffered." Whitehall ruled promptly against the Collector and in favour of the Chamber. "Tea having been duly imported into any part of B.N.A. is virtually imported into the whole and is therefore free to be carried to another part." GROWTH OF POPULATION. Census figures for Newfoundland. 1836 .. .. 1857 .. .. 1891 .. .. 1945 .. .. 1951 .. .. The total for 1951 includes Division

75,000 124,000 202,000 321,000 361,416 No. 10, Labrador: 7,890.

Distribution by sex. Province of Newfoundland: M. 185,143. Division No. 10, Labrador: M. 4,572

F. 176,273 = 361,416. F. 3,318 = 7,890.

THE CODFISHERIES AND THE LATE PROFESSOR INNIS.

Early yester-morning (the Catholic Cathedral was tolling for 6.30

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as I left) I climbed to Cabot Tower to think it out in good but stiff company:— (i) Report of the Newfoundland Fisheries Development Committee: 1953, St. John's. (ii) The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy, by Harold Adams Innis: 1940, The Ryerson Press, Toronto. The setting was perfect: out beyond the Narrows three boats jigging for cod in a strong and icy wind: myself fresh from a centrally heated hotel. And two whites were visible to me: the white of the high-stepping breakers on the southern shore and the white of the buildings of Fort Pepperrell, the New Town of St. John's. Out at sea eternal nature: in on land the expedients of mortal man. The problem facing the Fisheries Committee was clear—a country geared to the price level (for costs and wages) of the North American Continent: called upon to sell still the bulk of its staple product to markets with a lower price level as regards both goods and services. No answer possible of the "Take it or leave it" variety. For the Banks are an international fishing ground. Others can come and take it for themselves, and are doing so now with all the modern techniques, both of catching (draggers, long liners, etc.) and of organisation with a capital O. Think of Portugal's Gremio! Where lies the solution? Some relief can be and is being found in the development of the American market for fresh frozen fillets, live lobsters and the like. But this outlet is more available for the South Coast than for parts further north, and its continued expansion calls for a variety of fish, flounder, ocean perch, etc., as well as cod. Much, too, is being gained by research into the life history of fishes, and their whereabouts in different seasons, and by correct steps for their conservation and increase, especially of those using inland waters, such as trout, salmon and Arctic char. Research is costly: and the Federal unit is essential here, since it may involve international agreement with Scandinavian and other countries. But these two things are not enough. It is necessary further to contemplate—where imperatively required—the re-location of the fishing population: the transference of homes from island to mainland berths and concentrations at selected points on the coast. Parallel with this must come steps to maximize returns per man by the lengthening of the fishing season and installation of the best processing equipment—for instance the artificial dryer: by fuller

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use of the bye-products of fish: and by superior organization of the salt supply. And all this has to be accomplished in the face of a general reorientation of the whole economy, less towards the sea and more towards the land—a reorientation that shows no sign of being transient. The international airports of Gander and Goose, ever growing, and the chain of Defence Bases all along the coast: these are population magnets with labour demands which offer returns to the individual worker that the master fisherman cannot match. Whether this necessitates price maintenance and if so by which authority, provincial or federal, it should be given, it is not for me to enquire. I draw attention simply to the human values at stake, the inherited skills, the adaptabilities, the richness of a community life built over the centuries by and on the sea, that nursery and immemorial school of Newfoundland. These values must be conserved, and their conservation is a challenge to statesmanship. But what has all this to do with the late Professor Innis ? Everything. For the Report rests its historical setting on him, quoting from him many tunes, e.g.: "A three-cornered trade from England to Newfoundland, Spain and the Mediterranean provided a basis for expansion and gave England an industry with an abundance of shipping, an outlet for manufactured goods and provisions, a supply of semi-tropical products and specie, substantial profits and ideal possibilities for the development of a mercantile policy. England was able, in part because of her relatively shorter distance from Newfoundland and in particular because of the nature of fish as a foodstuff, to secure a strong and continuous hold on a product by which she obtained a share of Spanish specie. Cod from Newfoundland was the lever by which was wrested her share of the riches of the New World from Spain." Other thoughts in the same vein are:— "Cod (maritime and competitive) clashes with furs (continental and monopolistic)—Newfoundland versus Quebec." "The St. Lawrence invited expansion to the west with concentration on furs. Newfoundland, facing the Atlantic, concentrated on fish. The land drainage basin of the one made for unity; the submerged drainage basin of the other for diversity."

And finally: "Dry fish needs less salt, and British fishermen lacking salt perfected a hand dry cure which would keep in the Tropics and suited the taste of Catholic fish-eating populations." E

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(Salt, and he stresses it, was procured from Portugal; and this was one of many ties linking the economic fortunes of Great Britain with those of Portugal and Brazil.) Innis was like the great Adam Smith in this—his mind was a storehouse of knowledge (as his desk was a litter of notes), from which he could produce, when he wanted, just the right example at just the right point. He is not a showman: he conceals his art. Days, perhaps years, afterwards, you find yourself saying, "Why, of course, that's what he had in mind." I give a simple and diverting instance. Discussing "Capitalism and the Newfoundland Fisheries, 1833-1886," he remarks abruptly, "Shopkeepers now gain in status relatively to merchants." How true and ever truer! For we are ruled to-day not from the merchants' counting house nor from the bank parlour, but by the sponsored announcements of Departmental Stores, sandwiched between the music and the news. "Gent's suitings at 139.50. You can't afford to miss this bargain." "Half-aspirins for your children: all the doctors recommend them." And this, of course, not only in St. John's, but in Montreal and Toronto—and Erewhon. "Try our Dedication trousers, price ten shillings and sixpence." Innis (I can see his face as I speak it) had in him something of the sly humour of Samuel Butler. On these broad lines, interspersed with many asides, he drives his team through the centuries, indicating the strengths and weaknesses of each member; the relation of fishing to alternative enterprises: the pulls away from fishing, as well as the distinctive attractions to it—France with her rich home market and her solar salt: New England with her vigorous maritime enterprise and proximity to the sugar and rum of the West Indies: the Maritimes with their wealth of timber, grain and fruits: Canada with her ample fields and forests and gateway to the heart of the Continent. But Newfoundland is the pivot on which he works; and he interweaves the international story with the peculiar circumstances of the Island—the struggle of company monopoly and proprietary settlement with the free trade of the Western Adventurers, and the eventual victory of the latter: the evolution from Fishery to Colony—fishing-ships, under challenge from bye-boat men, who become permanent settlers; and the determination of Newfoundlanders to valorize their coastal assets—harbours of refuge, stages, bait fish, firewood—these topics taking him into the elaborate treaty provisions with France, Canada and the U.S.A. Finally, he develops his great categories and in

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particular the progress from commercialism to industrial capitalism. A complete master of water routes (he once travelled by canoe to the mouth of the Mackenzie) and of boat-building technique, he never forgets the geographic background and the importance of communications. As his first essay in authorship was a History of the C.P.R. with a long geographical introduction, so his last public service was as one of the three Commissioners on the Royal Commission on Transportation, which reported in 1951. I suspect that the sentence in the Report, dealing with the coastal services (Newfoundland) of the C.N.R., was penned by him. "Since over half the population lives in some 1,300 settlements scattered along the coast and in most cases without alternative means of transportation, coastal shipping is vital." If I had to characterize him by a single phrase, I would call him "the economist of the Tie-in"—linking history with theory, politics with economics, men with things and things with one another. At his death a great scholar passed from our midst.

CHAPTER FIVE

EPIC OF THE SEAL FISHERY The rise of the Seal Fishery in the second half of the eighteenth century was in every respect favourable to the Island's economy. (i) Every whit as much as codfishing it bred hardy seamen: and eventually even more so. For whereas in codfishing the sequence was from overseas adventure to in-shore fishing, in sealing it was from land nets to sea-going vessels, which, being built to contend with ice, extended the codfishery on the Labrador. (ii) It relieved the economy from dangerous dependence on a single export "crop." (iii) In its time-table it was complementary to the fishery—sealing in the early spring, followed by fishing later in the year. (iv) Owing to the early start and all the preparations therefor it required a resident population. In the seventy years from 1760 to 1830 that population rose, say, from 10,000 to 70,000: and in the same period the seal catch rose from a trifle to the half million mark in 1830. (v) It yielded products in keen demand in the home market—seal skins and seal oil. The seal skins were not of the soft fur type of which our grandmother's seal-skin jackets were made. They were hair seal of the hard type and serviceable for footwear and upholstery. To-day they are in common use for the lining of chairs and office tables. The great use of seal oil was as an illiminant. It was also used as an ingredient of paint and for softening of textiles. To-day it is a constituent of margarine. In the Poole Customs Records there are numerous references to seal skins and seal oil, seal skins being frequently grouped with other furs. Thus December i, 1760, "S. Coward, Master of the Sally of this port, reported from Newfoundland, whose cargo consists of train oil ['train' because 'trained' or 'drawn' out of the whale or seal as the case might be], fish, furs and seal skins. She is a new sloop built in Newfoundland and never in England before." 56

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From the standpoint of the merchants the important question was, whether or not the produce was exempt from import duty. They claimed free entry into the home market on the same terms as those enjoyed by the Greenland Whale Fishery; and though this was disputed by the customs, they seem to have paid either no duty or at most only a nominal duty. A memorial from the Merchants of Poole (1772) argued their case thus: "That by 5 Geo. II, [c. 28] Newfoundland is included in the seas adjoining to the Greenland Seas or Davis's Straits and that all whale fins, oil or blubber of whales, seal oil, seal skins, etc., or any other fish or creatures caught in Newfoundland are exempted as much as those commodities caught in the Greenland Seas . . . because the trade to Newfoundland answers all the beneficial purposes of employing great numbers of seamen and ships, and consuming great quantities of provisions and other British manufactures in a much greater degree than the trade to Greenland." Note the historical connection of Newfoundland sealing with Greenland whaling. Incidentally in 1711 the commander of a convoy reports that for some years past people residing in the northern bays of Newfoundland had supplemented their earnings and food supply by killing seals in spring. I open my epic with verses from the sealer's bible—Chafe's Sealing Book (Levi George Chafe)—Introduction by W. A. Munn, page 46. The Sealing Trip of the S.S. "Greenland", 1891, by one of her crew, Harbour Grace, March 25, 1918. The slaughter then was dreadful 'Tis useless to describe, From East to West for miles around The Ice was crimson dyed. Sharp knives and bats did deadly work And when the day was done Twice seven thousand scalps were flagged Beneath the setting sun. And, mind me, Captain Harry Never swore upon his crew, He knew their sterling value And their duty they would do. And when the ship was loaded, And we were homeward bound. At the calling of the roll, each man Turned up both safe and sound.

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And as we neared the Harbour Bar We steamed her slowly in. With her colors gaily flying And as deep as she could swim. And people gathered on the wharf, From every street and lane, To welcome back the Sealers From off the stormy main. And now we're home for Easter At the "hop" we'll swing the girls With their neat wire form improvers, And Dolly Varden curls. "Nice" folks may perhaps laugh at But they don't understand, That the boys in oily jumpers Are the pride of Newfoundland. The classical account in prose is in R. H. Bonnycastle's Newfoundland in 1842 (II, 128 et seq.). From the middle of February until November, they are fully occupied in attending to the fisheries, the fitment of the seal fishing vessels or soilers, as they are vernacularly called, beginning early in the year. Formerly, these ships were all ready for the ice on St. Patrick's day, the ryth of March; but it was found, that sealers from Europe anticipated them, and that the best time to start for the floating fields of frozen water, was as early as the ist of that month; accordingly, all is bustle during the latter part of February, and the stoneballast which has been collected in the fall of the year and during winter, is now put on board, with the requisite supplies of water and provision; and should there be an intense frost about this period, which occasionally happens, the labour of getting to sea is increased at St. John's, by the necessity of cutting channels from the wharfs, as far as the Narrows. This year the harbour was frozen, but not very thick, and a beautiful brig, built of Newfoundland timber, and built also by a native and self-taught artist, was launched as early as the 26th of March, by cutting a way for her across the harbour. The sealers are seen coming in from all parts of the country to St. John's, with their bundle of spare clothing over their shoulders, supported by a stick, six or eight feet long, which is to serve as a bat or club to strike the seal on the nose, where he is very vulnerable; and also to answer as an ice-pole and gaff, or ice-hook, with which landing is effected, as well as for drawing the spoil over the floes and fields. He has likewise his long sealing gun, if he is intended as a bow or after gunner, or, in other words, as an expert marksman, to shoot the animals where they cannot be otherwise readily destroyed.

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These gunners rank before the mere batman, and have some trifling remuneration in the way of a remission of the charge of berth money, which the sealers pay to the merchant who supplies the vessel and stores, for permission to go the voyage, the outfitting being defrayed by the receipt of one half of the cargo of seals, the other half going to the adventurers, with these and other deductions for extra supplies. Etc., etc. Picture the situation of a small vessel on a dark, howling night, caught in a vast field, and regularly beset, the wind roaring, the arrowy sleet and snow, sharp as myriads of needles, rendering it nearly impossible to keep the deck, and every one expecting the tempest momentarily to change its direction, the ice to dissever, and the vessel to be hurled along at its mercy, with all the standing and running rigging immovable from frost. Thus much from the sealer's point of view. Now for the seal's point of view. Imagine yourself in your most persuasive mood telling to your children, or grandchildren, as the case may be: THE STORY OF THE SEALS. It might run like this. There are two main kinds of Seals in the waters of Newfoundland; the Harps, which have patches of hair on their side that looks like a harp, and the Hoods (now rare) which have a hood of loose black skin over the head of the male that it puffs out when angry. Both have their home in the Arctic North, but they are only at home three months in the year—the Harps on the east side of Baffin Bay and the Hoods on the east side of Greenland. The ice forms in Baffin Bay about September 20 and it is then that all set off for their nine months holiday. The two processions meet off the northern tip of Labrador, but do not mix. The Harps keep near the shore, the Hoods in a parallel position further out. Remember that the baby Harp is born with a coat of white wool (hence called a whitecoat) which it shortly sheds. But more of this later, for it is on the way back north that the babes are born, after their parents have been to the south to fish and grow strong. It takes the seals about two months to pass along the Labrador coast, for it is 900 miles long, and their pace is leisurely, but towards the end of November, they reach the Straits of Belle Isle (which is the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with Belle Isle in the middle of them). There they divide. One stream of Harps and Hoods goes westward into the Gulf and so along the west coast of Newfoundland to their southern fishing ground. But the main stream keeps to the ocean past Cape

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Freels, at the northern end of Bonavista Bay, past St. John's (there have been times when there was great hunting just outside the Narrows), past Cape Race at the south-east tip of the Island— and so to the famous Grand Banks, of which Kipling writes in Captains Courageous. They eat as they go along shrimps and crabs and herring and at the Grand Banks they gorge on cod—I don't suppose that they like the draggers which nowadays crowd those Banks. Now a seal is a mammal and can only remain under the water for a quarter of an hour or so, and like other mammals it must rest. If there is no ice to sleep on, they turn on their backs, fold their arms, expand their back nippers and go fast asleep with the water for a pillow. The seal swims on his side, propelled by the force of his hind flippers, like a jet plane and so fast (when in a hurry) that if you look down a seal hole as they are bolting past, you see only a blue shadow flicking by. They are the only animal swift enough to catch a salmon and sometimes fishermen take salmon with a seal bite on them. After Christmas on the Grand Banks, they are ready to go back home, some by the Gulf (in the old days hundreds of thousands went this way) but the great majority keep out to sea, timing themselves to reach the "Front," as the ice-hunters call the stretch of sea between Funk Island (the home of the last Great Auks-penguins) and the Straits. For this Front is the whelping ground, on which the babes will be born and where the ice-hunters will go after them —babes and grown-ups—with batt and gaff, hitting them on the head and dragging them to a "pan" or store-pile on the ice. The Harps are ice-borers and live in "patches" large or small. The parents fish all day, diving through their blowing holes and return at night to their young, who cry like a human for their mothers, for they cannot swim for the first month and must stay unprotected on the ice. The mother, no matter how much the ice may have drifted, always finds her way back to her own baby (the sealers have sometimes tried shuffiing them but all in vain, you can't deceive the mothers). The parents eat under the water and when the seal gets back to her crying baby, she strokes it and kisses it, and feeds it with milk from her side; and then after the feed puts her flip out to keep the infant warm. The old seals, it is said, can bark like dogs. They are inquisitive but suspicious—and no wonder the way they are hunted. They like music (old timers have reported) and will rise to a whistle like

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a dog. And they are very clever. They have to be near open water, to come up and breathe and they find it out, in a sea of ice, from many miles away—possibly through the reflection of light on the open space. The blubber with which they are covered keeps them warm and buoyant, and they can smell a man, if he is to windward of them, when is he 500 yards away. Like whales, they are pestered with parasites, which they get rid of by lying on the ice in the sun, till the old hair blisters off. Young seals of kindergarten age, so to speak, have a curious name —BEDLAMERS. This does not mean that they have come out of a lunatic asylum, but is the term applied to any kind of seal (Harp or Hood) under four years. It was originally a French word— Bete de la mere (Animal of the sea)—and corrupted by English fishermen into bedlamers. The French speaking Jerseymen in the Straits were the first to catch them, as they swam through, unruly, incautious youngsters, who strayed into the trap nets set out along the coast. It was these trap nets, perhaps, which gave fishermen the idea of catching cod in traps, laid out close to the shore—which is the main way cod is caught in Newfoundland waters at the present day. Seals do not have litters. Twins are rare, and as with human beings it takes nearly nine months for the babe to come. The Whitecoats cannot swim at first and are quite defenceless; and, therefore, in these days of sealing steamers and spotter-planes it is most important that the herd should not be over-hunted, else they may disappear altogether. This would be bad for the people of Newfoundland and a tragedy for the Eskimos of the Labrador to whom the seal is everything; meat for men and dogs; oil; footwear and winter clothing. On this a senior comments:— "It is doubtful if seals fish through the blow holes while on the ice. Investigations by the Department of Fisheries have established that in every report on stomach contents there was no food in the stomach. The assumption is that the seals do not feed while on the whelping ground. In the study of the Behring seals which come to the Pribiloff Islands each year, as do our seals to the ice, it has been established that they do not feed for a period of two months or more. The male seals come to the Island first and set up their harem, which is a circular space from which they drive all other seals. The females do not come until about six weeks later and in the meantime the males do not leave this spot either to eat

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or drink, neither do they leave it when the harem is established and until the seals leave the Island. It is quite possible that our seals have the same habits."1 You may think that I have invented the sentimental bits to please the children. Not a bit. They are taken almost word for word from the lips of Thomas J. Carroll of i Pilot's Hill, aged 86. (Skipper Carroll, born in King's Cove, Bonavista, showed me with pride the testimonial of December 13, 1920, from his employers, Bowring Bros. "Thomas Carroll served in our employ for twentytwo years in our sailing ships and whalers. Of this period eighteen years were spent with Captain Arthur Jackman in the capacity of bosun, second mate and mate; and four years were spent at the Gulf Fishery as second hand of s.s. Kite.") The sentiment was in him. His eyes glistened as he told his story. He saw every detail of it. When the Eagle, on which, among other ships he had served, was taken out to be sunk two years ago, he wouldn't go to see the ceremony, "It would have broke my heart." This was Eagle II of which the poet writes: We made for the Eagle, two miles away At the signal that flew from her mizzen peak. And through the night as inch by inch She reached the pans with the "harps" piled high We hoisted them up as the hours filed by To the sleepy growl of the donkey-winch.

E. J. Pratt— The Ice Floes.

The Front, as I have said, is out to sea between the latitudes of Bonavista North and the Straits of Belle Isle. Remember that the seals swim north to the whelping ice and drive south, with their families, on the ice, in shore or off shore, according to wind and current. In one notable year, known as Green Bay year, 1888, they were carried in shore in great numbers to Green Bay, an inlet of the big Notre Dame Bay, and Messrs. Hodge of Twillingate handled most of these. But normally they keep further out. How then shall we get to the ice? The old rule was "start from Baccalieu (the island off Bay de Verde that all knew) and steer north-east." Then having drifted south on the ice, the rule was "steer north-west for Baccalieu," tho' once, in a fog, when they 1 Two sealing captains of great experience remarked to me later that the shooting of seals (since so many shot are not recovered) and the taking of breeding seals (which otherwise would produce a pup year by year) ought to be discouraged, if not prohibited.

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hailed the island, a French voice replied "St. Pierre." But for our special purpose we shall start further north, from Lumsden by Cape Freels (it is connected now by a good motor road with Badger's Quay, where the ice-hunters used to lay up) and make straight for Funk Island,1 which is thirteen leagues due east of Fogo. For the Funks usually split the seals. We are in the company of Mr. William Tiller, a plumbing contractor of St. John's, and his old father. "One year in six you could get a load simply by tying on to the Island." So we tie on—it is half a century ago; and we are after eggs, as well as seal. "Was there any law against taking eggs in your day, dad?" "Never that I heard of." They would stow them in salt to last the summer, when they went on to the Labrador. Gannet Head, where we land, is the north-east corner of this single Island (albeit called the Funks): which is half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. Jumping on to "the bench" of flat rock, we scramble up the stony slope. For I want to get to that table top of wiry grass and have a look for the bones on it. No, not for the bones of the Great Auk, I know there are none of them left, but for human bones. "Dad, were they in a coffin?" "No, just lying about." You'll see what I'm after as I read now from Chafe, page 41. 1852. A very sad calamity occurred on the "Funk Island" this spring, when four of the five men belonging to Mr. Stephen March at the island lost their lives while seal hunting on February 23rd. Mr. Reid was the only survivor; he was cared for by Captain Joseph Houlahan of the brigt. "Coquette." This spring is generally known and spoken of as the "Spring of the Wadhams." Seals were found very plentiful in the vicinity of the Wadhams, and the majority of the vessels were caught in a fearful gale of N.N.E. wind which caused great destruction to the fleet. It was calculated that upwards of 40 vessels were smashed to matchwood by the rafting ice, while more were destroyed by fire by the upsetting of stoves. About 200 men arrived from Greenspond, who reported leaving 1,500 men behind them who only saved what they stood in. The crews were sheltered on the "Wadham Island" from the 5th to the 12th of April, till a relief ship was sent them by the Government.

It is a beautiful spring day when we land on the Funks, but we cannot see the sun, for it is nesting time, and, as the birds rise around us literally in tens of thousands, the sun is blotted out. We 1 Funk, the Funks, "may come from the word which the Danes and Icelanders use to describe a small haycock, which the island somewhat resembles in shape"—Devine's Folk Lore of Newfoundland, p. 5.

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walk gingerly between the nests, which are so close together that it is hard to avoid trampling on the eggs—of gannet, puffin, tar, ticklelace (kittiwake) and small pigeon. And it is well that we brought with us that suit of overalls to cover us from head to foot, for the birds in their indignation bespatter us, and when they have done, we dump the overalls into the sea. My friends now leave me, but I stay on in imagination and erect a tall mast on the table top and climb up into my barrel, to look out on the ice. For I am transformed into Mr. George Whiteley of Bonne Esperance, Dr. Grenfell's life-long friend and helper. (The letters of Grenfell to Whiteley, which I have been privileged to read, will be indispensable to the definitive biography of Grenfell.) As a young man he got a berth on the Neptune with Captain Samuel Blandford and after three years was promoted to "barrel-man." What this means and how he fared in it, he tells us in the Daily News of March 4, 1944. "This to my mind is the most important job on board a sealer, as the barrel-man has to watch the movements of the men on the ice and be able to tell the skipper where they are and be able to pick them up at night in case of a sudden storm. The glasses they use are very powerful, large in size and are handled by having a railing on the edge of the barrel, which enables the man to move them to and fro. With one of these glasses you can see a single man on the ice 15 miles away." He tells how once, in his early days, he was ordered down from his post. "George, Skipper James says you are steering wrong." But he felt sure he was right and at last ventured to say so, half expecting that Captain Sam would clout him for his impudence. But instead the Captain tore off his fur cap and his gloves, tossed them on the deck and stamped on them. "Caesar's ghost," he roared, "find the men, find the men, that's all I want." So George went up again, altered course and found them. "By this time, although it was very cold, the perspiration was running into my eyes. Suddenly I heard a man on the fo'castle cry, 'I see a light.' They could see further standing on the bow of the ship than any one could in the barrel on such a night." The missing men had made a fire of seal fat and gaff-stems to keep themselves warm. And soon they were all on board again, safe and sound. "I remember to this day," he says, "the feeling I experienced when I heard the first man say 'I see a light'; and I am not ashamed to say that I dropped down on my knees in the barrel and thanked God." It was a lucky fog that detained me in St. Anthony. For it was

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there that I met Captain Whiteley and heard the family story— how his father William H. Whiteley (photo in Chafe, page 45, and keeper of a precious diary which I trust will eventually find its way to Memorial University) built up his big fish business in Bonne Esperance, inventing the cod-trap in 1865; and how he, the son, finally became a sealing captain. At his first application he was refused. "You're not in Chafe?" "But how am I to get into Chafe?" And he went back to a depressing tea, in the course of which there was a knock at the door, and Baine Johnston's manager entered with the news "You can have the Bloodhound, if you want her!" The completeness of my ignorance on July 9 (in all but Seal Finger—for I had spent the previous week with Dr. Olds at Twillingate, and on this I was a near expert) may be gathered when I confess that, as he spoke of barrel-man, I thought he said barman and visualised him administering grog to the "Old Man." And when he came to "not in Chafe?" I said to myself, "S.H.A.E.F., what on earth has Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces to do with sealing ?" Now I know better. For I have made friends with Mr. Walter Chesley Chafe, of Mutual Life, son of L. G. Chafe of Chafe's Sealing Book. The copy from which I read has been loaned to me by Mr. Chafe, and he has further given me access to his father's private diary. The entries there for 1894, the year of the Crash, are as exciting and as intriguing as anything in Samuel Pepys. From the list of great sealing Captains I select four. First, Captain William Jackman, brother of Captain Arthur Jackman, both in their day commanders of Eagle I. All Newfoundland knows the noble story: of how on October 9, 1867, at Spotted Islands, Labrador, in a gale, he saw a wrecked vessel and swam out to it, to save twenty-six souls one by one—men, women and children: and how one woman remaining, he swam out yet again, although by now very exhausted, and saved her too. He died February 25, 1877, aged 39, and rests in Belvedere cemetery, St. John's. Second, Captain Samuel Blandford of the Neptune (he had her for twenty years, 1883-1903): a blacksmith of Herculean strength, but a superb seaman—by putting a hand to his ear he could tell where a rock was—and withal very free of his tongue. At a service, at which he himself was present, one of the congregation, a member of his crew, prayed "Please God, look after Captain Sam. He's a fine captain, but he do swear something awful."

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Third, George Barbour: "At Job's there is the 'Neptune' With George Barbour in command, As fine a man as ever On her deck did stand." He is renowned for a brilliant improvisation, when in charge of the Nascopie iron-clad on her first trip to the ice-fields. Three blades of her propeller were carried away by ice shortly after leaving. She was completely disabled. But with the help of his engineer, John Ledingham, he put on new blades without returning home, shifted her cargo, raised the stern out of water, and managed all successfully, so that in spite of the initial mishap she came in with a full load of seals. Fourth, Captain Abraham Kean—of the Wolf, the Aurora, the Florizel, the Stephana and the Terra Nova: Commodore of the Sealing Fleet. He was a millionaire: as similarly the Neptune was a millionaire ship. And surely it is the only kind of millionairedom really worth having. How proud he and his crew must have been when he hailed for his millioneth seal! To the Book of Newfoundland (edited by J. R. Smallwood), Vol. I, page 73, Captain Kean contributed an authoritative commentary on the Seal Hunt, concluding, "It is not good economic policy to over-run any industry, when over-manning would hasten its downfall." He also gives sealing figures from Chafe for 1805-1936. Some to whom I speak have been "to the ice." Many more have stood on the wharf of St. John's, to give the sealing fleet its sendoff on March 10—flags flying, sirens blowing, last minute cheers and waving of hands. I have only seen it on a film. This epic is part of a larger epic, the epic of Polar Exploration. The seal fishery of Newfoundland has been a training field for crews and vessels in Arctic and Antarctic seas. The Nimrod was with Shackleton in the Antarctic. The world-famous Terra Nova took Scott thither on his fatal expedition. She served also in Franz Josef land: and was lost finally when under charter in Arctic waters, as reported in the Evening Telegram of September 30, 1943—all her crew being saved. If you con the records of sealing captains in Chafe, you observe that it runs in families—Keans (pronounced Canes), Winsors, Barbours, Bartletts, and often from father to son—no less than ten Bartletts in Chafe's list. To this famous family belonged Bob

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Bartlett, and it has been promised me that before I go, I shall be taken to Brigus to see his medals.1 So ends my epic. I tried to build it up from reading in books and press cuttings and from conversations in Newfoundland. But now let me confess that in the National Geographic Magazine for July, 1929, the sealing story is told by no less a figure than Captain Robert A. Bartlett himself. I have not drawn on it. The feast is yours. There is a photo of the author at the wheel of his vessel, with the notice "Born at Brigus, 1875, in command of Peary's ship the Roosvelt, 1908-9, when Peary reached the North Pole"—or at least made his dash for it. Captain Bob died rather suddenly in New York on April 28, 1946. And the epic is retold in Animal Kingdom, May-June, 1951: "The Hazardous Industry of North Atlantic Sealing," by C. W. Andrews, assistant Professor of Biology, New York University (now of St. John's Memorial University). Professor Andrews placed it in my hands shortly after I left the platform! Both are superbly illustrated. Let us turn in conclusion to the economic side of our epic. First, the link with the Old Country—in this case Scotland and particularly Peterhead and Dundee. The Scotch sealers and whalers (for the two were conducted in conjunction) made their appearance in Newfoundland waters about 1790, and about 1850 steam was introduced as an auxiliary: thus making two periods of intensive sealing—by sail from 1837 to 1863, by steam from 1863 to 1900. (Scotch records in Chafe, pages 12-13.) In the course of years Dundee firms established agencies in St. John's, employing Newfoundland skippers and crews to prosecute the voyage. Peterhead withdrew from the sealing before 1900. Dundee a few years later. Thus the Dundee sealing fleet took on Newfoundlanders, who finally displaced them. Their stronghold was Conception Bay: then Bonavista. In recent years the Newfoundland sealing fleet has been composed predominantly of Bonavista men. The Old Country link of day is the Clyde-built steamer, coastal and foreign-going, for cargo and passenger service. Secondly, the evolution of sealing technique:— i. The way of the Eskimo, who took the seal by harpoon and gun from the clean-cut edge of the ice (SiNA) or in nets in the tickles. The seal to the Eskimo was like the coconut to the East Indian— 1 The Bartlett house being closed the day I went, I could not see the medals, but I saw the grave: Robert Abram Bartlett, 1875-1946—he rests with his parents: and the memorial at the water side, with a profile of the explorer facing North.

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food and drink, material for clothing, footwear, housing and boats. It combined with fish, furs and birds to make up a natural economy. No seal meat meant starving dogs, unable for their winter's work. 2. The commercial exploitation in the Straits of Belle Isle—on the Labrador coast by the Lymburners of Canada, pre-i8oo, to which Jersey and English settlers (among these last the Whiteleys of Bonne Esperance) succeeded: as also on the West Coast of Northern Newfoundland in the St. Barbe-Flower's Cove area. The nets became more elaborate. The seal frame was introduced and tactics were developed for driving the seals into them—this early in the nineteenth century. 3. Next, small open boats go out to the ice to shoot and bat the animals. 4. This stimulated a native ship-building industry. "The small 'Western Boats' with their apple-cheek bows soon developed into the sharp stem with glancing bows that rose on the ice pans of its own accord, and helped to crush the floes with the weight of the heavier vessel." (Chafe, page 16.) These decked boats increase in size. In 1819 the first hundred tonner, the Four Brothers, built in 1819 by William Munden of Brigus. And in strength; Richard Taylor, "the thoughtful man" of Carbonear, protects the bows with iron-sheathing. 1862. The first sealing steamers—Captain Alexander Graham (the Bloodhound), a Scot, being the first captain to take care of a sealing steamer fitted out from St. John's. 1906. The first iron-clad, the Adventure, built for Mr. Alick Harvey—Captain Henry Dawe. This was the precursor of the modern age of steel sealers. Messrs. Job followed with the Clyde-built Beothic and the Tyne-built Nascopie, and Messrs. Bowring had their Florizel and Stephano, built to combine strength and speed for passenger as well as freight service. Last of all we read in the Daily News of March 10, 1947, of the Factory Ship. "For the first time in the history of Newfoundland fat will be manufactured at the scene of operations." 1921. The spotting plane, pioneered by Messrs. Bowring, the owners of Eagle II (after an experiment with pigeons—in World War I at G.H.Q., in France, I had a room next to O.C. Pigeons!). With the new aids to capture the seal population of perhaps two million could be exterminated. But happily governments and all concerned are increasingly alive to the need for conservation, and the present low price of whale and seal oil, consequent upon the

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competition of vegetable oil, affords a breathing space in which to perfect the techniques of catching and utilization, in readiness for the time when prices improve. Such is the epic, but add to it for yourselves. Call on Captain Job Blackwood and learn what he can tell you of seal-spotting, and on Captain S. J. Hill and learn of seals taken by him on the Eagle, the Beothic, the Imogen, and now the Arctic Sealer. In conclusion I permit myself a flight of fancy. "Now alfo I will not omit to relate feme thing of a ftrange Creature that I firft faw there in the yeere 1610, in a morning early as I was ftanding by the waterfide, in the Harbour of Saint Johns; which I efpyed very fwiftly to come fwimming towards me, looking cheerefully, as it had been a woman, by the Face, Eyes, Nofe, Mouth, Chin, Eares, Necke and Forehead: It feemed to be fo beautifull, and in thofe parts fo well proportioned, hauing round about vpon the head, all blew ftrakes, refembling hayre, dovvne to the Necke (but certainly it was no haire:) for I beheld it long, and another of my Company alfo, yet liuing, that was not then farre from me; and feeling the fame comming fo fwiftly towards me, I ftepped backe, for it was come within the length of a long Pike. Which when this ftrange Creature faw, that I went from it, it prefently thereupon diued a little vnder water, and did fwim towards the place where before I landed; whereby I beheld the thoulders and backe dovvne to the middle, to be as fquare, white and fmooth as the backe of a man, and from the middle to the hinder part, poynting in proportion like a broad hooked Arrow; how it was proportioned in the forepart, from the necke and fhoulders, I know not; but the fame came fhortly after vnto a Boate, wherein one William Hawkridge, then my feruant, was, that hath bin fince a Captaine in a fhip to the East Indies, and is lately there employed againe by Sir Thomas Smith, in the like Voyage; and the fame Creature did put both his hands vpon the fide of the Boate, and did ftriue to come in to him and others in the faid Boate: whereat they were afraide; and one of them ftrooke it a full blow on the Head; whereby it fell off from them; and afterwards it came to two other Boats in the faid Harbour; the men in them, for feare fled to land: This (I fuppofe) was a Maremaide. Now becaufe diuers haue written much of Maremaids, I haue prefumed to relate, what is moft certaine of fuch a ftrange Creature that was feene atNew-foundland: Whether it were a Maremaid or no, I know not; I leaue it for others to judge." I judge the lady to have been an overcurious bedlamer! Sir William Vaughan, 1577-1641, author of the Golden Fleece, purchased from Adventurers in 1618 James I's colonization grant and sent out as governor Sir Richard Whitbourne, who published in 1620 his Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland. From the concluding part of Whitbourne's charming narrative the above extract is taken. F

CHAPTER SIX

THE MASTER BUILDERS PART I COOK

CARTWRIGHT

BUCHAN

CORMACK

It may happen to a country that it passes through an Elizabethan age. Such was England's lot in the century whence the term is derived. Such Newfoundland's in the Georgian era, 1760-1830, which, significantly, was the period also of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. Now, an Elizabethan age may, if circumstances concur, be repeated as in nineteenth century Britain and (may we not hope?) in the Newfoundland of the coming half-century. The characteristic of such an age is that it is dynamic, and perhaps imperial also. After centuries or at least decades of slow growth or even stagnation, a country pushes forward in trade, power and population. It may have to fight for its expansion and this may give it command over neighbours—imperium, empire. This was the case in Newfoundland on the morrow of the Seven Years War of 1756-1763. Indians, French, Spanish, Canadians, Americans even, had to submit to the imperium of Hugh Palliser—the British Navy being the power behind his throne. Such an age evokes the master builder. They make it, and it makes them. Never has a little country—little in population, if not in size—had such adequate persons to serve it at such a juncture: James Cook, cartographer and naval explorer: George Cartwright, the homesteading pioneer of the Labrador: David Buchan and William Cormack, the explorers of the hinterland and would-be guardians of its contents. These four disclosed and delineated the limits of Newfoundland (including Newfoundland-Labrador). And they prepared the way for builders of another—architects of justice and democracy. But before we come to the first and greatest of the masterbuilders, let us note that he had a precursor at the settlement which accompanied the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. 1718. "A new map of Newfoundland from Cape St. Mary to Cape Lahun, with a survey of the late French part of Newfoundland by Capt. Taverner." Lahun presumably is our Lawn in Burin 70

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peninsula: and so this survey was of Placentia Bay. The Board of Trade Minutes read here:— "That Mr. Gaudy submits draughts of Coasts and Harbors, Captain Taverner having taken over the late French part of Newfoundland, but some French remain behind: and Guernsey men use tackle belonging to St. Malo. That the having inhabitants there (Capt. Taverner thinks) was a benefit; for that they were cloathed from Great Britain, and that none of the ships belonging to the western part of England, except Bydeford and Barnstaple, depend entirely on fishing, but take as many passengers and what freight they could, with some goods of their own, and relied on the chance of the Fishing to make good their voyages, carrying as few seamen or fishermen at their own charge as they can. That Bydeford and Barnstaple carry indeed their complement of seamen and fishermen, but generally return with few, and depending altogether on the Fishery, they carry little else besides tackle and butter—but the ships of these last two mentioned ports afford their fish cheaper by means of their method of hiring their men by shares of fish and not by wages in money, as has been the practice with others since the late wars with France. That there were few of our ships that had yet gone to those parts of Newfoundland lately possessed by the French: the ships of Poole commonly frequent the North part: those of Bristol about Carbonear: those of Dartmouth about the Bay of Bulls: of Bydeford and Barnstaple about Renews and Fermeuse, to which places they return on account of utensils they leave there." So reads the minute. There is the mark of the take-over in the place names, but none so unhappy as that which was to turn Baie d'Espoir into Bay Despair. JAMES COOK, 1728-1779. James Cook is, of course, a world name—one of England's greatest three at sea—Drake, Cook, Nelson. He did much for Newfoundland, as we are about to see, and everything for Australia and New Zealand; for he brought them into being. Born in England of Scottish stock, he spent his life at sea; or in London or Halifax, Nova Scotia, preparing himself for the sea; and he died at Honolulu in the Pacific Ocean at the hands of savages. From the Atlantic to the Pacific—from Sea to Sea: he qualified certainly for full Canadian citizenship. Without him there might have been no Vancouver Island under the English flag: no British Columbia: no confederation of Canada (as we know it): no Tenth Province of Newfoundland. It is meet that we first encounter him in the St. Lawrence, at whose

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mouth Newfoundland has ever stood sentinel. General Wolfe, manoeuvring for his landing at Quebec, wrote to Admiral Saunders, August 30,1759: "Mr. Cook said he believed the cats could be carried within 40 or 50 yards of the redoubts."1 Apprenticed at Whitby, but preferring the Royal Navy to the Mercantile Marine, he had taken a berth in the Eagle, under Hugh Palliser, like himself a Yorkshireman. Becoming master of the Mercury (1759), he was employed on the North American station surveying the St. Lawrence and doing piloting duty. In this annus mirabilis "he took (says Beccles Wilson) the soundings of the channel between the Isle of Orleans and the North shore facing the French camp, preparatory to its being occupied by Saunders' ships, an arduous and risky operation completed entirely at night."2 From the Mercury he was sent to the Northumberland (Colville's flagship); and while master of this ship, studied mathematics at Halifax, poring over Euclid and charts and learning also during his winters in London all that was to be known about the scurvy and health at sea. Therefore it was that, whereas in Anson's world voyage, in the 1740*8, most of the crew perished from disease, Cook in the decade 1768-1778 lost hardly a man. He saved others: himself in 1779 he could have saved, but did not. His first acquaintance with the Newfoundland coast was made in 1762, when he was master of Colville's flagship at the retaking of St. John's. In 1762 he made careful draughts of Harbour Grace and Carbonear in Conception Bay, the two chief outports, and a preliminary survey of harbours in the Straits of Belle Isle. In 1763 he was employed on the South Coast, where he made a survey 1 Beccles Wilson James Wolfe, p. 461. The cat, nautical, was "a strong vessel, with a narrow stern, projecting quarters and a deep waist; formerly used in the coal and timber trades." (O.E.D.) As such it made good landing craft for Wolfe's D day. * For a fuller account of his work in the St. Lawrence in 1759, see R. M. Hunt, Life of Sir Hugh Palliser, p. 65. The notice concludes: "He furnished Admiral Saunders with an accurate chart of the river—an instance of his great aptitude as a draftsman, for he had not learnt the art of drawing and probably had never used a pencil before. This chart Cook improved by an additional survey of the river below Quebec, which greatly facilitated the operations of the fleet, and when published with sailing directions for the whole River St. Lawrence, at once established the diligence and professional talent of its author." See also Ch. II of Capt. James Cook by Surgeon Rear-Admiral J. R. Muir "On Naval Service" for the successful survey of the formidable "Traverse" in the St. Lawrence, early lessons in the prevention of scurvy, and the accurate charting of the difficult Newfoundland coast on the Granville, 1764-7. On pp. 201-3 is an account with photo of the Cook family tablet at Cambridge.

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of Placentia, the old French capital, and of St. Pierre and Miquelon prior to their transfer to France. In 1764, with the title now of Marine Surveyor of Newfoundland and Labrador, he was in the Petit Nord, surveying from Griquet Bay around the north tip of the Island (past Cook's Harbour that bears his name) to Point Ferrolle on the West Coast; "all which coast," said Palliser, "we had not the least knowledge of before." In 1765 he completed his survey of the West Coast, continuing it from Point Ferrolle to Cape Aiguille, north of Cape Ray: and of the South Coast from Cape Ray to the head of Fortune Bay. (On an island summit at the entrance to Pushthrough Harbour you may see the cairn from which he measured.) In 1766 he surveyed the Straits of Belle Isle, including the Southern Coast of Labrador (his successor Joseph Gilbert continuing it in 1767 from Cape Charles past Battle Harbour to Square Island and St. Michael's Bay). In 1766 he made observations on an eclipse of the sun (August 5, 1766) from one of the Burgeo Islands (henceforward called Eclipse Island) thereby drawing the attention of the Admiralty to his qualifications as an astronomer and mathematician. This concluded his work in Newfoundland, and at the instance of Hugh Palliser he was permitted to embody the fruits of it in a set of atlases with sailing directions, which remained standard works for many years to come.1 He was, indeed, tireless. In 1768, as every schoolboy knows, he set sail on the Endeavour from Southampton to observe the Transit of Venus at Tahiti (June 3,1769): after which he ascended his grand climacteric. Certain of Cook's maps are on the walls of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, notably that of the South Coast of Newfoundland with Port aux Basques inset, and of the Straits and South Coast of Labrador. By courtesy of the Museum, I quote some correspondence from the Graves collection (Admiral Thomas 1 The Memorial University St. John's is so fortunate as to possess a set of the Cook maps, together with those of his colleagues, in a superb publication bearing the title: "The North American pilot for Newfoundland, Labradore, the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence, being a collection of Sixty Accurate Charts and Plans drawn from original Surveys taken by James Cook and Michael Lane, Surveyours, and Joseph Gilbert and other officers in the King's service. Sold by R. Sayer and J. Bennett, No. 53 in Fleet Street MDCCLXIX, of whom may be had sailing directions to the above charts. Dedicated 1775 by Robert Sayer to Sir Hugh Palliser, at whose instance the North American Pilot for Newfoundland, Coast of Labrador and Gulf and River of St. Lawrence was begun and executed."

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Graves was Governor of Newfoundland 1761-4), presented by Sir James Caird:— 1762. October 20. Graves writes from the Antelope at St. John's, Newfoundland. "In the meantime I bought a schooner, agreeable to their Lordships' orders, and had her within 3 or 4 days of being ready, when Mr. Cook joined me, being put on shore by the Tweed at Ferriland, with his survey compleat. The moment the schooner, called the Grenville, was ready, Mr. Cook proceeded in her to survey Quirpon, Waddy Harbour, and from thence to York Harbour, to take a competent survey of that or any other good harbour he should fall in with, on the Labrador Coast, and to employ himself in like manner in his return— when the season should make it necessary to leave that coast. This he has done with indefatigable industry, having surveyed four harbours." Cook to Graves, March 15, 1764. London: "Sir, I learnt this day at the Admiralty of your arrival of which I give your joy and have to acquaint you that soon after my arrival I gave my surveys into the Board, which was approved of and was then ordered to be laid before the King. These and the different Captains sketches is. finished and given to the Board. Those that you intend for the Board of Trade are ready. I had not the honour to see Mr. Grenville when I gave in the Plan, but I am convinced it was well received, as he made me an offer soon after by Mr. Whately, Secretary to the Treasury, to go as one of the surveyors to the Neutral Islands, which I was obliged to decline. Your favourable recommendations of me to this gentleman, likewise to the Admiralty, together with many other signal favours I have received during the short time I have had the honor to be under your command, shall ever be had in the most grateful remembrance, and tho' Capt. Palliser, who is appointed to the command in Newfoundland, is a gentleman I have been long acquainted with, yet I cannot help being sorry that you do not enjoy that office any longer. It is more than probable that the Survey of the Island will go on until completely finished: this useful and necessary thing the world ought to be obliged to you for. I shall do myself the honor to wait on you as soon as you arrive in town and acquaint you with what has passed between Lord Egmont and me in regard to the North part of the Island. I am with great respect Sir, Your most ob4. & very h'ble ser*. Jas. Cook." Geo. Davis to James Cook, March 14, 1764. Poole: "Sir, When I last had the pleasure to see you, I promised at my arrival here to make enquiry and inform you when Twillingate and

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Fogo was settled by the English. I did not get here till the loth, having taken a tour in my way home and made it my business to find Mr. Thos. Tizzard who was the first person that ever drove a nail at Twillingate, or settled here as an Englishman, which was in the year 1732, he tells me that Fogo was settled 3 or 4 years sooner and that he has known that part of Newfoundland for 40 years, and that he never knew a French boat or ship to the southward of Cape John—which is 14 leagues NNW from Twillingate, and the nearest place that he ever knew a French boat was at a harbour 2 leagues north of St. John called D'luce. [? Fleur-de-lys Harbour.] Bonavista was settled as early as any part of the land and never any Frenchman yet fished there. Mr. Tizzard was born at Bonavista, whose uncle John Walcome was the first manchild born there, who was 80 years old when he dy'ed, and has been dead upwards of 30 years. In Queen Anne's war, when the French had Placentia, in the winter season, a party of French came overland, but was beat off by the inhabitants of Bonavista. I think this is sufficient proof that the French have not occupied any part of the island from Cape Bonavista to Cape John for 40 years past. I wrote Mr. Arth. Merry to the same Purpose of the above the loth and desired him to relate the whole to you, if you called, and if you have any further enquiry to make, relative to the Land or [anything] else, if you please to lay your commands, they shall intelligently be answered by one who has the good of his country at heart. Sr. Your most Humble Serv4. Geo. Davis." While in Newfoundland Cook met with an accident to his right hand from the explosion of a powder horn. The Home Office Papers, Geo. Ill, 1760-5, p. 1507, have this entry: "Mr. Cook, the Surveyor, has returned. The accident to him was not so bad as it was represented. . . . He continued his work on the coast as long as the season would permit, and he executed his surveys in a manner which he has no doubt will be satisfactory to their lordships." As I envisage it, Cook, as Marine Surveyor, would, like the Governor, spend his winters in England, working up his results and preparing the next year's programme under instruction from his superiors. Governor Palliser in July, 1766, wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty: "Mr. Cook, appointed by the Admiralty to survey the sea coast of of Newfoundland under my direction, having finished his charts of the North part of Newfoundland with the opposite coast of Labrador including the Island and Streights of Belle Isle, also of the part of the South coast of Newfoundland adjacent to the Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon (including the same islands upon a large scale of an inch to

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a league) and delivered them into the Board of Admiralty, I think proper to give you notice thereof, for the information of the Rt. Honble. my Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, in case they should chuse to employ a draftsman, to take copies thereof for the use of their Board. I have also proposed to the Lords of the Admiralty to allow Mr. Cook the Surveyor to publish the same for the benefit of the Trade and Navigation of H.M.'s subjects and for the encouragement of New Adventurers on the Fisherys in those parts. I am Sir your most obed*. Humble Serv*. Hugh Palliser." Palliser's proposal to the Admiralty had been worded thus: To Philip Stephens, Esq. Admiralty, Feb. 3, 1766. "Sir, Mr. Cook appointed by the Right Honourable my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to survey the sea coast of Newfoundland and Labrador under my directions, having finished his chart of the south-east coast of Newfoundland adjacent to the islands of St. Pierre and including the said islands, and upon a large scale of one inch to a mile, you will herewith receive the said charts, which be pleased to lay before the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. He having also the last year delivered into the Board his survey of the northern part of Newfoundland upon the same scale, and having now prepared a chart of that part, together with a chart of the opposite part of the Coast of Labrador, including the islands and straits of Belle Isle, likewise another of the above mentioned survey of a part of the south-east coast of Newfoundland both upon a proper scale to be useful to the trade and navigation of His Majesty's subjects, therefore, as a publication of the same, I am of opinion, will be a great encouragement to new adventurers in the fisheries upon these coasts, be pleased to move their lordships to permit Mr. Cook to publish the same. I remain sir, Your most obedient servant Hugh Palliser." (Admiralty Records) In the Bishop Douglas correspondence (British Museum, Egerton 2185) there is a letter from Palliser to Douglas, asking him to help get Cook's boy Hugh into Charterhouse. Hugh eventually went to Christ's College, Cambridge, but died when an undergraduate there, and is buried in the church opposite to the College Gate. Dr. A. L. Peck, of Christ's College, has kindly furnished the following note: "The tablet on the north wall of the Sanctuary of St. Andrew's the Great commemorates Captain James Cook, Mr. Nathaniel Cook, Mr. Hugh Cook, James Cook, Elizabeth Cook (aged 4), Joseph Cook (aged i month), George Cook (aged 4 months), all children of Captain

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James Cook and his wife Elizabeth Cook. Of Elizabeth Cook it says 'Her remains are deposited with those of her sons James and Hugh, in the middle Aisle of this Church.' On Hugh the wording runs 'In Memory Of Mr. Hugh Cook, of Christ's College, Cambridge, who died on the 2ist of December, 1793, aged 17 years.'" According to John Peile (History of Christ's College) Hugh Cook was admitted on February 15, 1793 and was buried December 24,1793. Naval supremacy conjures up great victories—the Armada, the Nile, Trafalgar, Jutland, the "Glorious First of June," 1794, Rodney's victory over de Grasse in the West Indies, 1782. Sea power was its silent complement; and the influence of sea power is the continuous thread in the history of Newfoundland. Sea power meant policing—patrols, convoys, the smoking out of pirates' nests, the up-river chase after slave traders. Without a Navy constantly at sea the history of Lloyd's insurance in the Napleonic Wars just does not make sense. Meeting a naval friend after World War I, I asked him what he had been doing; he replied, "hunting submarines in the North Atlantic." "Did you sink many?" "I never even saw one." The answer made me think a lot, and the thought of it recurred on July 24, 1952, as I sat in the Porpoise, Mr. Lewin's delectable launch, in the Bay of Islands and fingered the charts on the Captain's table—"London: Admiralty Chart of 1897—Newfoundland—West Coast, Bay of Islands: Large corrections 1900." Where have the Navy not been? It takes a landsman some minutes to get his bearings. The sea, which he expects to find empty, is dotted with numbers and warnings. The land, where he looks for roads and townships, is empty. The Navy brought the first clergy here, the Reverend Mr. Rule, and after him Parson Curling;1 and true to tradition (for Mr. Lewin himself is Royal Navy) the Porpoise takes Bishop Abraham on his confirmation rounds in these parts. It has been the fashion in some quarters to speak lightly of the British Empire after 1776. Our administrators (it is hinted) were near-morons: we had learnt nothing: if any Empire survived to us, it was the lucky fruit of neglect. In reality, the silent growth of the Second Empire—comprising Canada, the West Indies, Old and New, 1

R. H. Jelf, Joseph James Curling, 1844-1906.

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South Africa, the Falkland Islands, Mauritius, Ceylon, India and parts beyond, even to the China Seas and the Antipodes—not to mention the informal Empire of South American commerce—is more remarkable than the noisy collapse of the First. And it is inexplicable except in terms of sea power and its concomitant, Ocean Commerce. Moreover, this type of Empire harmonized with the aspirations of Exeter Hall and Manchester, with the AntiSlavery of the one and the Free Trade of the other. Was it not Sir John Bowring (a member of the widespread Bowring family), the free trade lecturer of Canton fame, who composed the hymn "In the Cross of Christ I glory"? The Navy patrolled the rivers of Africa and the narrow waters of Malaya (Newfoundland would call them "tickles"), and in addition had the less congenial task of requiring the Island to respect to the letter the concessions made by the Mother Country to His Most Christian Majesty of France, and the Republic thereto succeeding. I had an uncle in the Navy, who was stationed at Newfoundland in the 1890*3. He often told me of the bickerings that went on with the French, and how thankless a job it was trying to keep the peace. GEORGE CARTWRIGHT, 1739-1819. George Cartwright was pure English, being born at Marnham, near Tuxford, Notts. He was one of a remarkable band of brothers: William, George, John, Edmund, Charles. William, their father, was remarkable too, in that (according to report) he succeeded in abolishing "vails" (tips) in the circle of his acquaintance. William, the eldest son, entered the Treasury and died young. Charles, the youngest, was a naval lieutenant. George, John, and Edmund were all of national standing. George was a pioneer in the Labrador trade and "proved up" in the place he made his home from 1770 to 1786. During these years he made periodic trips across the Atlantic; and they were as much journeys back to the Old Country for recruitment as outward voyages of exploration to the New. Cartwright, the post which he established 1774 and named—"At four this morning we entered Cartwright Harbour (June 27,1775)"— is at the entrance to Sandwich Bay. And the first duty of every visitor to that delectable spot is to proceed to the cemetery and raise the lid of the cenotaph erected there to George Cartwright and his brother John by their niece Frances Dorothy Cartwright. He kept a journal of his voyages to and residence in Labrador; and as edited by C. W. Townsend, "Captain Cartwright and his Labrador Journal,"

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1911, it is an eccessible classic—lively, observant, and humane.1 Not suffering from Dr. Johnson's defect of vision, it was worth his while to go and see the birds fly and the fishes swim. It is not impossible that this classic will shortly be accompanied by another, slightly antecedent in time. Dr. H. V. Rutherford of Berkley, California, tells me that Sir Joseph Banks in April, 1766, sailed as Naturalist in H.M.S. Niger, under Sir Thomas Adams, to Labrador and Newfoundland. He is supposed to have made several trips ashore of an extensive nature in the company of Lt. Constantine Phipps (later Lord Mulgrave). He collected a large number of plants and returned home on November 17, 1766. A full journal of the trip was kept, which is now in the possession of the South Australian Branch of the Royal Geographical Society, Adelaide. It seems (writes Dr. Rutherford) never to have been published.2 In this same year of 1766, during the Governorship of Palliser, George Cartwright, at this stage of his life a captain in the merchant navy, accompanied his younger brother John, who served in the Royal Navy, to the Island of Newfoundland; and together they explored the Exploits river as far as a water which they called "Lieutenant's Lake" above certain "great falls." When John was posted to another naval station, George moved to the Labrador, as an overseas partner in the Bristol firm of Noble & Pinson. In 1778 his place was raided by a Boston privateer. "May the devil go with them," he wrote, as they made off with their loot. He never made a fortune and he was once down and out, but the Lesters of Poole rallied round and set him on his feet again. His ripe old age he spent in England, where he was quite a character and known affectionately as "Old Labrador." He was a Tory in politics, but his brother, Radical John, was devoted to him and helped him in the hour of financial need. John Cartwright had quit the Navy rather than fight against America in 1776, and henceforth was Major Cartwright, the political 1 The original edition is in three quarto volumes, Newark, 1792, with the title "A Journal of Transactions and Events During a Residence of Nearly Sixteen Years on the Coast of Labrador, by George Cartwright, Esq." 8 Banks' "Journal of a voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador, commencing April ye Seventh and ending November the iyth, 1766." Manuscript in the handwriting of Sir Joseph Banks, giving account of the plants, birds, insects, and objects which he collected; description of the cod fisheries and curing of fish both by the French and English; also of the state of St. John's, the government, etc. On the return voyage to Lisbon nearly the whole of the author's collections were demolished during a gale. (Arrangements are in hand for the transmission of a photostat to the Public Archives of Canada. The Gosling Memorial Library, St. John's, possesses a copy in ink, unedited, of the Banks Journal.)

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reformer, which cause he advocated in season and out of season, until in 1820, the year after George's death, he was indicted for conspiracy against the Constitution! Brother Edmund, a poet and clerical fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, patented his power loom in 1787 and his machine comb in 1789: and they were the first rude steps towards the conquest of the woollen manufacture by steam power. George was like Edmund in this, that he was for ever observing and trying out a new device—in trapping, fishing, gardening, house building, and house-keeping. His reference to the last are gems of insouciance. One time when he got back, he found that his maid servant had run off with Noble & Pinson's head man; and as for the housekeeper whom he took out with him—well! Old Labrador dismissed his unfaithful Hagar with a dot—"I set Mrs. Selby down at her brother's house by the way, and made her an annual allowance for life." And he was like John in that both had a powerful sympathy for the weak, whether feathered fowl or human beings. "Formerly (he writes under July n, 1770) a very beneficial barter was carried on in the neighbourhood of Bonavista, by some of the inhabitants of that harbour. They used to lay a variety of goods at a certain place, to which the Indians resorted, who took what they were in want of, and left furs in return. One day, a villain hid himself near the deposits, and shot an Indian woman dead, as she was furnishing herself with what pleased her best. Since that time, they have always been hostile to Europeans. I fear that the race will be totally extinct hi a few years." Of Funk Island, some thirteen leagues east of Fogo, he says:— "Inumerable flocks of sea birds breed upon it every summer, which are of great service to the poor inhabitants of Fogo, who make voyages there to load with birds and eggs. When the water is smooth, they make their shallops fast to the shore, lay their gang boards from the gunwale of the boat to the rocks, and then drive as many penguins [he refers to the Great Auk, which became extinct c. 1800] on board as she will hold; for the wings of these birds being remarkably short, they cannot fly. But it has been customary of late years for several crews of men to live all the summer on that island for the sole purpose of killing the birds for the sake of their feathers. The destruction they have made is incredible. If a stop is not soon put to that practice, the whole breed will be diminished to almost nothing."1 1 See H. S. Peters and T. D. Burleigh, the Birds of Newfoundland, 1951, pp. 246-9. With respect to wild life generally, the following welcome news was released in June, 1953: "Dr. Ira N. Gabrielson, President, Wild Life Management Institute, Washington, D.C., has announced his willingness to undertake a survey of Newfoundland's wild life resources in the fall of 1953—at the cost of the Wild Life Institute."

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He made friends with the natives of Labrador, with the Mountain Indians and the Eskimo Indians, whose own name is Inuits. In 1772 he brought a party of them to England and showed them the sights of London, but they fell a victim to the smallpox and most of the party died. On the next voyage home he brought a favourite servant, and to avoid a second tragedy had him inoculated, but it was inoculation with the disease itself in those days, and three days after inoculation the lad died.1 Cartwright's Journal is rich in quiet comments on life and labour, such as: May 4, 1777. "I went to Waterford the next morning where I purchased provisions and hired upwards of thirty fishermen for the use of my concerns in Labrador." Coming home in 1779 he touched at Kinsale, Ireland, and dined there with The Buffs (my old regiment in World War I!). Retrospect. "On landing in the harbour of Catalina, on my last voyage from Trinity to Labrador, I observed a luxuriancy of herbage, which I did not suppose the soil, in that part of the world, capable of producing, but I found, on closer inspection, the extent of that fertility was confined to those places in which fish had formerly been cured; some small degree of verdure appeared on the adjoining land, which I knew must have been trampled on; but beyond that, the earth exhibited its original barren state." "Iron-stone is very common along most of the shores. . . . Notwithstanding . . . poverty of soil, short summers, long winters and 1 Newfoundland is linked with the great name of Jenner in the following interesting way: In the Report from the Committee on Dr. Jenner's Petition (Parliamentary Papers, 1801—2, II) there is a long appendix of supporting testimony to the efficacy of Jenner's vaccination. One of these documents (Appendix, p. 45) is an extract of a letter from Mr. J. Clinch to Dr. E. Jenner, dated Poole, January 25, 1802, which reads: "I will hasten to tell you the general results of my practice in the vaccine disorder in the island of Newfoundland. I informed you in a former letter that the matter sent me by your nephew produced the effect completely, although from the date it was kept four months. I began by inoculating my own children, and went on with this salutary work till I had inoculated upwards of seven hundred persons of all ages and descriptions; many opportunities soon offered at St. John's (where the small pox was making great ravages) which afforded convincing proof of the safety of the practice to the inhabitants and servants of Trinity Bay; they saw (at first with astonishment) that those who had gone through the Jennerian oculation were inoculated with the small pox, and exposed to the infection without the least inconvenience, and I hope it will everyday become more and more extensive, as nothing can be more certain than that it will annihilate the worst and most dreadful of all disorders, the small pox."

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severe frosts, yet . . . art and good management are capable of making great improvements." Fish, Fowl, and Ven'son, now our Tables grace; Roast Beaver too, and e'ery Beast of chase. Luxurious living this 1 who'd wish for more ? Were QUIN alive, he'd haste to Labrador!

Brother Edmund must not suppose he was the only poet in the family. Thus, our first two master builders overlapped. When Cook (with Banks) was finishing his work, George (on brother John's introduction) was making his first acquaintance with the Island. What did the Home Government make of him ? Did they think him a troublesome fellow, perversely intent on founding a colony? On the contrary, when he complained of disturbance in his fishing post, the Board of Trade stood by him. Its minute runs:— "Resolved that actual residence and continued possession were essentially necessary to the carrying on the seal and salmon fisheries of the Coast of Labrador: that H.M.'s subjects having settlements there ought to be protected in such possession, provided such persons do for the future annually fit out one or more ships to be employed in the cod fishery on the Coast of Labrador, and provided that proprietors of such posts do not operate a greater extent than necessary in proportion to the number of vessels or men employed at such posts." (Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, 1768-1775.)

And in 1793, when he gave evidence before the Committee of that year, he spoke out strongly against the disgraceful conduct of the Whites towards the Natives of the Island. Two men he knew had gone up the Exploits river to murder and plunder, and they sacked a settlement of more than 100 persons. "Rather have a shot at an Indian than at a deer" was a current saying in those parts. His hope that peaceable relations could be re-established was not destined to be fulfilled. Bewteen the visit of the Cartwright brothers to the Exploits in 1766 and Buchan's classic expedition of 1810-11, there comes a report of 1797 (C.O. 194. 39), by Mr. John Bland, preceded in the Records by Governor Waldegrave's Proclamation of that year. "Whereas it is a well-known fact that the Indians inhabiting the interior parts of this Island at times have been most cruelly and inhumanly treated by hunters, fishermen and others, so that they have been deterred from coming openly to our settlements to traffick, as on the coast of Labrador and other parts of America. . . . "

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all persons are enjoined "not only to forbear from such proceedings as above stated, but likewise, when opportunity offers, to shew every act of kindness to the aforesaid Indians, in order to endeavour to conciliate their affections and teach them that they are no longer to regard us as their cruel enemy, but as friends, with whom it will be their interest to form an amicable and steady intercourse." But, unhappily, Governors' Proclamations in this land were more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Bland denounced the "salmon catchers and furriers," who resided near those posts frequented by the Indians. They had been the guilty parties, but it was from the furriers and other winter residents that guides would have to be chosen. "In the summer season the Indians frequent the sea coasts, to provide a stock for the winter. They have been known to adventure as far as the Funk Is. a distance of thirteen leagues. . . . They must be very hungry, for they have only birch-rind canoes for the sea trip." He proposes to trace them to their winter quarters, with an escort supplied by the garrison of St. John's. "If I remember well, the natives of this Island, upon its first discovery, have been represented as tractable and industrious; and their ingenuity is indeed discoverable in all they do. . . . It ought to be remembered that the savages have a right to this Island, and every invasion of a natural right is a violation of the principle of justice [had he been reading his Adam Smith?]. They have progressively been driven from South to North." Before the lapse of another century they may be extirpated." "Had Mr. Peyton, in some of these winter excursions, instead of marking his visit with desolation and plunder and thereby exposing the wretched savages to perish by famine and the rigours of the season—had he deposited in their Whigwams tokens that indicated a desire for peace, it is reasonable to suppose (for human nature is the same everywhere) that the repetition of such evidences of friendship and good will would ultimately have lead to a better understanding." Human nature the same everywhere—again a very Smithian sentiment. Mr. Peyton, he thinks, should be expelled from the Bay of Exploits. But, on the other hand, there was evidence (for he had Adam Smith's sense of balance, too) that the Indians wounded our fishermen. He continues: "At the mention of Rowsell and Harry Miller the Indians gaze at one another. . . . They generally choose foggy weather when they

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come near any place where our people are, and it is wonderful how they find their way about in the thickest fogs as they do ... Thomas Frith, a clerk of Mr. Slade at Fogo, was killed and beheaded by the Indians. He, with two boys, was on a Sunday picking berries when some Indians met with them. Frith was killed and the two boys wounded, who ran home with the arrows sticking in their backs." "One of the natives was taken young and bred up with Mr. Street's service at Trinity. He lived till upwards of 40 years and was a very good boat master. Mr. Will Pitman informed me that some years ago an Indian woman and two children were surprised by Mr. John Moore, who resided many years in Trinity, and some others. The woman threw back her garment and showed her naked breast, but Moore or one of his party, disregarding her sex, shot her dead. The two children ran into the woods and hid themselves, but one of them was found again, which died on one of the men's shoulders before they reached the boat." "Moore died in extreme indigence in a workhouse in England and his son was found dead under one of the fish flakes in Newfoundland. The Indian girl said to be in the possession of Mr. Stone is since dead." So much for Eland's narrative; and he explains how he came to compile it:— "A Bonavista man, reading the Governor's Proclamation, wrote in saying that proclamations could do nothing against a class of men who regarded the Indians as fair game and destroyed them with no more remorse than they would shoot a deer. In the last year of Admiral Milbanke's Government (1791) there had been 'several murders accompanied by circumstances within my knowledge, and I was desired by Chief Justice Reeves and Mr. Graham, the Governor's Secretary, to state the case in a Letter to His Excellency.'" I have checked the quotations in this and the following section with the version in the much fuller and definitive picture by James P. Howley, The Beothucs or Red Indians, Cambridge University Press, 1915. Plates VI-IX of that work show portraits of Mary March: John Peyton (Junior): Captain David Buchan, R.N.: and Shanawdithit (Nancy Beothic). Plate V shows Bloody Point, Red Indian Lake, where Buchan's two marines were killed in 1811. NOTE ON THE PEYTON FAMILY (pronounced Peeton in Twillingate). The following narrative was given by their father, Thomas Peyton, to two ladies living now (1953) in St. John's. "My grandfather John Peyton was an Englishman, a native of Wimbourne, Christchurch, Hants. Born in the year 1749. Died at the Exploits River, 1829, aged 80 years. He married a Miss Annie Galton by whom he had two children—a daughter named Susan who died young about 18 years of age and one son, my father. In his

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young days he travelled on the Coast of Labrador with Lieutenant, afterwards Colonel (sic) Cartwright and I believe was with Cartwright's expedition to the interior of Newfoundland. On or about that date he, after being home to England, returned to Newfoundland and lived for a time at Fougue now called Fogo, thence removing to the Exploits River, where he carried on a considerable salmon fishery in partnership with a Mr. Harry Miller, where he died as above stated. He visited his home at Christchurch several times after settling in Newfoundland. My father, the late John Peyton, was also a native of Christchurch, England and came to this country with his father John Peyton the elder in the spring of 1812 being then 19 years of age. He served three years at Somerset House as one of the junior clerks before coming to Newfoundland and died at Twillingate, Newfoundland in the year 1879. He visited England, but once, after he came to this country, having married Miss Elenor Mahaney of Exploits—by whom he had a large family of whom I am the only survivor." Thus, John Peyton, senior—the subject of John Eland's stricture— was the grandfather of the narrator, and the greatgrandfather of the two ladies, and of their cousin William Peyton, aged 80, now living in Twillingate. John Peyton, junior, was J.P. of Twillingate—the subject, as we are to see, of David Buchan's praise (photo on plate VII of J. P. Howley's Beothucks), and it was he who captured Mary March in 1819. According to Mr. Will Peyton, he was born on Aug. 31, 1792, and dying at Twillingate, July 25, 1879, was buried at Exploits, Burnt Island. Thomas Peyton, the narrator, was a Crown Lands Surveyor in Twillingate. He married Miss Pearce of Exploits, and had a large family, of whom are still living the two ladies above mentioned, and two brothers, resident in New York and Halifax, N. S. John Peyton, junior, had a son John whom he sent to college at Christchurch. But the lad took sick there, and died on his return home, so no more children were sent to England. My friend Mr. S. Blackler at the Balsam Hotel, St. John's, and formerly of Twillingate and Nippers Harbour, was born in 1863 and knew John Peyton, junior, well.

PART II DAVID BUCHAN (BORN 1780, FLORUIT 1807-1837) Buchan, I presume, was pure Scotch. He served in the Royal Navy as Lieutenant and Captain, and in his later days in Newfoundland he held the office of Sheriff. To Newfoundlanders his name is more familiar even than those of Cook and Cartwright, if G

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only from the circumstance that the mineral town of Buchans is named after Buchan's Island on Red Indian Lake, which itself was named after the scene of his expedition. C.O. 194.50 (1811) contains perhaps the most dramatic matter in the history of this or any other colony. It opens with Governor Duckworth's letter from "At Sea, 27 Oct., 1811" to the Earl of Liverpool, giving the substance of Buchan's Report. Then follows the Report itself in Buchan's hand, of his two trips to the Exploits Valley—the main trip at the close of 1810 and the brief re-visit in the Spring of 1811. It should be clearly understood that Buchan was not acting as a free-lance. He was carrying out the orders of the Governor, endorsed by the Home Government, which had repeatedly urged the better treatment of the natives. Thus in 1808 Governor Holloway had ordered the protection of those in the Exploits Bay, "hitherto barbarously treated by our furriers and others, so that they dread strangers"; and instructed the commander of the Royal Navy schooner in those waters "to deposit in a likely spot a painting of our barter goods: and, if any natives were taken aboard, to treat them well and prosecute offenders against the Proclamation." Governor Duckworth to the Earl of Liverpool (who became Prime Minister on June 8, 1812). "Mr. Buchan went in the autumn of 1810 to the entrance of the River Exploits, and there anchored his vessel which soon became fixed in the ice. He then began his march into the interior accompanied by 24 of his crew and 3 guides; and having penetrated about 130 miles discovered some wigwams of the Indians. He surprised them; and their inhabitants, in number about 75 persons, became in his power. He succeeded in overcoming their extreme terror and soon established a good understanding with them. 4 of the men, among whom was their chief, accepted his invitation to accompany him back to the place, where, as he explained to them by signs, he had left some presents which he designed for them. The confidence by this time was mutual; and so great that 2 of Mr. B's people, marines, requested to remain with the Indians, till his return with the presents. They were allowed to do so; and Mr. B. set out on his return to his depot, with the remainder of his party and the 4 Indians. They continued together for about 6 miles, when the chief declined going any further and with one of his men took leave; directing the other two to go on with Mr. B. They did so, until they came near the place to which they were to be conducted, when one of them became apparently panic struck and fled; beckoning to his companion to follow him. But the tempers of the two men were different; the latter remained unshaken in his determination, and with a cheerful countenance and an air of perfect confidence in the good faith of his

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new allies, he motioned to them with his hand to proceed; disregarding his companion, and seeming to treat with scorn Mr. Buchan's invitation to depart freely, if he chose to do so. Soon after, the party reached their rendezvous; slept there one night; loaded themselves with the presents and returned again towards the wigwams. The behaviour of the Indian remained always the same. He continued to show a generous confidence and the whole tenor of his conduct (was) such as Mr. B. could not discuss without a feeling of esteem for him. On arrival at the wigwams they were found deserted, which threw the Indian into great alarm. Many circumstances determined Mr. B. to let him be at perfect liberty, and this treatment revived his spirits. The party spent the night at the wigwams; and continued their route in the morning. They had proceeded about a mile when, being a little in advance before the rest, the Indian was seen to start suddenly, backward; he screamed loudly, and fled with a swiftness that rendered pursuit in vain. The cause of his flight was understood when Mr. B. beheld the next moment upon the ice, headless and pierced by the arrows of the Indians, the naked bodies of the two marines. An alarm had, it is evident, been given by the savage who deserted the party at the rendezvous, and it is to be supposed that to justify his conduct in so deserting, he had abused his countrymen with a tale which had excited them to what perhaps they considered a just retaliation. Thus ended the enterprise which, on a perusal of Mr. B's narrative, your Lordships will, I am sure, pronounce to have been conducted with ability, zeal, perseverance and manly endurance of extreme hardship, which merited a better success. It will not be necessary for me to enter into discussion of all the partial measures which Mr. B. adopted under the many arduous circumstances that he had to contend with; indispensable too, as it generally was, that he should decide instantaneously, and reasonable as it must be considered to admit that all his decisions must have been influenced, and very justly too, by his observations of the feelings of those around him, as well as his own. But it is incumbent upon me to avow frankly my approbation of his conduct in a general view. He has undergone extreme toil, he has encountered the rigours of a severe climate, and altho' his constitution is naturally robust, his health has been impaired materially. When the spring became sufficiently advanced, Mr. B. returned with his vessel to St. John's, and I found him there on my arrival. He represented to me that in the summer there might be means of falling in with the natives more easily, and he requested therefore to be allowed to go again in search of them. I sent him immediately, and he returned to me a few days before I sailed. He saw the recent traces which the savages had left, but he had been too late to come up with them. He is persuaded that if it had been earlier in the season he should have met with them, and has requested my permission to remain in the country during the winter in order go be in readiness to take the earliest of the next spring to go in quest of them again. I have acquiesced readily in his proposal, and have given him orders which are altogether

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discretionary, except that he is strictly forbidden to risk the lives of his people or his own. Mr. B's account has greatly added to the interest which I have always had in the attainment of this object; for he has found very convincing proof that we had greatly under-rated the numbers of Indians. They cannot, he thinks, be less than 300 persons. As an appendix to his narrative I have inclosed also for your Lordship's information, the report of a second journey which he attempted as soon as his people had recovered from the fatigue of the first; and also some notes that he left behind. J. Duckworth." The Governor had picked the heart out of Buchan's Reports, of which, incidentally, the ink is now very faint; but I give some extracts from them which enlighten the Governor's letter. The Main Report contains a day to day Journal from January 12 to January 30, 1811. Our first extract tells of how they first came up with the natives. "Jan. 24, Thursday. The wigwams were at once secured. On calling to the people within and receiving no answer, the skins which covered the entrance were then removed and we beheld a group of men, women and children, lying in the utmost consternation, they remained for some minutes absolutely without motion or utterance. My first object was now to remove their fears . . . which was soon accomplished by our shaking hands and showing every friendly disposition; the women embraced me for my attentions to their children, from the utmost state of alarm they became curious and examined our dress with great attention and surprise. They kindled a fire and presented us with venison steaks and fat run into a solid cake, which they used with lean meat. Everything promised the utmost cordiality. Knives, handkerchiefs, and other little articles were presented to them, and they in return offered us skins." Then follow the various stages of the tragedy. "Four of them signified that they would accompany us. James Butler, corporal and Thomas Southland, private of Marines, observing this, requested to be left behind, in order to repair their snowshoes. . . . Most of the party wished to be the individuals to remain among them. . . ." "We recognized with horror the bodies of our two unfortunate companions which lay about 100 yards apart. That of the corporal being first was pierced by an arrow in the chest, three arrows had entered that of Bouthland. They were laid out straight with their feet towards the River, and backs upwards, their heads were off and carried away and no vestige of garments left. . . very little blood was visible."

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Buchan made no attempt to pursue the tribe, "because they would expect revenge, and there was therefore no hope of securing their persons without bloodshed." He was an amazingly observant man, considering how fugitive the scene was. When they first saw the Indians—"conceive my astonishment at beholding a female bearing all the appearance of an European—with light sandy hair and features strongly similar to the French, apparently about 22, with an infant which she carried in her cossack, her demeanour differing materially from the others; instead of that sudden change from surprise and dismay to acts of familiarity, she never uttered a word, nor did she recover from the terror our sudden and unexpected visit had thrown them into." "Their dress consisted of a loose cossack without sleeves, but puckered at the collar to prevent it falling off the shoulders, and made so long that when fastened up around the haunches, it became triple, forming a good security against accident happening to the abdomen. This is fringed aroung with a cutting of the same substance. They also had leggings and mocassins and cuffs, the whole made of deer skins, and worn with the hair side next the body: the outside lackered with oil and red ochre admirably adapted to resist the severity of the weather. The only discernible difference between the dress of the sexes was the addition of a hood attached to the back of the cossack of the female for the reception of their children. Their males, in having occasion to raise their bows, have to disengage their right shoulder, and kneel down on their right knee; the bow is kept perpendicular and the lower extremity supported against the left foot. Their arrows display some ingenuity, for the blade, which is of iron, is so proportioned to the shaft, that when missing their object, if in water, it does not sink, but the blade preponderates and the feathers which direct its flight now becomes a buoy, and they take them up at pleasure. The blade of the arrow is shouldered but not barbed. Their snowshoes or rackets differed from all others I have seen. The circular head of the bow, which was cross-barred with skin thong, was in breadth about 15 inches and lengthwise near three feet and a half, with a tail of a foot long. This was to counterbalance the weight of the front before the forecross beam." He calculates that the party he came up with was about 75: thinks their increase is checked by lack of food since they no longer visit the coast: but believes that the total on the Island is considerable. He then concludes with magnificent generosity: "Had it not been for the disastrous fate of the two marines, I should have deemed my journey fortunate beyond all expectations. But however much I lament this circumstance, it by no means diminishes my hopes that every effort will be made to bring the natives into civil society, for it should be considered a national object, and ultimate success would wipe out a certain degree of stigma brought on us by the former barbarity of our countrymen. My

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opinion of the natives is not the worse for the fateful circumstance that has occurred, for I do not think the deed to have been premeditated: it is nevertheless impossible for me to assign a reason so as to be freed from all doubt of the real cause of this unfortunate accident. B u t . . . I had left the two unfortunate men without small arms, that the natives might have no cause for distrust, and without liquor, lest it might lead them into improprieties. They were steady and well-behaved, and for the guidance of their conduct my cautious injunctions were not disregarded. . . . I am satisfied that no offence was given to the natives. I therefore attribute to the fright of the Indian that was accompanying us to our sledges the source from which sprang the misfortune. What could induce him to desert us but his own apprehensions it is impossible to say. . . . "I shall now turn the imagination to the wigwams. Behold the natives thrown all into commotion, and expressing themselves in vehement and threatening gesticulation, and hasty preparations making for their departure. Our men view their motions with astonishment . . . they fancy me to have been attacked by another body of them, and in the skirmish suppose the Indians to have escaped. . . . They determined to attempt an escape, but the appearance of fear is certain death from an Indian. . . . This may be said to be the fancy of imagination. Many other circumstances might have produced the same result, for instance another tribe might have arrived at the wigwams, and not having themselves seen, would not trust the recital of our friendly interview. Be this as it may, on the first conjecture I rest as next to a certainty. I trust that in this dilemma my subsequent movements will be approved of. For any further attempt at that time to another interview, in all probability, would have produced direful consequences, for their unenlightened minds would look to us for nothing but retaliation. The line adopted by me may tend to remove such an impression from their minds. To have urged them by pursuit to acts of defence would not only have been highly unjustifiable in my own sight, but would have been acting diametrically opposite to the orders and object I was entrusted to execute." This truly is the Empire in trust. I do not think I have ever felt so proud of my countrymen as when I read this report—acute, courageous, responsible and humane. The follow-up visit of March 5-19,1811, was briefer. No Indians even sighted: only their traces found. March 19. "Back on the schooner"; and his first thought (for in this was the twin brother of James Cook) was for the health of his men. He ordered: "a regular allowance of hot cocoa eaten with biscuit and a bit of pork or fish: and if very cold, a small glass of rum." At 10 meat (pork and smoked salmon) or a hare, and a spot of bread and rum; and more at

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3 p.m. before cutting wood and throwing up fences. Kettles then got to work, and a good warm supper of lobscouse, but those whose appetites became languid were indulged with tea. Evening spent in singing and repairing shoes, until the setting of watch at 8, when each had a dram, to keep up their spirits." He cautioned them against mixing snow with water (for often from the thickness of the ice they could get no fresh supply of water). Of spirits numerous small drams were issued, so that there was only a slight excess above the established allowance. The changing of their stockings and wet things, etc. "occupied my constant attention"—Cook's too, and in his day Nelson's. For of such are the world's born leaders. Accompanying the Reports is a hand-drawn "Sketch of the River Exploits, as explor'd in Jany. & March, 1811, Newfoundland"— with an inset of St. Peter's Arm at the mouth of the Bay, where their ship lay at anchor. It shows the course of the river from Burnt Island to Red Indian Lake: "Great Rattling Brook": the "Great Overfall" about ninety feet and a second overfall above: Badger's Bay Pond: paths in snow. Wigwams, old stores and new stores are pinpointed. I could wish there was an enlargement of this map on the wall of every school in the country. (Meanwhile there is the fanciful sketch by "Shanawdithit" in Howley's Beothucks between pp. 238-9.) WILLIAM CORMACK, 1796-1868. With Cormack, as with Cartwright, the historian's task is eased by the fact that they left a record of their achievement in printed form. William Epps Cormack, Narrative of a Journey across the Island of Newfoundland in 1822, "the only one ever performed by a European." He was then twenty-six. The first edition of the narrative in book form, 1836, was dedicated to R. Jameson, Regius Professor of Natural Philosophy, Edinburgh. The second edition, 1873, contains a valuable obituary notice. He was born at St. John's, but his father, a Scottish merchant recently established there, died when he was seven, and so he was sent back to school in Scotland and later attended classes at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities. In 1818, at a time when there was a heavy distress emigration from the Old Country, he acted as conductor of emigrant parties to Prince Edward Island. He was concerned next in the starting of Port Glasgow on that Island and in the promotion of grain exports from P.E.I. to Great Britain.

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(To-day the new market of this fertile Island Province is Stephenville air base at the end of Bay St. George. On Saturday, July 19, 1952, I saw the freight plane laden with P.E.I, milk and potatoes landing, on the huge run-way there, its supplies for the American troops.) "The only one performed by a European." Cormack, of course, would know that there were native pathways across the Island—especially that natural highway formed by the river systems of the Exploits and Humber: and indeed it is in the records of the Diocese of St. George's that a certain Brother Heam went from Bay of Exploits to Bay of Islands, c. 1820. Cormack's journey ended in the same bay, but traversed the more difficult South. From Stephenville I proceeded to Corner Brook, and there called upon Mr. Alec Ledingham (he, too, a Scot) at his home in Little Rapids: and after he had told me what happened to him as a passenger on the Florizel, when she was wrecked off Cappahayden, February 23, 1918, on her way from St. John's to New York,1 he described further how with two friends he made in 1906 a trip by canoe from Bay d'Espoir to Gander. They arrived at their destination in rags and tatters, after being given up as lost. They had no guide, and after carrying their canoe for a week over rocks and through burnt forest, they found the head water of the Gander and followed it from a mere drain to Gander Bay. Thus, in a sense, Wm. Cormack, Mr. Ledingham, and Fr. Hearn "triangulated" the Island. Cormack established his name and fame in one province of Canada (reckoning by modern nomenclature) and, after a wide ranging life, died in another. It was in 1822 that he made his famous journey; and his results were communicated to the Edinburgh New Philosophical Society, published forthwith in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal (October-April, 1823-4), and eventually in book form. He also announced them at once to the Admiralty. (C.O. 194.66.) "Edinburgh, 23 July, 1823. Sir, Having last year in the months of September and October traversed the interior of the Island of Newfoundland from E. to W., which had 1

The version I got from another source ran thus: Checked by ice and unable to tow a log, her engineer thought his engines were turning over at 12-14 knots; and the Captain, wrongly supposing he had passed Cape Race, altered course for Halifax and ran aground ten miles short of the Cape—ninety odd lives being lost. "Up near Renews at morning dawn all hands received a shock, When scrambling from their berths at night, they found she'd struck a rock." The Wreck of the Steamship 'Florizel'."

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never before been visited by any European, I feel it my duty to transmit to the Secretary of State for the Colonies a sketch and short account of my route. This will be presented to you by Prof. Jameson thro' whom . . . I take the liberty of requesting that you will be so good as to forward them to Earl Bathurst. If they prove acceptable, it is the only reward, as a traveller, I am ambitious to obtain. The subject of the Red Indians, in particular, merits attention. For the correction of my mineralogical remarks I am indebted to Prof. Jameson, since my return to this country. It is my intention to reside after next winter in St. John's, Newfoundland: and in some degree to continue to pursue my inquiries into the natural productions of the country and the state of the Red Indians. To John Barrow, Esq., Under Secretary to the Admiralty." He stayed long enough in Newfoundland (to 1830 at least) to make a second expedition into the interior: to form a Beothuck Institution: to teach the last of the tribe, Shanawdithit (Nancy Beothic), and to glean from her invaluable details about the lost tribe; but he did not make it his final home. He was a rover by nature. James Cook-wise, he moved on to the Antipodes. In 1836 he was growing tobacco in Australia: in 1839 ne was exporting spars from New Zealand to London, and tree seed to Kew—he was an old correspondent of the Linnean Society and botany was his second love. In the i84o's he was in California, trading, mining, and gathering horticultural specimens; and he ended his roving life in British Columbia (vide The British Columbian of May 9, 1868), where he was a member of its first Municipal Council and part founder of its Agricultural Society, and whence he dispatched the Provincial Exhibits to the 1862 Exhibition in South Kensington. His special section was Fisheries, for which he prepared an account of the Fraser River salmon—an old hobby, for in his St. John's days he had won from the Montreal Natural History Society a medal for an Essay on the British, American and French fisheries. He would have felt very much at home at Buchans or Grand Falls, for he was a champion skater to the end. He was buried in New Westminister, B.C. (1868) in the Indian Reserve cemetery, and in 1938 the grave was restored. I append several extracts from his narrative: "First view of the Interior. The eye strides over a succession of northerly and southerly ranges of green plains, marbled with woods and lakes of every form and extent, a picture of all the luxurious scenes of national cultivation, receding into invisibleness. . . . There was no will but ours." He enlarges on the possibilities of the West Coast hinterland between the Long Range and St. George's Bay, and writes with charm on the

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flora and fauna of the interior, on birds, caribou, beaver, bear, and wolves, and the soil and vegetation of the Savanna country. Taking off from Random Sound in Trinity Bay, he made steady progress till he reached the central Mt. Sylvester, which he named after his Micmac Indian servant and companion. Then, pushing on by the headwaters of numerous lakes to the south of "Mt. Cormack" (which is west-north-west of Mt. Sylvester) he finally struck the West Coast on St. George's Bay. The return trip was made on foot and by boat along the South Coast. "In the evening we reached the Ramea Islands, the eastern extremity of that portion of the Newfoundland coast at which the Americans have a right to fishing and curing fish. There were only 2 resident families here." (Now there is a splendid fresh freezing plant, which processes a variety of fish for the frozen fillet market.) And finally, under December 16,1822, the entry:—"From Richard's Harbour to the Bay Despair, in sight of the whaling and codfishery establishment of Messrs. Newman Hunt & Company, London." Here they found that the last ship was to leave shortly for England: and they embarked at Little Bay (in Fortune Bay) on the Duck, sailing on December 28, and arriving at Dartmouth (the Newman's home port) on February 10, 1823. The difficult part of the journey, which might easily have proved fatal, was the final half from Mt. Cormack to the coast. It is skilfully summarized by Michael Harrington in the St. John's Daily News of May i, 1952, and I select from his summary. "On Oct. 12th they came across the first human beings since leaving Random Bay 5 weeks before. They were a Mountaineer Indian, James John, and his Micmac wife who was returning to Bay d'Espoir from St. George's Bay and he invited the weary travellers to rest in his camp, and on the I4th they began what they thought was the last leg of the journey. Three feet of snow on the ground on the morning of the i6th made them quicken their steps. But they were stormed-stayed for a couple of days under weather conditions so wretched that Cormack put the name of Mount Misery on a height near their camp. When the weather cleared, they went on and reached another Indian encampment spoken of by James John, only to be told that they were still 10 days' march from St. George's. Cormack and Sylvester availed themselves of the hospitality of the Micmacs from the i8th to the 2ist, and then began the final march as they believed. The Micmac camp was located between West Meelpaeg Lake and Red Indian Lake but nearer the former. The weather got colder; the ponds froze; more snow fell, and by the 24th of October winter had set in. By the 28th the ice on the ponds was thick enough to take their

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weight. On the 2Qth they found themselves approaching a mountain range higher than anything they had yet crossed, which they presumed wrongly to be the Long Range Mountains (they must have been the Anniob-Quotch mountains). Soon they fell in with another Indian encampment and Cormack was chagrined to find they were much farther from St. George's than they believed—a distance of 60 miles. Furthermore, it lay to the N.W., which proved what he had suspected, that Joseph Sylvester had lost his way and they had been following the wrong course for days. Rain, snow and wind kept them in camp on the morning of the 3oth of October, but as soon as it cleared, he and Sylvester and one of the Micmacs named Gabriel, whom they persuaded to accompany them, started for the sea. They still had to cross the headwater of the Exploits, the land between the Victoria and George IV Lakes and the Long Range. They went at full speed, and at one stage Sylvester almost lost his life, when he went through the ice of a pond. In the evening of November i, about 18 miles west of King George Fourth Lake, named by Cormack, the party reached the summit of a snowy ridge that marks the height of land on the west coast, and saw some miles away the waters of St. George's Bay. They pushed on, and in the afternoon of the 2nd of November, 1822, 59 days after the start from Random Bay, Cormack and his party reached St. George's Harbour. It was two days before they could cross the harbour to be received with open arms by the English and Jersey residents." Since 1928 the girls and boys of Newfoundland have been able to enjoy the Cormack Narrative as published by Longmans, and edited with splendid illustrations and a map1 by F. A. Bruton, of Manchester Grammar School, of which, as all Newfoundland knows, J. L. Paton was High Master.

PART III BUCHAN, CORMACK AND CARSON The later career of Buchan dovetails with that of Cormack, as well as with that of Carson, which is still to come. These two publicized and extended Buchan's work; and there were mutual affinities. Cormack, like Buchan, was a born explorer: Carson, like Buchan, a reliever of human suffering. From this point on, our chief authority is the Colonial Office Records. 1 Cormack's own map, with his notations on it, has now been presented to Memorial University.

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(C.O. 194.57-) 1816. Testimonial from Governor Keats to Lieut. David Buchan, on the occasion of the great fire at St. John's. His services had been very great during the last eight years as a naval officer and magistrate. "All parts and ports of the Island frequented by our fishermen have been visited and benefited by Mr. Buchan's prudence and abilities; and in the last winter at St. John's, in a season of unexampled commercial difficulty and distress, at a time when the functions of the Supreme Court were suspended by the absence of the C. J. and the Surrogate Courts deprived, for a great part of the time at least, of the abilities of the Supreme Surrogate, Mr. Coote, the burthen of the Civil Jurisdiction, in which the interests of individuals to the extraordinary amount of 920 cases were involved, depended upon the prudence and judgment of Mr. Buchan." Mr. Buchan is therefore recommended for favourable consideration to my Lords of the Admiralty. C.O. 194.58. 1816. Testimonial from ex-Governor Duckworth to Chief Magistrate Coote: and also to "Lieut. Buchan now returned to England." But it was only a brief holiday. For by the fall of 1816 he was back in Newfoundland, with the rank of Captain. Before leaving in the fall, Governor Pickmore put him in charge of the relief works in St. John's. "I have left in the hands of my Surrogate Captain Buchan the remaining part of the £10,000 for further aid." Buchan was not the man to run away from a difficulty, as we see in C.O. 194.59:— April 3, 1817. Buchan to Pickmore. "I am so fully persuaded of the necessity and benefit that must accrue to the indigent from the Committee being able to tender Govt. bills to those who may be disposed to contract for replacing the flour which has been issued from the Commisariat for the relief of the inhabitants upon the security of the Magistrates, that by the contractors being able to go into the American or Halifax markets with such bills in preference to dollars they will thereby get a much lower rate than otherwise (as the profit arising from this transaction is to be disposed of solely for the alleviation of wretchedness), I cannot under such circumstances hesitate as to the propriety of taking on myself the responsibility of drawing bills on the Treasury to the amount, more especially as I shall not give a deposit equal to any possible diminution of value in the dollar. I shall apprise the Assistant Commisary General of my being in possession of such money, which I will transfer over either on his official bills or receipts, when

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that Department shall be in want of cash, which I think will be at an early period, as no duties are at this time coming into H.M.'s Customs at this port." A massive paragraph but one gets the gist of it. The list of householders (150 in all) who agreed to feed the poor includes J. B. Tremlett, R. Langley, James Simms and Capt. Buchan. Buchan signs as "Captain and Senior Naval Officer." Thus Buchan in 1817 addressed himself to the allied problems of emergency finance and poor relief. For 1818 my authority is a book which I found in the Moravian archives at Hopedale, Northern Labrador Memoir to accompany the General Chart of the Northern Ocean Davis's Straits and Baffin's Bay by John Purdy, 1830, p. 103:— The Voyage of Captain Buchan in 1818. "The interest excited by the equipment of the late expedition towards the North Pole was of so general a nature that there is scarcely an individual who is not fully in possession of its purport, but as no narrative of the voyage has hitherto appeared before the public, the following account may not prove uninteresting. The Dorothea and Trent, under the command of Captain David Buchan and Lieutenant John Franklin quitted England early in May, 1818; and with favourable winds, pursued their course to the northward". . .. Spitzbergen was reached May 26, and by July they were inside the ice barrier. "Shortly after this period the Dorothea and Trent were in an open sea, steering to the westward, elated with hopes of success." But they were all but lost in a violent storm, and so damaged that they steered for Smeerenberg (August) and thence to the South Gate. On August 30 they left for England on a westward course, till from the colour of the water and the bird life it seemed that they were close to "lost Greenland." However, another bad storm compelled them to alter course and bear up for England, which at length they reached. (Account by Lieut. Beechey, R.N.) In 1819 he was entrusted with a second mission to the Indians, occasioned by an episode described thus in Governor Hamilton's letter to the Admiralty (the Peyton here being J. P., junior): "A respectable planter of this Island of the name of Peyton, who carries on considerable salmon fisheries in the River Exploits has for the last 4 years been greatly annoyed, and suffered extensive injury in his fishing establishments, evidently (from traces which could not be mistaken) occasioned by the Indians who, taking advantage of the temporary absence of his servants, carried away and damaged his

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property to that degree that he was induced at last to go into the interior with the view, if not of recovering a part, to endeavour by an interview to show that he was ready to barter them for any articles of which they might stand in need, and he accordingly set forward on the ist of March of this year (1819) accompanied by his father and 8 of his own men, and, proceeding into the interior, upon the 5th day on a frozen lake of some extent, came in sight of a party of Indians who immediately ran off. Mr. Peyton, however, by throwing away his arms and making signs of an amicable nature induced one to stop who upon his coming proved to be a woman [this, of course, is Mary March, so named from the month in which she was taken] and who interchanged with him and his men such expressions of a friendly nature as appeared to be perfectly understood by her; the other Indians however did not seem to possess these sentiments, but approaching in increasing numbers from different parts of the Lake, laid hands on some of Mr. Peyton's men; when a scuffle ensued, in the course of which it is to be regretted that one of the Indians fell; the others then dispersed and Mr. Peyton returned accompanied by the woman whom he placed in care of the Rev. Mr. Leigh, the Episcopal missionary to the I. of Twillingate, who upon the opening of the season came with her to St. John's to receive my instructions. The female appeared to be of about 23 years of age, of a gentle disposition, acquiring and retaining without much difficulty any words she was taught; and in the course of her residence at Twillingate Mr. Leigh ascertained that she had a child of 3 or 4 years old; it therefore became under every feeling of humanity an object in my mind to restore her to her tribe." The Governor therefore tried in the summer of 1819 to restore her, but his emissary failed to make contact with any Indians, and so in September he instructed Capt. Buchan to proceed to Twillingate with a view to escorting her during the winter. Buchan proceeded on his mission, but it was only the corpse of Mary March that he could take with him, for meanwhile she had sickened and died (January 8, 1820). The detail of the sad mission is given in the documents of 1820. C.O. 194.63. 1820. May 26. Governor Hamilton to T. G. W. Eastaff: "I have just received under date of March 10 from Capt. Buchan news that the Indian woman who was to have accompanied him on his expedition into the interior of this Island, and the returning of whom in safety to the tribe was one of the objects of his journey, unfortunately died of a rapid decline the 8 JanV. before the season had admitted of his commencing the undertaking, and it appears that, up to the above-mentioned date of his letter, viz., the loth of March, he had not been able to meet with any of the Indians tho' in some places he had discovered tracks of them."

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Buchan's letter (of thirty-two pages) was written from the Grasshopper in Peter's Arm, River Exploits. Opening with a tribute to the services of Mr. John Peyton, Jr., it describes the death of Mary March, the expedition up the river with her body and the search for Indians, but without result. The central episode is given in these words: "The coffin, which was conveyed to this spot with so much labour, was unpacked and found uninjured. It was neatly made and handsomely covered with red cloth decorated with copper trimmings and breast plate. The coffin, which was carefully secured and decorated with many trinkets that had been presented to her, was in a most perfect state, and so little was the change in the features that imagination could fancy her life not yet extinct. A seat that was brought for the purpose was pitched in the area of one of the wigwams, and the coffin covered with a brown cloth pall suspended 6 feet from the ground in a manner to prevent it receiving injury from any animals; in her cossack was placed all such articles as belonged to her, that would not be contained in her coffin, the presents to the Indians were also deposited with the last, as well as the sledge on which they were carried; all properly secured from the weather. . . . The Union Jack was hoisted at the tent that contained her coffin." 1820. The Governor to Bathurst, "begging for the continued services of Capt. Buchan, whom I lament to state has, with another surrogate, been tried in the Supreme Court for judgments given in their own. Capt. Buchan will tell you how much we need an Attorney General." C.O. 194.64. Enclosure in the Governor's despatch of January i:— 1821:—Law Report: James Landergan sues David Buchan and Rev. John Leigh, for arresting him at Cubit's and giving him thirtysix lashes in the Surrogate Court. It was the irony of history that Buchan, the Paladin of Newfoundland manhood, should be associated with this judicial enormity, which became the battle cry of Carson and the Political Reformers. (For the full story see Ch. VII.) The Governor sends home by Capt. Buchan a Red Indian canoe for display in England. Board of Trade Papers 1.187. Governor Hamilton to Lord Bathurst, September, 1822: Detail of the Governor's General Account Current, which has an item of £97 i8s. id., "being expences incurred for the maintenance

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and care of 3 native Indian women, brought to St. John's in the spring of this year: and for articles of presents and necessaries sent back with them, of which yr. 1'ship was apprized by the correspondence of Capt. Buchan, which arrived after my departure from England and was forwarded thro' the Navy." C.O. 194.72. 1826. Buchan, now High Sheriff, writes from the Sheriff's Office, St. John's, August 12, 1826: "Being aware that the Surrogate Courts would be abolished [the Landergan case had proved their death warrant!] upon the opening of the Supreme Court under the new Judicature Act, and that Lieut. Carter would consequently lose his situation of surrogate and therefore his liberty to accept the appointment of my Deputy for the South district, I felt satisfied in the opportunity thus afforded me in selecting an old officer in no way connected with trade.'' He had found nothing unfavourable to Mr. Carter and hopes he may not lose him. D. Buchan, High Sheriff. C.O. 194.74. 1827. The Governor reports on Journeys undertaken since Cormack's of 1822, and on the position of D. Buchan: followed by a letter from Buchan to the Judges of the Supreme Court, complaining of the paucity of his remuneration. 1828. St. John's, Newfoundland, October 28, 1828. "John Peyton, Esq. Dear Sir: It is discouraging to see the Indians (Micmacs) return here again without being able to give unequivocal testimony that the Red Indians (Beothics) are or are not extinct. The public opinion here, upon whatever grounds it has been formed, is that a remnant of this tribe may still exist somewhere to the North of Hall's Bay in the neighbourhood of the place where reports made show traces of them to have been seen this summer. The Indian party are aware of the feelings of the people here on the subject, and of the unfavourable feelings towards them for having returned without being able to prove to the contrary. John Stevenson and John Louis have in consequence volunteered to go again for nothing to Green Bay and examine to put the matter to rest. The Institution are very unwilling to employ the Indians again after they having returned without furnishing the sequel, and if they do not now prove to us the extinction or existence of the Red Indians, they should never be received by the English people with the same good will that they have been. Until that point of country of which Cape St. John is the extremity has been searched over, we cannot conclude that all the

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tribe are extinct, and even then I think there is a possibility of the existence of a remnant of them somewhere on the Badger Bay water. Nancy arrived in St. John's by Mr. Abbot's schooner from Twillingate on the a8th of last month. We were hardly prepared to receive her just then, altho' we ought to have been, for besides what took place here last winter on the subject, when you were here in summer, there was a good deal said about bringing her round to instruct her, and it was intended to mention it to you as a proposition, but it was delayed day after day until you had gone. I am certain you would have coincided in opinion with us in thinking it highly proper as well as incumbent on the people of Newfoundland to have her instructed; and I know that you would have given every facility in your power to promote this object by sending her round here. Your being absent when she came away from your place was quite an accidental thing and under the circumstances you must consider that every thing was done for the best, and with the best intentions. She has been staying in my house since she came, but leaves me next week to live with Mr. Simms, the Attorney. General, who has undertaken to superintend her instructions. Much is due to you and Mrs. Peyton for taking care of this woman so long as you have. The enclosed is a newspaper cutting. And I remain, Dear Sir, Yours very truly, W. E. Cormack. P.S.—The people here are of opinion that a remnant of the Red Indians are still alive, and when Louis has offered to go for nothing to search over the country about Nippers Harbour, I think it probable that the remnant are either there or on the badger Bay waters. P.S.S.—Nancy sends your family a few marks of her remembrance. I send a newspaper by John Louis, a cod line and £18. The whale fishery has been really good." (The above is taken from a photostat by F. A. Bruton, in possession of Hon. Harold Macpherson.) C.O. 194.791829. D. Buchan writes in, asking for charts from Capt. W. E. Parry, R.N. His second son "would be most happy to be employed in a subordinate capacity on any voyage of discovery." Exploration was in the Buchan blood (as I realize more than ever after coming across the Purdy memoir). do.

1829. May. W. E. Cormack writes to Colonial Secretary Murray enclosing his pamphlet on his "Journey in search of the Red Indians in Newfoundland"—being a record of his tour across G2

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the Island "a few years ago." He also gives the story of Mary March. "She was caught in March, 1819, her husband was killed fighting for her. Next year Capt. Buchan was sent to the Exploits to take her back, but she died on the way, so he took the body and left it for the Indians to take away. They did so, and it now lies beside the body of her husband." Cormack in 1827-8 found the two graves and the skeleton of Mary in white muslin in a deal coffin. "Five years ago Shanawdithit, one of 3 females who surrendered from hunger to the trappers, was still alive." Cormack was also an economist with a geographical bent, and he draws up an interesting order of commercial importance, based on capital and permanent shipping employed in the Newfoundland trade: 1. Poole. 2. Torbay, Dartmouth (Newman's), Teignmouth, Brixham. 3. Greenock, Liverpool, Bristol. 4. Waterford and Jersey. But (he goes on, scenting a new order): "a great proportion of all the supplies, particularly manufactures, is shipped at Liverpool, altho' the amount of permanent ships and capital is comparatively small. More than half the trade in Newfoundland is carried on at the port of St. John's—where there is no Poole house, the principal houses there, with the exception of one or two, being Scotch." This, be it remembered, is 1829, and the writer a Scot. C.O. 194.80. 1830. January 2. Cormack offers to act as "Inspector and Surveyor General of North American Fisheries" in any British North American colony, in a civil capacity. He will hand over his Fisheries Documents. This suggests that he was contemplating a move to some other region under the British flag. C.O. 194.81 (1831). William Carson, the plague of former governors, is now in favour with Governor Cochrane, for whom he compiles a memorandum of answers to questions from the Royal College of Physicians. "He is (says the Governor) the longest established physician in this place, who is a man of general information and better calculated to his own opinion upon the several points submitted to him than any other individual I am acquainted with." He signs as "William

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Carson, M.D., Physician to His Excellency the Governor": and one of his answers runs: "In the winter of 1811 Capt. Buchan, with a party of seamen and marines penetrated into the interior and fell in with a family amounting to about 75. Capt. Buchan conceived that the whole number at that time did not exceed 150. His description nearly corresponds with that given of them by the first discoverers. Many of them were tall and well-formed—of a dark-reddish complexion, jet-black rat tailed hair, with the exception of one fair female with flaxen hair resembling in general contour a native of France. Their vicissitudes of life exposing them alternatively to starvation and repletion in the severities of this climate, rendered them peculiarly liable to inflammatory attacks, particularly of the lungs, which terminated in consumption. Capt. Buchan did not consider that any of the family which he saw exceeded 50 years of age, altho' in a state of decrepitude. 4 females of the tribe which I have seen all died of pulmonary consumption. Since 1811 the tribe is known to have been exposed to great fatality; and it is a question whether there is an individual of them in existence. Nancy Beothick (Shanawdithit), perhaps the last of her race, died in 1829 in this town. She was a tall, strong, wellformed female about 28 years of age, of amicable disposition, tractable, high-spirited and proud. She felt most keenly the slightest degradtion. My acquaintance with her and the still more interesting Mary March gave me a high opinion of the disposition and qualities of the Red Indian. I examined Nancy's skull after her death. In common with the Indian tribes, as notified by Robertson, the female organs were not clothed. Her skull exhibited a peculiarity—-the parietal bones were divided in the middle by sutures running parallel with the sagittal sutures and extending from the lamdoidal to the coronal suture. An experienced anatomist would in all probability have discovered other peculiarities. I beg to present the skull and scalp thro' H. E. Sir Thomas Cochrane to the Royal College of Physicians, London.1 C.O. 194.83 (1832). On March 26, 1832, the inhabitants of the Island petitioned D. Buchan, High Sheriff, to call a public meeting for addressing H.M. on "the great constitutional boon he has been pleased to confer on Newfoundland." On May i, 1832, thanks were given to the King's Most Excellent Majesty for the blessings of the British constitution, upon receiving the status of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, "especially when 1 The College of Physicians certainly received it. For there is an entry in their Minute Book to the effect that "the skull and scalp of a Red Indian woman was received from Dr. William Carson in 1831." What happened to it subsequently is not known. It is not to-day either in the College of Physicians' or the College of Surgeons' Museum. It may have been destroyed in an air raid in World War II, along with other objects.

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H.M. is so busy over affairs in the United Kingdom." They owed their prospect of liberty to "the only British monarch who ever visited our shores" (i.e., King William IV). On behalf of the Inhabitants of St. John's, ist May, 1832, D. Buchan, R.N., High Sheriff. Pass on to 1834. C.O. 194.89. On June 2 (he writes) "My eyes are so weak that I see not what I write." The letter concerns the status of his deputy. He appears to have gone home in 1834, but to have returned in 1835, to see after his salary, for he was still in name the Sheriff. C.O. 194.93 (1835) has much on his case. He is asking for his salary to be continued; and supports his plea by a recital of his services:— 1807. Came out on the Adonis. 1817. Sent home with Fire Reports and offered command of a Polar Expedition. 1819. Surrogate and Magistrate. 1823. Refused a good post in the Hudson's Bay Company (the governorship of the Selkirk colony), in favour of the office of the High Sheriff of Newfoundland (January, 1825), "in which employment I have remained to the present moment." It appears that the new legislature refused to continue both his salary and that of his deputy. The son appealed to Westminster, July, 1835—his father, he said, would take some other job, if one was offered. Lord Glenelg (Charles Grant) was sympathetic but could guarantee nothing. Buchan was persistent. His appointment was "intended to be permanent." He was "much worse off than the first day I trod the shores of Newfoundland." He keeps at it through 1835 and into 1836—disgruntled, but indomitable. Beyond this date I have not followed him. It is fascinating to watch the web of history, as it comes off the loom of events. Personalities interact and combine to make a pattern: circumstances, apparently unrelated, in fact concur. Mary March and Surrogate Courts. Reformer Carson and Nancy's skull. Tragedy at the river bank, fire relief in St. John's. Iron tips for the arrow heads, hot cocoa for the crew. Exploring the hinterland or distant islet, only to see the last Beothic and the last Greak Auk. Heroism and the will to save failing nobly before gunpowder and the power to kill. The romance, yes and the tragedy of history never grow stale.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE ARCHITECTS OF LAW AND LIBERTY The architects were two in number, Chief Justice Reeves and Dr. William Carson. JOHN REEVES, 1752 P-iSzg. Among the legal lights of Newfoundland none is better known than John Reeves, its first Chief Justice; and deservedly, for he set the ball of justice rolling. But he was in the Island only for a short while, and the judicial revolution we have to describe was the work of a succession of able men: and outstandingly, of Reeves himself, 1791, 1792: R. Routh, 1797-1800: F. Forbes, 1816-22: R. A. Tucker, 1822-33. Of these only Reeves is known to English readers; for he had a long and distinguished career at the Board of Trade and, in addition to compilations on Newfoundland, wrote a standard history of the Navigation Laws. Your colonial governor would keep a Reeves on his shelf; and if he were a governor of Newfoundland, he would also call for the Newfoundland tractate, with its indispensable summary of laws. Reeves, Stephen, and Deacon Hume primed Huskisson in his great quinquennium of fiscal and colonial reform (1823-8), and when we remember that Huskisson's father-in-law was the forthright Admiral Milbanke, we may rest assured that little in what follows would have been new to that statesman. Reeves was Huskisson's senior by some years, but by a coincidence his first job was the superintendence of aliens, which was also the business in which Huskisson graduated on returning from the French Embassy, taking office under Henry Dundas. War Office 1.15 (1792-4). Having reached St. John's, September 3, 1792, Reeves writes home to Dundas, October 21,1792: "I have been very much employed at St. John's or at other places which I have visited to the N. and S. of this place. We are now near the time of our departure, the Admiral intending to sail next Sunday or Monday, so that I hope to be in London in the middle of Nov. In the midst of things here I sometimes feel an anxiety for the police and what relates to the duty and charge with which you have i°5

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honoured me. It will be a great vexation to me, if I should find, on my return, that anything has gone wrong which could have been set right by my presence. I trust it is not so; and that I shall meet with nothing to disturb the satisfaction and pleasure I feel in being so much favoured by you. When I am in the exercise of my office, I hope I shall by my diligence make up a little for my absence. Respecting this place and its trade, I shall trouble you with nothing now, as I shall be obliged to say something upon it at length, when I return; and this too will be but a little. My desire isn't more than to recommend to make a law, like the present, permanent, for establishing Courts. If anything is moved about the Fishery and Trade at large, it will be soon enough if it comes from the merchants here. I had a wish to make some alterations in the Acts relating to the Island, which I think need attention. But it now seems to me, so much of this alteration may be brought about gradually by legal courses giving a construction to the Acts, from time to time, with a leaning towards certain principles (the 'astutia' which lawyers very well understand) that I think it hardly worth while to go to Parliament to obtain what could be compassed in this way. This will save a great deal of trouble which we are looking forward to next session; and I dare say all parties will be better satisfied. In the meantime I shall endeavour by the decisions which shall come from me that the law of the island shall become fixed and be better known; and if those who follow me go in the course I shall mark out, there will be a prospect of having something like Jurisprudence in the Island. . . . Yr. humble, serv*. John Reeves." But let us particularize his official and literary record. Educated at Eton and Oxford—on the foundation at Eton and a fellow of Queen's College, Oxford (he was disappointed of a fellowship at King's College, Cambridge) he studied law, and in 1780 was made a Commissioner of Bankruptcy. In 1783 he began his History of English Law, which was continued by stages over the years. It set out to be a guide to Coke upon Littleton. In 1791 he went out to Newfoundland, as its first Chief Justice, and again in 1792. In 1793 his output was impressive. (1) Evidence on the Newfoundland Trade. (2) History of the Government of the Island of Newfoundland: with the Acts of Parliament relating to the Trade and the Fishery. (3) History of the Law of Navigation and Shipping—second edition, 1807.

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He served for many years as law clerk to the Board of Trade, and from 1800 to his death was Treasurer for the Literary Fund. In the lygo's he, as legal draughtsman, and T. Irving, as Inspector General of Imports and Exports, figure prominently on the Board of Trade Minutes. In 1800 Pitt made him a King's Printer. However, in 1793, it was his evidence before the Commons Committee on the State of the Trade to Newfoundland (Parliamentary Reports, Vol. X) that brought his name before the English public. It was a famous committee. The old generation and the new gave their views—governors, civil servants, traders and lawyers. Old Sir Hugh Palliser and George Cartwright: Newman, Jeffery and Ougier for the trade: Under-Secretary Knox, with his oft-repeated metaphor of "the great English ship moored near the banks for the convenience of English fishermen"—and Chief Justice Reeves. It was not an examination based on question and answer. Each witness delivered his piece, which was divided by formal questions into sections. The original of Reeves's Evidence is in the Board of Trade Papers for 1792. As subsequently printed, it enjoyed a wide publicity and acquired the status of an official pronouncement. However, from beginning to end there is little of legal principles and jurisprudence in it; and of his work in this field the Cambridge History of the British Empire, Vol. VI, Canada, p. 424, can say no more than "though he presided over the Court for only two years, he laid the foundations of a sound and impartial administration of Justice." The strength of his "Report," as it came to be considered, was its keen analysis of economic structure, on which he tried to hold the balance in the age-long friction between merchants and fishermen. As we have seen, the changing structure of the trade was having its repercussions on the old "West Country" interest, and, as we are about to see in "From Fishery to Colony," every governor felt it incumbent on him to draw attention to the change—with indignation, regret or resignation, as the case might be. But none of them before or after him stated the central issue more succinctly then he, as the following extract shows:— "Newfoundland is no longer a place resorted to only by mere Fishermen, who carried out sufficient provision for themselves and their men, caught their fish and at the close of the season returned to the Mother Country. A description of persons of that sort does indeed still exist, but most of them are turned into Merchants, who, besides catching fish and curing it, speculate in fish and oil as an article of trade, and so extend their concerns much beyond the produce of

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their exertions as fishermen. There are many merchants who do not engage at all in the fishery and confine themselves merely to buying and selling fish and oil. Every merchant has a shop, or as it is called, a Store, in which is everything to eat and drink, to cloathe the person, or furnish a house. The most profitable way in which a merchant at Newfoundland employs his capital, seems to me to be in supplying boat-keepers with everything necessary to fit them for sea; the payment for which is made by delivering the produce of their voyages during the course of the season. The boat-keepers constitute another body of men who rank next to the Merchants. The merchant by means of his capital carries on the fishery upon a larger scale and keeps one or two Bankers, besides some boats perhaps in the Shore Fishery; the boat-keeper does not go beyond employing boats for the Shore Fishery. The boat-keepers seem to me to be of two classes; one class of them are the West Country men who come out every season; these are usually persons of some substance and constitute in the trade a sort of Yeomanry, which was once considered as the great force and support of it; but the number of these is of late much diminished; whether they have gradually crept into the order above them and have become merchants, or have fallen for want of success to a lower stage, I cannot say. In proportion as the class of boat-keepers may have diminished, the other class seems to have increased. These are mostly resident in the Island, have little or no property beforehand and depend, almost every season, upon the merchants for their outfit and supplies during the voyage. They are very often no more than common fishermen, who having had some success aspire to become boat-keepers and are then set up as such by some merchant, who means to make a profit by the advance and hazard; one or two successful seasons may possibly work such a man into a little property in his boat or craft; but should one unsuccessful season throw him in arrears to his merchant, there is scarce a chance of his recovery. The connection between the merchants and boat-keepers occasions three-fourths of the disputes between parties. The grievances on both sides are these:— The boat-keeper complains, for instance, that he delivers, thro' the season, all his fish and oil to his merchant, that at the close of the season the merchant gives him an account; where he charges him so high for his supplies, and allows him so little for his fish and oil that he has nothing or very little coming to him, towards his niaintanance during the winter. Another complaint is that his merchant will give him no account whatever. Another that his merchant stopped his supplies in the middle of the season, disabled him from going on with the fishery, that his men immediately stopped the fish and oil for their wages, and he was obliged to continue idle during the summer and must starve in the winter. Another complains that his merchant seized the boat and craft as well as withheld supplies in the most of the season; another that the merchant seized all his fish and oil without an order from the Justice. Such are the usual complaints by the above class of boat-keepers;

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to these the merchants will answer that the boat-keeper had all his goods from him at the same price that is paid to other merchants in that part of the Island—and he allowed the same price for his fish and oil; that he did give him an account, or he might have had one, if he had asked for it, but it was not absolutely necessary and he could neither write nor read; that finding the fishery unsuccessful that season, or that the boat-keeper by negligence had delivered to him little fish and oil, he thought it time to hold his hand and furnish no more supplies, there appearing no likelihood of payment; that the boat-keeper already owed him more than he could in all probability pay, that he took the boat and craft because he had sold it originally upon credit, and he had never been paid for it, and that he seized the fish and oil in payment for his debt, and if he had waited till he could procure a Justice's warrant, the boat-keeper would have carried it off, and would have sold it to another merchant for ready money or for supplies instead of paying him. Such are the merits of the case between the merchants and boat-keepers. The next description of persons employed in the fishery are the common fishermen or servants. They are either employed by the merchant or boat-keeper. If by the former, there is scarcely anything heard of him; if by the latter, they are subject to the vicissitudes of his circumstances; in case of his inability to pay, they look to the merchant, who, having the fish and oil is bound by law to pay the wages. The usual grievances of servants are, that they are overcharged for the supplies furnished by the master; and those of the master, that the servant has neglected his work, or spoiled the fish in curing." On the whole, after his investigation, Justice Reeves is more favourably disposed to the merchants than he was before. He proposes: 1. An improved Court procedure. 2. The framing of local bye-laws. 3. Finance, to be provided by a duty on rum or a tax on inhabited plots of land. As to rum: "The fisherman may now have as much as he can drink for 6d.; he will then be able to get it for gd. This rise of price will not be thought of in a place where the price of everything is comparatively so much higher, and where a dollar is not more thought of than a shilling in this country." Though there is disappointingly little about legal principles in the writings of Reeves and his coadjutors, there is much about legal business, on the cash side; and this, at any rate, has the advantage that it falls within the comprehension of the layman. The second Chief Justice, 1792-7, was D'Ewes Coke, an able man who carried great weight in the Island.

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C.O. 194.42. D'Ewes Coke from Poole (where he was now retired), February 24, 1799"In the year 1791, when Judge Reeves came out to Nfld to establish a Court of Civil Jurisdiction, I was appointed one of the Assessors. The following year Mr. Reeves returned and the Act of Parliament had been new modelled [31 Geo. Ill, c. 46 (1792) Courts, Newfoundland] and power was given to him to appoint persons to grant letters of administration and probate of wills. Mr. Reeves gave me a commission to be his surrogate in this department for the whole Island, with full power to substitute and appoint as many other persons under me as I thought requisite to carry the business into effect. At the same time he delivered me a list of fees which were to be taken for the execution of the Island business. I accordingly appointed deputies in most of the districts in the Island, giving them the same power I had myself (and to take the same fees), none of whom except Mr. Evans were to be accountable to me for any part or moiety of these fees. Such business as occurred at St. John's I executed myself, as will appear upon the Register, and of course considering it as entitled to the fees. In 1793, upon my being appointed C.J., Mr. Reeves wrote to me recommending a friend of his very strongly to be appointed to grant probates, and concludes with the following words to that effect: 'But in this matter do as you please. I cannot press it upon you, as it is the only thing for which you can take a shilling.' From the above circumstance it will appear that Mr. Reeves did consider this business as a matter of Record unconnected with the Law business of the Courts. Therefore a Register was kept for this purpose alone, and the business done in this department was thought to be extra-judicial and that whoever transacted it was entitled to the fees. Mr. Reeves is upon the spot to be called upon and if I erred from so respectable an authority, I natter myself that H.M.'s Ministers will have the goodness to allow me every indulgence. D'Ewes Coke." Two days later, February, 1799, comes a letter from Richard Routh (also of Poole). He was now Chief Justice and in receipt of the fees from the probate of wills; and as C.J. he proposes to appoint a deputy, to do the business and to take the fees "established by the late Chief Justice." Judge D. W. Prowse (1834-1914) in his History of Newfoundland, p. 356, continues the story from this point. Richard Routh, exCollector of Customs, was appointed Chief Justice in 1797. It was a condition of his appointment that the Chief Justice should henceforth reside permanently in Newfoundland—the Poole family party

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must cease; but he was drowned, going "home," several years later. Prowse quotes Routh as stating in sworn evidence, "For the sole purpose of fees the magistrates licensed . . . public houses in St. John's at 4^ guineas each—one half of this going to the 3 Justices, and the other half to the Public funds." The poor fellows had to get a living wage somehow! Without any doubt these three Chief Justices were able men; and a Memorandum by Routh of May 4, 1797, proves it in his case to the full. For the detailed recommendations with which his Memorandum closes were all put into effect. C.O. 194-39"The constant complaints of the gentleman engaged in the Nfld trade and fishery for many years induced H.M.'s Ministers to make enquiry into the State of that Colony. In doing this, it was discovered, among other things, that the Administration of Justice, as then practised, was not formed upon a legal establishment. To remedy this in 1791 Mr. Reeves of the Board of Trade was sent out as Chief Justice in a new Court of Judicature, established by Parliament for Civil and Military causes. This new office he executed with so much regard to the old usages and habits of the Island in all matters which came up before him that I conceive the people of that Island will long have reason to remember his arrangements with respect and gratitude. To form a competent idea of what it has been and what it is at this time, it will be necessary to review a book published by Mr. Reeves on the History of Newfoundland, which besides a relation of what has already been done for the Island, shows the laws that at present are necessary and those that from changes and fluctuations of the trade have become obsolete. When the trade and fishery of Nfld a century ago came under the care and justice of Govt., the Govt. for the time being was instructed particularly to see that every person left the Island in the autumn or fall of every year, except such as were necessary to keep up the flakes and the fishing etages, rooms, etc. But this was never attended to with much strictness, and as the parties engaged in the different employments found the climate very healthy and that the difficulty of wintering was abated by the comforts and conveniences which they could easily obtain, the population gradually increased, and at this time there are in the whole Island from 60 to 70,000 persons.1 At the town of St. John's and its vicinity there are at least 4 to 5,000, who have no other home. Many of the people have little farms and gardens which they manage without any encroachment or injury to the fishery and raise most of the necessities of life with as much ease as we do in England. Lately they have gone further in cultivation, and the parcel which accompanies this account will shew a sample of wheat, barley and oats 1 This figure, even with summer residents, visiting crews and garrison troops, seems too high.

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which grew there last summer. These were raised from very bad seed, but they will, however, prove that the Island is capable of raising every article of support and that the vegetation is as good as in most countries; indeed, the finest vegetables of all are raised in Nfld and in a few years, if it should be thought worthy of encouragement, the soil, bad and rocky as it is considered, is equal to such cultivation without impediment or any injury whatever to the fishery. I cannot help submitting that the Instructions to Governors, as they now stand, have a tendency to perplex the Govr. and cause great uneasiness to the inhabitants, who are as loyal and well attached to the British Government as any persons in H.M.'s Dominions. For example, the Governor conceives he has a right to pull down houses and dismantle any of the improvements above mentioned, altho' they have stood for many years and have been erected at great expense. Yet at the same time the Govrs. conceive they have a right to grant land for the above purposes, and they have constantly been in the habit of so doing. In consequence of this, property consisting of houses, land, besides the places occupied in the fishery, is bought and sold with the same confidence in the title as in England or any other of H.M.'s Dominions, and since the establishment of Mr. Reeves' Court, the legality of such titles is strengthened by the support which all property and commercial credit have derived from the regular, effectual, and impartial administration of justice. The good sense of which establishment was, that, tho' the Court was new, it was in truth as a new mode of protecting ancient rights, and giving effect to the old customs and usages of the Island. Among these the title to such sort of property as I have mentioned received its strong support and sanction. As the time for the appointment of a new Govr. is about to take place, it is much to be wished that the instructions may be so modelled as to prevent such contradictions as those above mentioned. Upon the whole I think the following points of importance. ist. That the Govr. shall in no manner interfere in the Courts of Justice, and that the business shall take a legal course, by which the property of any individuals may be secured to each other according to the established law of the land. 2nd. That no Govr. shall annul the grant or grants of his predecessors. 3rd. That Govrs. may have directions to grant land for the purpose of cultivation, provided the same is surveyed and a certificate produced from 3 or more J.P.s, if so many can be found at the place, that it cannot interfere with any situation where the fishery can be improved or carried on. 4th. That the Govr. shall not appoint or turn out any surrogate in the Outports without the consent or approbation of the C.J. of the Island; indeed, experience tells us that it would be best left for the C.J. to appoint his own surrogates, as by that means they would in the absence of the Govr. be amenable to him and the possibility of some oppressions be thereby prevented.

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5th. That the salary of the C.J. be more adequate to the importance of the office. That it should be paid without the interference of the Govr. for the time being, as the person who administers Justice should be as independent as possible and not subject to the delays he has lately experienced in not being able to prevail upon the Govr. to draw a bill for the payment of it, which is the present mode of payment. I should think the administration of Justice in the Supreme Court would be much facilitated, if there were 2 Assessors to the C.J. established, as there were in the first Court Mr. Reeves set up. These Assessors might be employed at certain occasions in visiting other parts of the Island, and holding courts there and seeing that the Surrogates carried on properly the business of their respective courts." In other words, courts of law in place of Governors' edicts: a real estate market: and the overhauling of those surrogates, with whom we must now come to grips. The issue came to a head in the Landergan case—the Peterloo of Newfoundland's history. As the Archer Shee case was to Sir Edward Carson, so the Landergan case was to William Carson. That Navy, which is never wrong, had for once to lower its colours. The Surrogate Courts, like the Press Gang, were quietly abolished; that is to say, they were replaced by institutions more suited to the time. A long dispatch from Sir C. Hamilton in C.O. 194.63 (1820) observes that: "the system of jurisprudence through the Island by 'Surrogates' I believe, generally gives satisfaction, as the people naturally look with a jealous eye towards the magistrates, who, being all merchants or people connected with the fishery, are in one shape or another interested in almost every case that is brought before them, consequently they cannot be free from bias, and as the poor fishermen themselves commonly observe, it is far better to be without any justice than to have that which is bad. Thus, this system of appointing any one as a magistrate, who is in any shape connected with the trade, should be discontinued, as he has too often to decide as a J.P. in a Court of Session upon his own cause, or upon that at least of his dependants. If the duties of a Surrogate are properly attended to, perhaps there is no station where the selection of officers to commands, who as captains fill this office, is more necessary than at Nfld. To decide beyond appeal cases under ^40, requires some attention, education and ability in those on whom the duty falls." After this conditional approval, one is not prepared for the opening enclosure in the Governor's dispatch of January i, 1821. "James

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Landergan sues David Buchan and Rev. John Leigh for trespass." What had happened? Richard Shea, surgeon of Port de Grave, "was present at the Surrogate Court held there by Defendants in July last. Plaintiff was sentenced to receive 36 lashes for contempt of court in not attending according to order. Mr. Leigh silenced the plaintiff and turned to Capt. Buchan, who seemed to assent. The plaintiff was removed from court and held by the wrists and legs to a stake, when he received 14 lashes and fainted. He was flogged by a man belonging to the Grasshopper, with a cat o" nine tails." After the fainting, the doctor asked for the punishment to stop. "He was then taken down and carried into the House, and appeared much convulsed." JUDGE'S CHARGE (FORBES C.J.). "Defendant acted within their powers. At the same time the Court must deprecate a mode of proceeding which disuse had rendered obsolete in England; and which in every view of the present case, was particularly harsh and uncalled for. . . . It was painful to be called upon to observe upon the acts of gentlemen, who, from not being versed in the law, were exposed to error by the situation in which they were placed; but it was impossible not to feel that great injustice had been done in Landergan's case, and it was not the less hard because it was without a remedy by law." VERDICT. The Jury, in finding for the Defendants, "cannot allow this opportunity to pass without expressing their abhorrence of such an unmerciful and cruel punishment for so trifling an offence" (namely, contempt of court for refusing to appear when summoned). Rev. Leigh, November, 1820, stated that the punishment was inflicted "from unfortunate circumstances of gross misrepresentation," and that it was intended to indemnify Landergan by purchasing his fishing room and restoring it to him and his family. All this in Governor Hamilton's dispatch of January, 1821. The Governor was inclined to stand up for the surrogates as the only protectors of the poor fishermen in the outports. They were, in general, impartial, "nor could local judges enforce their own judgments at any outport without military favor." But the citizens snowed Government House under with their scrolls of signatures. "It is not the want of a local legislature of which we principally complain, but the 'Landergan case'—the persecution of a poor planter in trifling debt for supplies." "The celebrated case of Butler and Landergan, two unfortunate planters who were bound to the posts of their own flakes and lashed

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with a cat o' nine tails of a bosun's mate, without committing any crime but that of wishing the surrogates a good time of it, is recent enough to be within the recollection of most of our readers." (The Patriot, 1843.) And in June, 1821, Bathurst wrote out from England to the Governor, cautioning against the infliction of corporal punishment by the Surrogate Court. In 1824, James Stephen of the Colonial Office, when engaged on the Newfoundland Judicature Bill, drafted a historical memorandum, which puts the trouble into focus:— "In the early days, when settlement was discouraged and many nevertheless planted themselves in the Island, justice was delivered by the 'fishing admirals.' From them there was an appeal to the Commander of the King's ship acting on the station as convoy. These maritime judges were absent in winter, and the legal history of Newfoundland consists of little else than the various means devised for remedying this inconvenience." In 1729 came Governors, Quarter Sessions and Justices of the Peace. The fishing admirals were ousted gradually by the Captains of the Royal Navy, who now acted in the first instance and appointed at the outports "surrogates," meaning "deputies," a term borrowed from the common law. Junior officers, lieutenants and midshipmen, acted as surrogates. In addition, a Vice-Admiralty Court was set up to handle revenue cases, and there were occasional commissioners of Oyer and Terminer (words meaning "To hear and determine"). In 1791-2 (Stephen goes on), 31 Geo. Ill, c. 59 and 32 Geo. Ill, c. 46 set up a Court of Civil and Criminal Jurisdiction. The Governor, with the advice of the Judiciary, was authorized to institute Surrogate Courts, from which there was an appeal to the Supreme Court in cases involving £40 and upwards. The important matter of seamen's wages was entrusted to a Court of Sessions, with two Justices as provided in 49 Geo. Ill, c. 37 (1809). The objection to the Surrogate Courts was that the members, not being lawyers, observed no settled rules of law—this provoked litigation and was unpopular both with judges and the inhabitants. Accordingly (said Stephen) the new bill of 1824 (which became 5 Geo. IV, c. 67, 1824) would replace Surrogate Courts by Circuit Courts and transfer the business of the Vice-Admiralty Court to the Supreme Court; both steps arising out of the fact that the resident population was on the increase and the "sedentary" had ousted the "transient" fishing. John Reeves was the first of a line, which laid the foundations of

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a system and a tradition. He started the hand-over which the Act of 1824 completed. The Navy were glad to be rid of the job. Mr. James Dobie said, in a very shrewd letter to Sir G. Cockburn of the Admiralty, 1823: "It is only during a few months in summer that ships of war can with safety be on the coast, and there is little or no communication with the capital in winter, occasioned by the want of roads, a circumstance in all countries which is, or ought to be, with its inhabitants a primary consideration." The Governor applied for and got right away a resident Attorney General, to help him administer the new system; and though the first gentleman they sent out was no good, he was followed by the excellent James Simms, whose work looms large in the legal life of the province in the years ahead. He came, I gather, from Birmingham. The second desideratum, better roads, took longer to attain; but a land-based judiciary and inland communications were logical partners in the transition from fishery to colony. It is very possible that unpleasant things had been said at Whitehall in re Landergan ; and the Admiralty cannot have been sorry to write to the Colonial Office, May, 1826 (C.O. 194.73):—"The services of the Navy having been dispensed with in the new Judiciary Act, the Navy must object to the use of its vessels for taking the judges on circuit. The Governor now has a yacht of his own." Let Lord Bathurst look after his judges on circuit. One good turn deserved another! WILLIAM CARSON, 1770-1843. On March 21, 1838, the Magistrates and Council of Kirkcudbright, "considering that Mr. William Carson of Billies1 in the Island of Newfoundland, Honourable Speaker of the House of Assembly, a native of this neighbourhood and at present in Great Britain on an official visit to the Government, is at present in Kirkcudbright, on his return to Newfoundland, do therefore as a mark of admiration of the abilities which have raised him to the high and important station which he has attained, hereby admit him a Burgess and Freeman of this Burgh with all the privileges and immunities thereof, and that gratis—and the said William Carson, being present, accepted and swore allegiance to Her Majesty." Billies was named from the farm where he was born, midway on the old road between Kirkcudbright and Castle Douglas. In view of the forthcoming family history (now, 1954, in its second edition) 1 Billies, located near Rennie's Mill River, St. John's, was for many years the home of Hon. R. B. Job. The present house, erected by Lary O'Brien, President of the Legislature Council, is named Rosiellan.

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by the Hon. R. B. Job, it is unnecessary for me to attempt the story of Carson's life. I have read the history in manuscript, and can say with confidence that the documents which follow corroborate the estimate presented by his great-grandson. C.O. 194.49 (1810). Governor Duckworth sends to the Colonial Office a letter "from Dr. Carson, a physician of St. John's, in which he seeks a monopoly of the Whale Fishery, and recommends it for examination. Dr. Carson claims that many whales come over at certain seasons and that he has a device for catching them, of which he sends a plan. C.O. 194.52 (1812). William Carson. Letter to Members of Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning the address of the Merchants of Newfoundland: Greenock, 1812. The letter, printed, is a lengthy document; I give the substance. Historical pith. Sir J. Barry Trevorgay, Board of Trade, 1698, claimed that the planters of Newfoundland should not exceed 1,000. "With the influence of roast beef they may be supposed to have been well acquainted, but with the virtues of codheads and sounds, it does not appear their friends the West Country merchants had sufficiently apprized them." The Governors. "Enveloped in ignorance, he assumes an imposing character. No sooner has he ascended the seat of Government than the Royal St. John's Gazeteer teems with proclamations, sometimes illegal, often absurd—orders, under cover of H.M.'s service, are diffused with the rapidity of lightning. One is interdicted from building, another is ordered to desist from repairing his house, and the fences of another are ordered to be levelled to the dust. (The first Royal Governor was appointed in 1729: the first all-year Resident Governor in 1817.) Naval Justice. The naval mind only understands force. Surrogates and judges of an inferior jurisdiction, they consist of two classes, stationary and itinerant surrogates. The latter are formed of captains of sloops of war and lieutenants of the Navy, who have a Commission from the Governor, and during the period the squadron remains upon the coast go from harbour to harbour distributing a kind of missionary justice. Ship Rooms. Custom, the law of right, as well as 10 and n Will. Ill, gave to every English adventurer quiet possession of any space of ground which he had reclaimed and occupied; occupancy h

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for useful purposes being the only legal title to property in the Island of Newfoundland. It sometimes happened that the object of the adventurer did not succeed, and the space which he had appropriated was abandoned by him. The right which he had obtained by first possession and occupancy might have been sold or transferred to another, who could possess and occupy; but when there was no purchaser and no one willing to occupy a space which had been of no value, it became a void and empty space. The reward due to the toil, risk and genius of a first adventurer could not be claimed by a second. He could acquire no original title, and could only occupy and use it for the current season. A ship's room is therefore a space which had once been possessed and occupied but had been deserted by the first occupier. Any space of ground in the Island of Newfoundland that is deserted for one year assumes the character of and is actually a ship's room. The vacant spaces in the town of St. John's, of which the 51 Geo. Ill has deprived the inhabitants and rendered them Crown Lands, are spaces which had been abandoned by the first occupier. For a great many years they had not been used agreeably to law by any vessel from Europe. They had not been taken possession of for the purpose of the Fishery by any one of the inhabitants, but had been used by them for purposes of general utility and had thus by long custom and the general consent become common property. They were used as an occasional market place for storing lumber, for building skiffs and fishing boats, they were commons in which all the inhabitants had right of common, and were as much the property of the inhabitants of St. John's as the commons in any district of England are the property of the landholders in their immediate neighbourhood." The whilom tenant of Billies, Kirkcudbright County, Scotland, does not fear to tread the thorny path of English manorial law! The letter closes with an optimistic review of Newfoundland and a loyal flourish. "The Merchants and Inhabitants of St. John's have come forward for the first time to lay their complaints and wishes at the foot of the Throne." C.O. 194.53 (1812). Memorial of William Carson to Rt. Hon. Viscount Sidmouth, October 20, 1812. He is a physician in full practice in St. John's. In 1808 he was nominated by the Royal Volunteers their surgeon. They wanted him to continue surgeon to the augmented corps, but

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Governor Duckworth "peremptorily refused." He is indignant at the Governor's treatment of him. ("The security of this country is dearer to none than to me"); and attributes it to his stand over ship rooms. He encloses his letter of appointment by Governor Holloway in 1809. He has appealed to Governor Duckworth, furnishing facts about himself. "I have obtained the highest honour of my profession from the College of Edinburgh"—he had practised fourteen years in Birmingham, England, the medical men of which town sent him a testimonial on his way out to Newfoundland—he had practised now for four years in St. John's; and he had asked for an Enquiry by a Committee of Officers of the Volunteer Rangers. To which Governor Duckworth had replied, "I do not see any necessity for such an enquiry." Carson's memorial is followed in the Records by a letter from Lt. Osmund Anspach, formerly of Newfoundland, in which he proposes the free use of vacant ship rooms, not yet granted out. "It is the inhabitants of the out-harbours that carry on the fisheries. . . . There has been at all times a party determined to colonize Newfoundland in their own way, and the Island is in fact colonizing itself rapidly." Encroachments have at all times been made and will continue. Therefore (says Anspach) accept the fact, and apply, to the advantage of Government and the greater/comfort of the inhabitants, lands which have been hitherto useless." Anspach spent thirteen years in Newfoundland. Carson worked up his views on the land question into a brochure Reasons for Colonizing the Island of Newfoundland—Greenock, 1812. "Give small plots to faithful fishing servants: and keep the Irish here, instead of making the place a stepping stone to the U.S." He is severe on naval commanders, mildly hopeful of Newfoundland and can quote from Benjamin Franklin. Finally, "if these observations should contribute towards the attainment of a resident Governor and a Legislative Assembly in imitation of the British Constitution, I shall experience a high reward." The reward came, but only after many years of agitation, and only after the Mother Country had set the colony an appropriate example. C.O. 194.55 (1814). Governor Keats. St. John's, July 19, 1814. Governor's Report. The French have reappeared, and he expects requests from them to cut wood in Fortune bay. The Admiralty is surveying the coast

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from Bonavista to Belle Isle. So much for the former enemy. And now for the new one—this libellous paper. Despite the C.J.'s charge, the defendants were all acquitted. "It is my duty, perhaps, to notice the progress of sentiments formerly unknown in Newfoundland, but which, within these three or four years, begins to agitate the public mind in St. John's, and which seems to be changing it from a quiet peaceful community to a community easily agitated and meddling in matters of government. When, in consequence of the late war, St. John's became an emporium of the Island and changed its character from a fishery to a considerable commercial town, difficulties proportioned to its rapidly increasing commerce and population were to have been expected in so singular and ill-defined a government, but they have been much accelerated and increased by the introduction of a few characters of the most troublesome description, whose crimes or factious dispositions have obliged them to leave the Mother Country, and whose abilities, unceasingly employed to enflame and mislead, are capable of exciting mistrusts and jealousies on the most groundless pretexts." There being no regular lawyers in the Island, "ignorant turbulence fills the courts." He would like to have the power to suppress newspapers, but London has informed him that this will not be permitted. C.O. 194.49 (1815). St. John's, June 3, 1815. Medical certificate from Dr. Carson for the C.J. (Colclough). "Dear Madam, My professional duty compels me to state to you that quiet and repose from all business are necessary to the Chief Justice's safety. Dr. Madam, I have the honor to be Yr. obed. hble. servt. Will Carson." This is not the only letter from Carson about Colclough's health. C.O. 194.57 (1816). Governor's Review: "Dr. Carson has an inoperative whale patent. Of minerals little as yet is known or done." C.O. 194.59 (1817). Governor Pickmore to Goulburn: "The invaluable Dr. Carson has been again striving to stir up the common people on account of their wants. He is a rank person, and if possible ought to be removed."

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C.O. 194.60 (1817). To Earl Bathurst (Colonial Secretary). Memo of February 8,1817, by William Carson, M.D., Physician to the Newfoundland Hospital. A lengthy document, in which he claims that "the Hospital owes its existence to my exertions": castigates legal abuses—no Judge of Supreme Court for last fifteen months: the people scared by the Courts of Oyez and Terminer, etc.; and he demands for dissenting clergy the right to perform marriages. The document ends:— "The melancholy situation of this country at the present moment I am unable to delineate, as yet only in the commencement of a severe winter, increasingly shut out from all commercial intercourse, destitute of provisions sufficient for half its duration, the Poor cannot purchase bread, now 3 times its usual value, contagious fever is in the train of famine. I shudder to contemplate the consequences. But the melancholy picture may be gratifying to those who wish to retrograde the country to the good old days of the Fishing Admirals, when the Resident Inhabitants were limited by the Board of Trade to 1,000, when agreeable to the Western Charter the Inhabitants were driven 6 miles from the sea coast, to perish of hunger, and when neither law nor justice were known in the Island. I am very convinced your lordship is better informed than H.M.'s Ministers in the days of Lord North. When that Minister gave his instructions to the Govrs. of Nfld, he was in the habit of using these remarkable words: 'Thwart the inhabitants in everything, if they want their beef half roasted, give it them raw; if they want it raw, give it them roasted.' Could but your official duties permit you to direct the force of your great mind even for a short period to the affairs of Nfld, you would then comprehend its vast importance and the justice and necessity of giving to the People all those rights and privileges and that consequence which belong to them as British subjects, and which would in a short period raise Nfld to the front rank among British colonies, and secure to your 1'ship an imperishable fame." This document bears Carson's signature in the original, and the whole text, I think, is in his hand. It is followed by a Loyal Address from the Merchants of St. John's to the Prince Regent, which says, "The nursery of the fisheries has been transferred to the great carrying trade it has created. Therefore, population should be encouraged." Praise for the "Impregnable Island." To keep Newfoundland for Britain a larger population is wanted. The soil is not barren; there is good cattle feed and good potato land. Three times within twelve years St. John's has been on the verge of famine. Permission is sought for the speedy admission of food from the mainland. Wanted also: a fee simple for land grants (with an allowance

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for the purchase of implements and premiums for cultivation) and the building of roads. There should be no legislation for Newfoundland in Great Britain without due notice to Newfoundland. C.O. 194.62 (1819). Governor Hamilton laments "the growth of a strong democratic spirit, prejudiced against the Army, the Navy and the Government": the "subscription of an annual stipend to Dr. Carson for his systematic opposition to the Governor": and the expenses of Government House. It was different in the good old days when Government House was a summer residence for a few weeks, and the Admiral always had a large ship to which he could retire. C.O. 194.65 (1822). A widely signed petition asks for St. John's to be a Free Port. Then follows the programme of the Reform Committee:—Emphasis on Fisheries deprecated: Newfoundland has been sacrificed to the Merchants, but mercantile monopoly is challenged now by France and the U.S.A. "A century has not elapsed since anything like a regular Government was established. At this later time it rests in the hands of a Governor, being at the same time the Admiral, holding the chief naval command on the station. He appoints and removes at his pleasure the judges of the Surrogate Courts who are generally selected from the officers of the Fleet. The Governor can do nothing for the improvement of the country, unless he takes the law into his own hands and acts on his own responsibility. Small subsistence farms should be encouraged, at least these will not starve." The Committee conceives that, to be beneficial, the reforms must emanate from a local government. "It would possess the revenues of the country, educate and civilise the people. If Nfld had not possessed the means of paying the expenses of Govt., how were so many fortunes made in a few years? St. John's produces £30,000 p/a of rents which go mainly to absentees, whose ancestors secured a title to it, merely by occupying it for the purpose of the fishery." C.O. 194.71 (1825). Festival of St. Patrick's Dinner. Dr. Carson, returning thanks for the toast of "St. Andrew and the Land of Cakes," proposes that of the Benevolent Irish Society—congratulating them on their proposed Orphan Asylums.

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C.O. 194.72 (1826). Governor Cochrane favours local government for St. John's. A town meeting appoints a Committee of thirty, headed by Dr. Carson, with Messrs. Morris, Ben Bowring, Newman, Brooking, etc.: which reports, May 16, in favour of a Town Council with bye-laws and power to assess houses and land. But a very large petition from those adverse to this report quickly followed (May 26). It might, they said, lead to tumult. St. John's, and indeed the Island as a whole, has always been allergic to local taxation. C.O. 194.78 (1829). Memorial praying for a Colonial Legislature. "The population and trade of the Island merits a legislature, like other colonies." The Governor notifies "Dr. Carson and the Committee of Inhabitants" that he has forwarded this memorial to London. It is "a very serious" question. (January, 1829.) C.O. 194.79 (1829). Sealed petition, with a very large list of names, for a "Constitutional Legislative Government." C.O. 194.84 (1832). In 1832, the Reformers' year, alike in the Old Country and the New, petitions poured into the Capital City for the Cause—from Harbour Grace, Carbonear, Port de Grave, Old Perlican. Lord Howick wrote to G. R. Robinson, M.P., January 25, 1832: "Lord Goderich has given instructions for the issue of a new Commission by which the Governor will be empowered to summon a Representative Assembly, on the precedent of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; and with similar powers. There is no one who rejoices more sincerely than myself in this result." But Poole was what Poole always had been—wedded to the old way. In 1752 it had petitioned against the establishment of civil government in the Island: in 1832 "Your Memorialists have heard with alarm and regret that it is the intention of H.M.'s Government to establish a legislative government in the Island." They consider that it will be highly prejudicial to their long vested interests in the outports. They object to a legislature in a colony with only one city and outports that could not get to St. John's. Poole itself, to be sure, was less tied. By land or by sea, migration to

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Liverpool was easy, either directly or via Newfoundland: West Country-St. John's-Liverpool. C.O. 194.85 (1833). Addressing the First Session of the New Colonial Legislature, 1833 (Carson was not yet a member, he came in at a bye-election later), Governor Cochrane said: "Gentlemen, You are now about to take upon you the most serious responsibility that can well devolve upon a people. Hitherto like an heir under age you have had no control over your finances—while these departments have been liberally provided by the parent state. The first and great exercise of the right they now enjoy has been to return you, Gentlemen, to represent them here; and you, in accepting of this charge, have taken it with all the responsibilities it involves. The component parts of the Government are a Council elected by H.M. and an Assembly of Representatives of the People. When sanctioned by the King, any measure agreed to by these two becomes law." The year is 1833: the place St. John's, and the House is assembled. The scene is depicted in a famous cartoon by "H.B."—The BowWow Parliament. All the figures are dogs—the Speaker, the Clerk below him: nine Government dogs on one side, seven Opposition dogs on the other. The Speaker, putting the question says, "As many as are of that opinion say—bow; of the contrary—wow; the bows have it." A blessing on John Doyle! The original is in the British Museum. Democracy and the Rule of Law had triumphed and the voice of discord was silent for the moment. Yet men were very much what they were before the change, and the stormy petrel of Newfoundland politics was never at a loss for a teapot in which to brew a storm. C.O. 194.87 (1834). Dr. Carson to T. Spring Rice—a petition. "Your petitioner was born at Billies in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Soon after being of age, he settled as a medical practitioner in Birmingham, where he practised for 13 years with reputation and success. Domestic circumstances connected with the family of his wife determined him to leave that town. A number of influential merchants trading to this country induced him to settle in St. John's as a medical practitioner under the strongest assurances of support. On the 23rd April (1808) he arrived bringing with him letters of introduction and of the highest commendation to Admiral Holloway, then Governor (1807-10) and to Chief Justice Tremlett (1803-13).

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After your petitioner had left B'ham and a few days before landing, the leading practitioners then in B'ham, and all of them at least 10 years the senior of your practitioner in practice, sent after him the following document. 'We the undersigned Medical Practitioners in Birmingham certify that we have long and intimately known William Carson, that he hath a very regular and complete medical education, having studied 4 extra sessions at the University of Edinburgh, and that he practised in this town and neighbourhood with reputation and success. We know him thoroughly qualified for exercising the various duties of his profession and that he will be a considerable acquisition to any place in want of a medical man.' The verity of the document can be attested by the Hon. James Simms, Attorney General for this Island, a native of Birmingham." In 1828 (the petition continues) he was asked by the Governor (Cochrane) to be his doctor, but found that the tit-bits of the Governor's service went to Dr. Warner, R.N. When he complained, he was told that the situation of District Surgeon was abolished (January, 1833): which he interpreted as a discrimination against himself. There had been angry exchanges between Doctor Carson and the Governor. The Doctor said that in the House of Assembly His Excellency's friends were in the majority: which His Excellency indignantly denied—"being independent of both Houses of the Legislature." And he wound up by saying that His Excellency in his nine years in Newfoundland (1825-34) had nobbled the Island and could "blast the fortunes of any man who may oppose his arbitrary will." He therefore prays for Justice. Strange language for a petitioner! He had certainly got on the Governor's nerves. Cochrane, in his dispatch of April, 1833, referred to "a Dr. Carson, the surgeon to the Public Hospital, and the Proprietor and Editor of the Patriot newspaper, and whom I felt it my duty to remove, if his office had not of itself fallen to the ground." But now the Governor himself began to lose heart, feeling that he had lost the confidence of the Colonial Office. (It was the new age of liberalism in England also.) He therefore mooted resignation. "There is a very small but not less active party in the Island's community, of which Dr. Carson is the head, who have long laboured to overturn all good government and who are unremitting in their endeavour to spread dissension in the Colony." Had Stanley (the outgoing Colonial Secretary) been got at ? Carson had boasted in his Patriot that he would in twelve months eject the Governor. "Tell me the truth. When I came to the Colony, there had not

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been a Governor here for two years. A new system of government was given me to introduce. Having produced uniformity out of chaos and placed the Government upon a regular systematic footing, another is to reap the advantages arising from it"—this to Spring Rice, October, 1834. Cochrane's last act as Governor was to renew the leave of absence of his beloved and faithful friend (who, like the Governor and like Carson, and so many more, thought himself hardly used)—David Buchan. C.O. 194.98 (1837). Governor Prescott, the last of the Admiral Governors, was to be succeeded in 1841 by Sir John Harvey—Handsome Harvey, the soldier of excellent manners and Curzon-like prolixity: and William Carson, the little rebel, the Hampden of Newfoundland, was to sit in the Speaker's chair, delivering constitutional maxims. Listen to him in the House in the fall of 1837. The House of Assembly, on Mr. Speaker's direction, informs the Council that their action in refusing to grant money for roads and bridges is a violation of the privilege of the House. "The Council must be aware that the House of Assembly is constituted on the basis of the constitution of the British House of Commons, but the Council, as Secretary Goderich has ruled, is not a House of Lords." If the Council do not come to heel and pass the money bills as voted by the House of Assembly, the House of Assembly will ask for an immediate prorogation. On October 16, 1837, Speaker Carson had a more pleasant duty—to send greetings to the new Queen (Victoria). Youth to Youth. "The principal institutions of Newfoundland are young—her Courts of Justice and her Judicature, and they particularly need your Majesty's fostering care." The wheel had come full circle. TOMBSTONE OF DR. WILLIAM CARSON. The Doctor was buried in a prominent place in the grounds of the Church of England Cathedral on March 3,1843. A tombstone to his memory was erected at that time. An inspection of this tombstone in 1949 showed that it was in poor repair and the lettering hard to decipher. Thereupon arrangements were made for its repair and for a new bronze plaque to be affixed, which reads as follows:

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In Memory of Hon. William Carson, M.D., who died Feb. 26th, 1845, age 73 years Son of Samuel & Margaret (Macglacherty) Carson of the Billies Kirkcudbright Scotland who for 35 years strove for the Welfare of Newfoundland. This plaque was supplied by the Job Family for attachment to the original tombstone in the year 1950.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

FROM FISHERY TO COLONY For the first 300 years of the Island's history the struggle over property was a struggle between the nations as to who should possess it—Basques, Portugese, Spaniards, French, English; and in particular between the French and the English. John Cabot from Bristol was the first to sight the Island, making his landfall, according to a well-established tradition, at Cape Bonavista on June 24, 1497. Humphrey Gilbert got the first patent for founding a colony on it, 1578, and entered the harbour of St. John's, August, 1583; but on his way home he was drowned. (The story is told in Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland, by Edward Hayes. Hayes commanded The Golden Fleece, the only one to reach England of the three ships which set out from Newfoundland with Gilbert.) John Guy settled Cupid's Cove, 1610: others followed, including Lord Baltimore who christened the Avalon Peninsula. But let Mr. Secretary Pitt (Chatham) continue the story from information which he caused to be furnished to him in 1758, when rebutting the claim of the Spaniards to fishing rights at Newfoundland. BRITISH MUSEUM ADD. MSS. 32,882. Pitt to Earl of Bristol, August i, 1758, enclosing the information: "In the time of James I" Letters Patent of grants to the Adventurers of London and Bristol for the Colony or Plantation of Newfoundland. 1615. Richard Whitburn's,1 Admiralty Commission of Enquiry into Disorders in Newfoundland. 1623. Grant to Sir George Calvert (Lord Baltimore), "of that part 1 Sir Richard Whitbourne of Exmouth knew more about Newfoundland than any man of his day (floruit 1579—1626). He saw Gilbert annex the Island in 1583 and Bernard Drake "capture many Portugall ships laden with fish" in 1585 (Portugal being then subject to Spain). In 1615 he came out from Exeter on the Admiralty Commission of Judicial Enquiry, making his headquarters at Trinity. In 1618 he tried without success to establish a colony of Welshmen on Sir William Vaughan's settlement at Trepassey. In 1620 he wrote his famous Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland. Whitbourne, the old railway centre, north of the modern Markland settlement, is named after him. I took great pleasure in addressing there the newly-formed Kiwanis Club, November, 1953. It is one of the places which should benefit greatly from the opening of the Trans-Canada Highway. 128

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I2Q

of Newfoundland which was then and has been ever since called the Province of Avalon."1 1638. All Newfoundland granted to the Marquis of Hamilton, Sir David Kirk and others. 1650. Commission to John Trevorgay to be Governor of Newfoundland. 1662. French settle and fortify Placentia. Then came 1713. Treaty of Utrecht. France surrenders her sovereignty over Newfoundland and cedes South Coast, saving a shelter ('abri') in St. Pierre and Miquelon. 1783. No change, but meanwhile French Canada has been conquered:— 1758. Louisbourg. 1759. Quebec. 1760. Montreal. Apropos of the fall of Louisbourg, the Earl of Chesterfield wrote to the Premier (the Duke of Newcastle): "In my opinion we wanted a cordial and this is really one. I hope that orders will be sent to demolish it and destroy the harbour. We do not want it, the French do." —sentiments quite in accord with the character of that noble Earl. Grenville, Pitt's successor in a strenuous foreign policy, sent out Cook to chart the Island, and get its limits right once and for all. St. John's for the last time was in possession of the enemy, 1762, but only momentarily, and henceforth Newfoundland's chief enemies by land were indigenous fire and imported disease. Not so the coastal waters. Privateers, French and American, ranged round them and down to the Labrador, but the Royal Navy gave a Roland for every Oliver, and usually more. In 1815, it was said, you could walk across the Narrows on foreign prizes. While there was danger of foreign invasion, the military defences of the Island were of primary importance, but St. John's was never a Halifax, still less a Gibraltar. Indeed there had been a moment before Utrecht, when it was proposed to transfer the military headquarters from St. John's to Ferryland—the port at St. John's being 1 Calvert's settlement was at Ferryland on the way to Trepassey; and his descendants pegged away at the family claim for the best part of two centuries. Thus: "1754 Ld. Baltimore claims to be Ld. Proprietor of Avalon and submits to H.M. a prayer for John Bradstreet to be Governor of the Province of Avalon, on his nomination"—Trade and Plantations (1750-55). Trepassey as a name is derived from Baie des Trepasses at the Pointe du Raz in Brittany, after which Cape Race is called.

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pronounced of little use, since it was surrounded by hills that commanded it; while Ferryland was stronger by nature and the best place to be fortified. (Report of Capt. Moody in Trade and Plantations (1709-10).) The great ship moored on the Atlantic was defended, in the first and last resort, on the coast of France. The fortifications of St. John's, spasmodically renewed, when danger threatened, fell into long-period decay, though the Government stores were well stocked with food and clothes, which in an emergency could be used for the relief of the civil population. The Governor lived in discomfort at Fort Townshend during his summer sojourn. Fort William was dismantled, and impious hands, often ex-military, encroached on precincts sacred to the ordnance. This was one way in which private property crept into unhallowed life. But there was little rivalry between soldiers and sailors, for the Navy was always topdog. The Navy and not the Army provided the convoys: and constantly returning home, they reported to the Admiralty, who passed on their news to Customs, Board of Trade, Colonial Office, or Treasury, as it concerned each. We get glimpses of the strategy in the State Papers of the time: written around a central theme "A sea force, the only defence of Newfoundland" (Report of 1751). In 1762, when Admiral Graves, the Governor, was hastening to the recapture of St. John's, he warned the Admiralty: "The enemy have the North end of the Island already, and they would in that case command both passages of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, our trade to Quebec would be cut off, that to Halifax much interrupted, as well as the homeward trade from the West Indies and the Colonies, for they generally pass over the Grand Bank on their way home—in addition France could abet the Indians on the Continent." (C.O. 194.15) We have all read Admiral Mahan's Influence of Sea Power on History1; and the history of Newfoundland decade by decade from 1700 to 1815 is one long commentary on its fundamental truths. It is easy to find fault with those Admiral Governors. Let us not forget that they were putting first things first. Newfoundlanders— however recruited—sailors, soldiers, fishermen, apprentices, servants, traders, missionaries, runaways, were alike in this that they were sea-minded and felt an instinctive allegiance to the Keeper of the Seas. From the beginning to the end of their difficult history, there was never the least chance that they would go the way of the 1

A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power on History, 1660-1783.

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Continental colonies, which in trade, culture, and military strength were their superior by far. Now, if Newfoundland had possessed the fertility of Prince Edward Island (called Isle St. John then and renamed after Edward Duke of Kent, the father of Queen Victoria, who served in those parts), it would have been thrown open to agricultural settlement, Palliser or no Palliser. Adventurers would have thronged in: there might have been baronets of Terra Nova, but luckily it was, by and large, infertile, at least on that coast which alone was known, and inland it was largely water. Before 1837 one hears little of the West Coast of to-day. There is a reference in C.0.194.58 (1816) to Bonne Bay (that delectable inlet reached to-day by a good motor road). A party from Poole asks about the reinstatement of the French at Bonne Bay—can his outfit winter there now that the French are back ? It did not indeed escape the vigilance of Palliser (what did?). In 1765 he was on the war-path against French encroachments "in the North of the Island and on the West Coast between Point Riche and Cape Ray." (Home Office, Geo. Ill, 1760-5, p. 1764.) "They encourage Indians from Cape Breton Island to come over to the East of the Island and kill Englishmen engaged in the seal fishery." But he also had his eye on something far more important, namely the status of Newfoundland and the Labrador; and Newfoundlanders may fairly be asked to pardon the acerbities of a man who staked out those Continental claims that his posterity have endorsed and are making good. Compared with this great stake, the land sneaking at St. John's, and the scratching of its slender soil, were petty nuisances; and yet they were the beginning of the history of real estate in Newfoundland. C.O. 194.16 (1764). Governor Palliser to Board of Trade (received November, 1764). "The records, it is said, were burnt in 1748, so that a Govr. can get no information concerning the ancient Customs and Regulations to assist him. Most people here being encroachers and monopolisers, are interested in keeping him ignorant. No such thing as getting an account of the Ship's Rooms in any Port, but if a person applies for a grant of a Place, any number, nay all the inhabitants, will readily swear it never was a Ship's Room, thus almost all stages and ship's rooms are become private property. The ship fishery is in a manner drop't or excluded, that is, crowded with poor, idle and the most disorderly people, who are neither good workmen nor seamen; or, if they were so, are of no service to England as seamen, they never going there and out of reach are a nuisance to this Country,

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being all dealers in liquor, waste their time in disputing over rooms, etc., which they call their Plantations." He piles on the agony. The simplest method of settling a country was that practised by the Irish from c. 1714 onwards. They turned up without funds and stayed, as their brethren from Ulster did in North Carolina and Nova Scotia, only with this difference that the latter often brought funds with them. But the "planters " had another way. They were of English stock, sailor-fishermen, and they contrived to get made caretakers, with a sort of retaining fee. The "fishing admirals"—the first-in sailing skippers—lent money (we are told in 1731-2) to "such inhabitants as have occasion for it, and by their arrival becoming admirals again next year, they exert the utmost power to obtain what they had lent the preceding years." Doubtless they were hard task-masters, but many a planter must in this way have consolidated his hold on his "plantation," or place of residence, which in time he would come to consider as his own. Such, by and large, was the evolution of property in the outports. But it is in St. John's itself that the history of real estate was worked out. The unintended effect of the anti-colonization statutes of 1698 and 1775 (10 Will. Ill, c. 14 and 15 Geo. Ill, c. 31) was to condone and consolidate encroachments on ship's rooms. By 1783 the town was a depot rather than a fishery. Behind wharfs and warehouses on the water front ran rows of ill-packed houses often obstructing access to the harbour. Water Street was a crowded wynd of arbitrary and uneven width. In some instances, governors had permitted favoured individuals to erect houses or rooms, provided they did not handicap the fishery. Frequently the occupant of adjoining land, when repairing his stages, would extend them. Unoccupied plots became gardens with houses built on them by the "owners." Military officers had their hand in the pie, and one or two of them became considerable landowners. War, as ever, forced the pace—in 1776-1783 and again in 17931815. The Government had good reason to turn a blind eye to all who could raise some foodstuffs. The Act of 1811 (51 Geo. Ill, c. 45) regularized the enfranchisement of ship rooms, and it is on that account saluted as the Magna Carta of landholding; but ship rooms were by that date a side-issue, and the regulation was important only as evidence of the general change of attitude towards private property in land. Our documents illustrate this to the full.

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Parliamentary Papers Reports, Vol. X Commons Committee on the State of the Trade to Newfoundland—Appendix:— Proclamations of Admiral Mark Milbanke, October 13, 1789. 1. Against Buildings other than those essential to the Fishery. 2. Against the Harbouring of "Dieters." The language of both suggests that the gallant admiral rather expected them to be evaded. The second was aimed in particular at fishermen coming from the out-harbours to winter in St. John's. "Whereas I am informed that after the fishing season is over, this town every year is burdened with a number of men from different parts of the Island, who, having no engagement for the winter idle away the time, destroy the flakes and are otherwise a great nuisance to the Fishery. Notice is hereby given, that the magistrates have received the most positive directions from me not to suffer any seamen or fishermen at other places during the summer to winter in this town unless they shall be regularly shipped as winter servants by persons residing in the district; and if after this notice seamen or fishermen shall presume to come from other parts of the Island to this place, with an intent to stay here as dieters, during the winter, they will be punished as vagrants and sent back to the places from whence they came, by the earliest opportunity that offers. And the magistrates of the respective Districts are hereby strictly commanded not to encourage seamen or fishermen to leave the outports, and to come to this place for the above mentioned purpose of wintering here, but to use their utmost endeavours to prevent it, on pain of H.M.'s highest displeasure and of being dismissed from the Commission of the Peace. By command of His Excellency E. Graham." Sir Erasmus Gower (1742-1814) was a Governor of a different stamp; and he had a lifelong experience of the Island from his first service in American waters during the Seven Years War to his governorship of 1804-7. Is ^ fanciful to suggest that his Welsh origin made him sensitive to the claims of the little man ? C.O. 194.45 (1806). Gower to Castlereagh—asking for a Parliamentary grant of £700 for a Church House: the deficiency in the local contribution "not put up by inhabitants, to come from the rent of lands in the vicinity of St. John's." He seeks aid also for Schools of Industry. This governor had a very real concern for the well-being of his people; i

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and he proceeds to draw up an illuminating Survey of the Island's Trade and Fishery, beginning: "Since the increase of population, the ancient practice of sending out ships from Europe to catch the fish, which they afterwards carried to market, is now disused, as the merchants find they can procure fish on easier terms from the planters. There are but few ships and those chiefly from Jersey, whose crews are all employed in fishing, and even the principal part of their cargoes is caught by resident fishermen. Merchants frequently take out articles of qualification from the Customs House, but their object is to entitle them to the privilege of Ship's Rooms or Salmon Brooks, over which they employ men whom they keep on hire in the harbour." Bankers. Numbers down, but there are some Island bankers, employing Island crews. They get earlier to the Banks and are cheaper to run. Merchants may send the larger craft home direct, if full of cargo and oil. Sack Ships. British and foreign from Europe. This is "the most effectual nursery of seamen," as, when British, the voyage closes in Britain, except for the few returning with salt to Nfld. Ships from the Continental Colonies. Schooners come from the Maritimes with much needed provisions and lumber. They would not come if liable to impressment; and therefore such colonials are never impressed. (This was a period of war.) Ships from the West Indies. Among these are the Bermudan1 ships. Many are slavers, and cannot be impressed. But they are part of a trade serviceable to Britain. Ships from U.S. These by law must-be British. They bring essential foods and should not be checked, but they are prone to contraband. Vessels on North Shore. These go sealing in March: then to the N/E of the Island on the French shore. The fishermen come from Conception Bay. They take their families. "The enterprise of these industrious people is so great that the women, late in advanced pregnancy, rather than stay at home, take midwives with them on the expedition." 1 There had been one year when Bermuda was on the front page in Newfoundland, namely 1788. C.O. 194.38 (1788) Govr. to Admiralty: "19 sail in 10 days have come into St. John's from the Banks, belonging to Bermuda. If Bermudans are granted this liberty, Nova Scotia and other British colonials would naturally expect the same indulgence; and in that case I leave it to your Lordships to judge whether the number of negroes and Americans that must unavoidably through these Channels be employed in it, would not in a very short season occasion a decrease of green men from Great Britain or Ireland, and thereby become a matter of material consideration." Next document—Govr. of Newfoundland (J. Elliot) to Govr. of Bermuda: "It is against the law"; but to cut their loss he will let them stay till the end of the season.

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Passengers. Bye boat fishery wholly laid aside; formerly employed several thousands. The shore or boat fishery has passed to residents. The few passengers now arriving are youngsters or green hands from Ireland, who arrive in St. John's. Keen demand for them in the spring. Passage money is deducted in advance from their wages of ;£i2-i8: otherwise they could not find their passage money home. They engage for 2 summers and a winter. Many hide away in Nfld or slip over to U.S. Regular wintering servants are sober and orderly—would make good Fencibles. This kind of dieter (servant on board wages) desirable. Stages. The only species of landed property recognised in law in Nfld. Old rooms are now lost sight of, and blended with property of residents. The majority of them are now private property. Gower has surveyed the remainder, in order that Govt. may lease them to traders. Improved Land. To be encouraged. Woodland being now further from the town, horses have replaced dogs. Such encouragement is contrary to old policy, but the fishery has now taken another form. Private Houses. Govr. Gambier (his predecessor) wrote in 1804: "Contrasted with 18 years ago, the north side of the harbour is now taken up with merchants' stores, wharfs, etc., which displaced fishing stages, and they mixed up with private dwellings, shops, workshops: which command high rents. There is a housing shortage. 24 public houses are licensed but there is much illicit trading. The number should be increased to 36. Population of the Island.1 C. 1789 winter inhabitants, say 18,000. Now (1806), 20,000 plus. Servants down, planters up. The sexes are therefore more equal. By the planters, together with some 650 green men, chiefly from Ireland, the fishery is now carried on. England should welcome their increase. There are new outlets in whaling, as conducted by the Americans, and in the hitherto neglected herring fishery. Observations on his Instructions. These are quite clearly out of date. There are now no fishing ships whose owners are not in possession of rooms with a permanent title, as their own private fishery. Therefore, let Govt. lease rooms in the outports. In St. John's (which had become a shack town) "let Govt. sell or lease spare rooms." There is not a settled harbour in Nfld in which lands are not held, either with grants from Govrs. or by long possession. Courts of law have recognised this property. At present agriculture is confined to a few gardens and potato plots. Gambier and Gower had leased out for 21 years some 300 acres, but wheat won't ripen. He had tried to compile a Land Register, but lacked surveyors, and the inhabitants were loth to give information. There is need of a 1 Estimated population in 1836, 75,000. There was a marked increase after 1815.

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local police rate. The Law Officers say that Govt. can take land for roads, etc., but "must compensate holders" if they have "a permanent unqualified interest in the property under grants from the Crown." In other cases compensation is ex gratia. In fine, "the increased demand for ground for the situation of numerous mercantile establishments, which have of late years been formed here, and for building homes for the residence of fishermen and their families, as well as for the various artificers now become essential to the fishing and trade, together with the variety of traders and artisans, whom the necessary demands of increased population have attracted to St. John's, have naturally raised the value of grounds in the town and its vicinity so high, that large revenues are drawn from them, as well by persons resident in St. John's, whose predecessors or themselves formerly occupied them in the fishery, as by their lessees, who reside on the Island and make a high profit by letting them again to others who now employ them in the fishery or trade, until the annual rents paid for fish rooms, houses and land, within this district are computed to amount to between 15 and 20,000^." C.O. 194.47 (1808). Admiral Holloway laments his predecessor's land grants. "It encourages the inhabitants to claim for occupancy lands no longer used for the fishery, tho' for this alone the grant was made; and it has now become the daily practice to sell, mortgage, lease and transfer these things, even though they have the right to do so." This Admiral was a stickler, who would put the clock back. C.O. 194.51 (1811). Governor Duckworth:— November i, 1811. In pursuance of the Act of the last session for the disposing of spaces called ship rooms, in the centre of St. John's— "I have caused these vacant spaces to be let in lots by public auction on leases of thirty years, renewable on a fine certain of three years rent, for one further term on the same conditions," Such rents were yielding £1,680 per annum. C.O. 194.52 (1812). Downing Street to Duckworth:— i. In granting lands, reserve Ordnance needs. "With regard to the land that has been granted to individuals by former governors, it would not be expedient to direct the restitution of it, unless absolutely and immediately required for ordnance purposes, until further information has been received with regard to the extent of compensation which the present occupiers may have a fair title to

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expect from the loss which would be sustained by them in consequence of the resumption." 2. "There can be no doubt that the present situation of that fishery from the long continuation of the War and the great change which the recent introduction of the Seal Fishery must have occasioned, even if the War were now to terminate, will require a revision of the Laws and Instructions at present in Existence." Report called for. C.O. 194.53 (1812). Duckworth to Downing Street:—• Legal enquiry tells him that Newfoundland is now a sedentary fishery. "The resident population is now so great that any attempt to lessen it or even to check the rapidity of increase must be completely vain." Therefore the law should be altered. "The chief impediments in the way of the sedentary fishery are the provisions in the Laws by which all unoccupied places in Nfld are accounted Fishing Ships Rooms, and the restrictions on cultivation of the land. But very few of the unoccupied places are suited to the purposes of the Fishing Ships, and the rest might therefore be given up to the Inhabitants." Grants should be regularised: cultivation for subsistence should be encouraged. C.O. 194.54 (1813). Downing Street to the new Governor (Keats). April 6, 1813:— "You are authorised to grant leases of small portions of land to industrious persons for the cultivation of land upon the same terms as such grants have hitherto been made, taking care to reserve an Annual Quit Rent, either nominal or real, according to the circumstance of each individual case." C.O. 194.56 (1815). Keats, back in Bideford, end 1815, reviews his land policy. The Land Survey had established encroachments of 843 acres, now replaced by grants of quit rents—the grantees being only too pleased at the change. "I have never (encroached lands excepted) exceeded 4 acres in any grant, and never made any grant in the Outports." But a Survey may be necessary there also. Building conditions: "It is a hardship that those only renting lands from Government should possess the privilege of building without restraint. . ." Houses are set up almost in defiance of

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authority. He recommends (for St. John's only) the removal of restraints on building—with permission to erect dwelling-houses between Admiral's Room E and Rotten Row W (on sites) which were let on leases by authority of Parliament in 1811. "When I have met with houses on encroached land, I have charged them with a moderate rent, which I have carried forward to Quit Rent Account. But now that the lands are held by legal titles, I confess, situated as they are clear of the Fisheries and more than 200 yards from the Water, I have some doubt as to the right of preventing buildings or of charging them with rents." He laments the popular agitation in St. John's. "The leaders are unconnected with the Fishery, they desire changes in the method of Government." C.O. 194.63 (1820). Governor Hamilton to Viscount Melville, at the Admiralty— from Newfoundland, October 18, 1820. (Governors before him would likely have been home by this date.) "Our fishery is formed of men who are all residents in this Island, and whom with very few exceptions I may style landsmen, as they usually return into port at night (and always when it blows hard). These people live on the fishery along the coasts in boats of from 2 to i ton's burthen, instead of going as they formerly did in vessels of from 50 to 100 tons (square-rigged) to the Great Bank to catch fish, where the vessel usually remained a month to 6 weeks in all kinds of weather by which good seamen were made; whereas, at the moment, there are not above 50 banking vessels in the whole Island and these are confined to the ports between St. John's and Cape Race. The present description of fishermen, being residents here, are not employed above 5 months in the year in their boats, and this in the finest season, and in the months of Oct. and Nov. very generally retire into the woods, with their families to cut wood, hoops, etc., and to obtain furs, with which they partly defray the resident British merchant for the annual supplies with which he has furnished them; the remainder is paid with the fish taken by them during the summer. Almost every fifth fisherman is what is termed a 'Planter,' particularly in the outports of the Island. This means a man who has a boat of his own, which he employs during the fishing season to catch fish for himself. These he cures on his own flakes; and when dry and fit for market, he carrys them to the merchant, in lieu of the supplies furnished his family thro' the year. The boat is usually manned with 4 men, either from his own family or servants, the latter of whom are paid at the rate (at this period) of about 10 to 15 or even 2o£ each for the season, 5 months, and found in provisions. In lieu of servants the Planter sometimes has what is called a shareman, which means a man who does not have wages or provisions, but claims one half of the fish taken by himself; which he cures and

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disposes of as he pleases. These sharemen are frequently indigent planters who have fallen into debt with their merchant and who cannot afford to use their own boats, or (as is frequently the case) the boat and all the property of the poor planter is seized by the merchant in payment of the supplies furnished by him during the preceding year, and which supplies are generally charged at an enormous profit; by which these unfortunate fishermen, who have mostly very large families, remain in debt all their lives; and then as they find but little hope of removing the burden, their energies become paralysed and their industry receives a check which it rarely, if ever, recovers. An estimate of the number of these sharemen I will annex, by which your 1'ship will observe of what vast importance it would be to the Navy of Gt. Britain, if these people were employed in square-rigged vessels, to take fish on the banks, as they formerly did, instead of catching fish of much less size in a small boat, shunning every approaching storm before even the waves become ruffled, and avoiding everything which can teach them to become seamen"—avoiding also, he might have added, a premature descent into Davy Jones's locker. "Not more than 30 years since, the fishery was principally composed of square-rigged banking vessles manned with men who had that year come from England for the purpose; and even the few byeboats they had on the coast were generally manned with part of the crew of the merchant vessels which were waiting for their cargoes. At this period it is formed of men are are residents, but not one in 50 would be acceptable in a man of war except as landsmen, or at best as an ordinary seaman. The British merchant in this city1 prefers the present system to the old one, as it enables him to get his fish at a much less price (paying for it uniformly in goods which he sells at very high rates) and by which he makes a much greater profit in a foreign market. At this moment Nfld might be more properly termed a colony than a fishery plantation. . . ." At this point, I interpolate a Board of Trade document, i.e., a Governor's dispatch in the archives of the Board. The notion that in these days the colonies were neglected is, as far as concerns Newfoundland, ludicrously wide of the mark. This was about the last charge that could be brought against Liverpool, Bathurst, or Huskisson, each in their day Colonial Secretary. To Liverpool, the veteran premier, the Newfoundland School Society could bear testimony; for it had no warmer friend; of Bathurst and Huskisson something is said here. Huskisson was President of the Board of Trade in 1823: and B(oard) T(rade) 1.187 contains a long despatch of Governor Hamilton to Bathurst, November 30, 1823. After cod 1 This happens to be the earliest notice I have seen in which the town of St. John's is called a city.

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and other fishery data (cod this year abundant, seals yielded 200,000 skins and 2,300 tons of oil), the dispatch proceeds:— "The subjects of the United States continue to prosecute their fishery along the Coast of Labrador with great perseverance, for it may be proper, as so much stress has been made upon the concessions made that people by the Convention of the 20 Oct., 1818, fear the fatal effects likely to result from it; to repeat what I have before stated to your 1'ship, that the Americans have never yet (that I have been able to learn) availed themselves of the privileges granted to them of drying and curing their fish in the unsettled harbours and creeks of Nfld between Cape Ray and the Rameau Is., nor have I understood that they ever had any fishing vessels along that coast. Attempts have been made, particularly by Americans, to establish a system of illicit traffic which has required the utmost care and attention to counteract. In some instances they have been prosecuted to condemnation, but in others they have doubtless been successful, to which the Island of St. Pierre and Miquelon, and the intercourse between our own fishermen and those of France and the U.S.A. offer facilities which it is next to impossible to prevent. I have, however, considered it necessary to order one of my cruisers to winter at Burin or Placenta Bay this year, and to use all practicable means to put down a system which, altho' not at present, perhaps, carried on to such an extent as to operate as a serious injury to the revenue of the Island, will nevertheless require extreme vigilance to keep in check. I beg to lay before your 1'ship a Petition1 from Messrs. W. & H. Thomas, Merchants of St. John's, for a grant of land of 100 [sic] acres in the vicinity of the town, which being so much larger a quantity than it has been the custom to grant of late years, and similar applications having also been made to me by other individuals, I have felt it my duty, previous to a compliance thereof, to ascertain yr. 1'ship's intentions on the subject. If all the unoccupied lands near town are granted, in large lots, there will soon be a numerous undertenantry to the landholders, who will demand a high rent. As indeed is the case with some, who obtained in former times extensive tracts, and Messrs. Thomas have to pay upwards of £2 per acre for an hundred acres, which they rent near St. John's. The only good plea advanced by these persons is, that having capital invested and servants employed in agriculture, they would be enabled to cultivate land sooner at a less expense than poor individuals, and that it would require no more servants to farm 100 acres and very little more cost when cleared than it would for half that quantity. That, having 1 Petitioners ask for 50 acres on the White Downs; intend to practise the best methods of English husbandry. "If the Inhabitants of the Island were extensively to cultivate the potato, that, and their stable article fish, would at all times keep them above want. Cellars are needed to protect food in winter." Many of the small farmers do not cultivate or even fence. Have invested ^2,200 of capital in farming but own no land: pay ^230 a year for 100 acres, of which 70 cultivated. If they get the grant, will bring the land into cultivation within 3 years.

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frequently the contract to supply the Navy and Army with fresh meat and vegetables, they would have it in their power to do this to greater advantage, both to themselves and the Government. On the other hand, the small lots from 2 to 8 acres, parted to poor fishermen with large families, have enabled them to erect a hut and raise vegetables, and having merely a nominal quit-rent to pay, have managed to provide for themselves and have required the less assistance from public charity. As also the land near the Harbours and Coasts can be more easily supplied with manure, I am of opinion that the large grants now solicited would not be eventually so beneficial to the fishery as the limited ones to which yr. 1'ship has appeared to confine former grants. Application has also been made by persons having former grants to have their quit rents reduced to the scale which I have this year fixed in consequence of yr. 1'ship's letter of the 18 June last, viz., gd. per acre, and in some cases perhaps this may be conceded. But to reduce the whole to the same level will diminish that branch of the Crown rents from about ^300 to ^70 a year, and render the General Fund insufficient to meet the charges on it: and so long as the Paupers, the Sick, and the Passages are provided by the Govt. it does appear to be natural that those who obtain grants of land from Govt. on easy terms should pay something towards these necessary expenses. I should therefore beg to suggest to yr. 1'ship that if any diminution of the quit rents do take place, it should be to those only whose lot does not exceed 4 acres and which is not within one mile of the Church of St. John's. This would relieve the most indigent and the lands least valuable as being the most distant from manure: the high profits of lands near the town do not appear to me to require any reduction of quit-rent at present. I have to lay before yr. 1'ship a Memorial I have received from the Revd. Doctor Scallon, Bishop and Head of the Roman Catholic Church in Nfld, and in begging yr. 1'ship's reference to my letter of the 19 Nov., 1819 (a copy of which I enclose) in which I forwarded a memorial to the same effect; I have only to confirm the sentiments therein expressed with regard to Dr. Scallon's character and services. ('His conduct has been in all respects exemplary, and calculated to keep up in his flock the best disposition of loyalty and good order.') I have one more paper to enclose to yr. 1'ship, and in so doing I beg to state that about 17 years ago [sc. 1806] a Society was formed for affording relief to the Poor. The accompanying Memorial will explain to yr. 1'ship that they are desirous of establishing an Asylum for orphan children in St. John's, for which charitable purpose they have agreed to appropriate a certain portion of their funds annually, and have already raised the sum of ^346 towards erecting a suitable building. The prayer of the Memorial is for some assistance in aid of their laudable undertaking, and I hope yr. 1'ship will allow me to recommend it to the favourable consideration of H.M.'s Govt. C. Hamilton."

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The General Account Current for 1823 showed inter alia items of £600 odd for removal of paupers from the Island: and of £370 for Care of Paupers—thus reducing the Crown Rents Balance to £2,770C.O. 194.70 (1825). Sir Thos. Cochrane the new Governor. December, 1825: despatch on Land Question. "Prior to 1783 a few lots of land were granted on leases of 21 years to individuals for services rendered, more especially when France threatened an invasion in 1796. Those lots were afterwards considerably increased by encroachments on the King's grounds. Other individuals enclosed grounds at pleasure without authority. In 1813 Sir R. G. Keats, the Govr., gave grants of land to petitioners, not exceeding 4 acres to any individual, which were also generally increased by encroachments. In 1815 he ordered a survey to be taken and a map made of all grounds enclosed and claimed by individuals in the environs of St. John's, where the extent and quantity of the different possessions were ascertained, and those who had held possession for 20 years were given a confirmed title but subject to a quit rent for the encroachments made within that period, and the whole of which was included in a new grant to each individual, which accounts for persons possessing larger portions of ground than the Govrs. have been in the habit of granting. Prior to 1823 a quit rent of 2/6 per acre, and 5/- for a house built on the lot, to the Crown, and 3d. per acre for the St. John's Hospital has been imposed payable annually in cash. In 1823 a new scale of quit rent was introduced, for all succeeding grants, of 6d. per acre for the Crown and 3d. for the Nfld Hospital. All the grants are for 30 years and subject to the payment of an annual rent in Sterling money on the ist Sept. in every year to the Govr. of Nfld or by any persons duly authorised to receive it. If it should be thought necessary at any time that the whole or any part of the land should be taken for H.M.'s services, then a fair compensation is to be paid to the grantee for his interest therein. The grantee is to enclose the said plot of land with a good sufficient fence and to clear and cultivate i/3rd part of the said ground within 3 years from the date of the grant, and the remainder within 10 years from the same date; and to bear his fair share in cost of fences, roads, etc., and not to dispose of his lot without consent of Govr.: sale to be registered. The grant after 30 years is renewable on fine for a further 30 years. The settlement duties have scarcely in any case been practically carried out—usually nothing has been done. Land so granted 2,841 acres. Ungranted land inside St. John's c. 6,000 acres. Outside St. John's c. 8,000 enclosed and cultivated, but not formally granted by the King. The best land is at St. Mary's-Placentia, where there is less wind and ice. Maximum grant

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to any individual—200 acres in one case: the rest under roo acres: minimum J acre.

C.O. 194.98 (1837). November, 1837. Governor Prescott replies to a Land Questionnaire from London thus:

Ungranted land within 4 miles of St. John's:—chiefly between Portugal Cove Rd. and Topsail Rd., but at a distance from them, say 12,000 acres. St. John's Land Sales and Rentals. Sales replaced free grants, 1833 [Ld. Howick, later 3rd Earl Grey, had favoured sales over grants in 1832]. At present selling price varies from g/- to 2O/- per acre, according to situation: 4-6 miles out, 7/6: 6-8, 6/—the two latter prices being rather high, especially if the land is far from fish manure. Squatters on Cleared Land. When discovered, parties warned. Land grants issued gratis to long settled residents. Industrious Renters. Permits to rent land, with remission of rent for first 2 years. Land Cultivated by Squatters, how much? Quantity in doubt. But near St. John's—Torbay, Petty Harbour, Portugal Cove, the occupants are mostly squatters. At outports applications for land grants becoming more frequent. Land Near a Road. If land is far from a road, the soil is the only consideration. Land Grants issued in current year. 2,300 acres to 49 persons. Such grants reserve mineral rights and a quit rent, in pain of forfeiture if land is not cleared or rent is unpaid. Rent may be redeemed by payment of lump sum.

[N.B.—O.E.D. defines Quit Rent as "a rent usually of small amount paid by a freeholder . . . in lieu of services which might be required of him."] One can detect in this document of 1837 the infiltration of thought engendered in the vast spaces of Australia. The acreages with which we have been dealing are puny: the values punier still. They would not add a street row to the Corner Brook or Grand Falls of to-day. Nevertheless, they have a peculiar significance. For certain of those problems with which the New World is wrestling to-day—registration of titles, unearned increment, town planning, compensation, and in particular the problems arising from the switch of an economy facing seaward only to one facing landward also, with its new problems of site value, agricultural value and mineral value—all these are seen to advantage under the microscope of the Island's history.

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C.O. 194.78 (1829). LEGAL RETROSPECT by James Simms, Attorney General. The Possession of Land.

As the Sedentary ousted the Transitory Fishery, Ship Rooms became permanent—replacing the Fishing Admiral's stations, secured by ist arrival. Into these Rooms, especially in the Outports, the Merchants entered—Planters and Boat-keepers hardly daring to encroach there. "Even in St. John's the limits of Ship's Rooms became by such general encroachments greatly circumscribed." 1811, 51 Geo. Ill, c. 45, took away the public use of certain ship rooms in St. John's and empowered the Govr. to let, lease, etc., the same as private property, as any other land might be. 1824-5, Geo. IV, c. 51, allowed the Govr. to let, lease, etc., all other ship's rooms in Nfld. Until recently it was the policy to prevent the erection of any building except for the Fishery. But owners of fishing properties let or leased them, and did not confine them to the purpose of the fishery. Thus, 3 or 4 merchants got all the Trepassey shore. [The Trepassey of 1952 is spread over the two sides of a deep inlet, and you go to church by motor boat across the narrow bay.] Thus, all planters and fishermen were excluded, who had to pay rent for their locations. St. John's has numerous absentee landlords—many in England. This type of landlord is opposed to all outlay on improvements. JUDICIAL PROGRAMME OF CHIEF JUSTICE TUCKER. Sir Thomas Cochrane held the Governorship for the unprecedented term of nine years, 1825-34: R. A. Tucker held the office of Chief Justice even longer, 1822-33. In Cochrane's lengthy leave of absence, 1828-9, he administered the Island. Therefore towards the end of his term he was able to speak with exceptional authority, as he and two colleagues did in a memorandum of seventy-two folio pages, August 23, 1831, on the Judicature and Jurisprudence of Newfoundland. The main economic points are:— 1. The geographical difficulties of administering Newfoundland are greater than those of any West India Island. 2. Planting, i.e., settlement, was forced to take place in defiance of the law. Therefore law and practice were in conflict. 3. Great Britain has spent but little on the Civil Government of Newfoundland, though considerable fortunes have been made here, and the Island is of key value. 4. They quote Burke on the value of Newfoundland to the Mother Country, and the costliness of the Nova Scotian "brat."

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5. Canada is likely to separate one day from Great Britain in the course of nature—not so Newfoundland, which is imperium sine fine. 6. Newfoundland from her own soil can never subsist herself. 7. The shares system, so satisfactory in sealing, should be applied to the codfishery also. 8. Easy credit for current supplies has been injurious both to merchants and planters. 9. And finally, WANTED—a code of laws framed by selection of suitable parts of the English Civil and Criminal Law, supplemented by special regulations peculiar to the Island's condition. Thus, Simms and Tucker help us to an overall view of half a century of crucial change. The admirals played their part in execution: the politicians in protest. But the representatives of law and justice added a quality more valuable still—a rational respect for institutions remoulded to meet new needs. It is often said that Newfoundlanders are a singularly law-abiding people, and the boast is not an idle one. Yet there is something fantastic in the environment which yielded this result. For they had to fight not merely for justice, but to exist at all. The conditions were intolerable, and yet they were overcome by tolerance—the tolerance of Governors for the governed, of new brooms for ancient usages, even when these had been obliterated in the flames: and more important still, the tolerance of creed for creed, Established Church, Free Church and Roman Catholicism each playing the game, and each understandably reluctant to lose its identity in an undenominational Babbitry, which is but one remove from Moscow. La propriete c'est le vol— very easy to illustrate from Newfoundland's history, yet it was just that kind of property which Gerrard Winstanley and his Diggers of Cromwellian days had sought to establish—the property of men in the fruit of their labours. And so, by a sort of insidious illegality, which the conscience of Whitehall could not gainsay, the Island passed from Fishery to Colony.

CHAPTER NINE

THE ST. JOHN'S CHAMBER OF COMMERCE What St. John's and other places to-day call Board of Trade was formerly called Chamber of Commerce, and this was natural, because at home Board of Trade, as a term, was pre-empted by a department of the Government—the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations. It was the custom of this old Board of Trade (as it was commonly called) to receive memorials from the merchants of particular towns and in return to request information from these or other towns; and so in 1776 we find the principal merchants and traders in the town of St. John's, Newfoundland, addressing a memorial of grievances to London, with the following result in the Board of Trade minutes: "Ordered—copies of this memorial to be sent to the Mayors of Poole, Dartmouth, Falmouth and Plymouth, and Masters of Merchants Hall, Bristol, for transmission to merchants in their towns and comments thereon. The reports from these towns say that the grievances set forth are met by the recent Act prohibiting trade with certain American colonies." (Trade and Plantations, 1776-83.) C.O. 194.38 (1788-91). To His Excellency Admiral Sir John Elliot, the Memorial of the Principal Merchants and others of St. John's, praying for twelve more Public Houses. Better a licensed tavern than a "speak-easy"; their argument in effect runs—better for revenue and better for morals. Moreover, the town was now drinking British; for as St. John's Customs reported in 1787: "There have never been any distilleries in Newfoundland. Before the American war there was annually imported from that country, on an average of three years, 20,000 gallons3—all distilled there from foreign molasses: in lieu whereof we receive it now from our West Indian Islands and a few thousand gallons of British spirits." (C.O. 194.37.) C.O. 194.41 (1771-1790). Admiral Milbanke, Governor 1789-92, received protests from principal merchants and inhabitants of St. John's concerning the 1 This in addition to wine and spirits from Great Britain, the Channel Islands, and British West Indies direct. 146

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recent introduction of convicts. Milbanke tells them that the town must pay for their upkeep, pending a settlement of the issue. W(ar) O(ffice) 1.15 (Newfoundland 1792-4). Governor Sir Richard King, 1792-4, received a memorial from merchants, complaining of being left for the last three years (178992) "without Courts of Justice or any way to recover our property for ten months in the year." "It matters not to us what new modes are introduced in this Island, provided Justice is permanent, our usage in the fishery confirmed to us, and our expenses not increased." But they were disappointed in the new Regulations. "It is well known that we are represented to Government as oppressors to our Servants, this we deny and trust our innocence can be easily proved." In particular they object to the recent legislation in favour of servants. "The substance is lost in pursuit of the shadow. The law, as it now stands, obliges us to pay our servants one half of their wages in bills of exchange, which we are not equal to. We pay higher wages than any other of His Majesty's subjects in any trade whatever; and we always submitted to it, because our supplies to them in some measure reduced it to the level of other situations. Deprived of this advantage a large part of our profits are taken from us." The next document serves to remind us that commerce without had a voice, as well as commerce within; and it is the voice, obviously, of old hands. The Committee of Newfoundland Trade for the Ports of Dartmouth and Exon to Hon. Vice-Admiral Waldegrave, London: Dartmouth, 24 Jan., 1798. Sir, The season of the outfit for the Newfoundland trade and fishery for the ensuing summer approaching fast on us, we beg leave to express our wishes as to the time the full convoy may sail from hence, Ireland and Lisbon for that Island, and we flatter ourselves from the attention you have shown to the welfare of this Trade and Fishery, that you will be so well pleased as to give weight to the representation that the Trade have this day made to the Lords of the Admiralty on this subject, and of an increased force for our protection on the Coast and on the Banks of Nfld. St. John's may be safe by its fortifications, but the fishing harbours can only be protected by the naval force, which will also, by adding strength to the convoy from Nfld to Portugal and to England (in the fall of the year), ensure to us a return for our outfit and industry; the naval force of last year, tho' no doubt as much as Government could then spare for our defence,

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cannot give that protection to our Fishery which in all probability will be necessary to carry it on with little interference from the enemy's Cruizers; the extent of our Fishing Coast and Settlements on it, and the Fishery on the Banks of Nfld cannot, we presume, be guarded but by our Frigates, and we have reason to expect the French will not leave this fishery undisturbed the following season. Protection will give us confidence and be the means of carrying on the business, with some degree of spirit, in the present melancholy prospect there is of its being beneficial. We hope and trust, Sir, that your ideas will coincide with ours, and that the Trade and Fishery will have your good services to promote its interests. For the Committee. Robert Holdsworth. Arthur Holdsworth & Co. Willm. Newman. Christr. Vallance. Daniel Codner & Co. C.O. 194.48 (1809). October 21, 1809. The Society of Merchants of Newfoundland, through their Committee, submitted three memorials. (1) They protest against the action of Chief Justice Tremlett in refusing process against the wages of fishermen, to compel them to pay their just debts. They submit that in a population like that of Newfoundland "principles of honour are at a discount." The Chief Justice was exercising parliamentary powers. "It is by such conduct that the Chief Justice has sunk his character as a gentleman and lost his dignity as a judge." They ask for satisfaction. (2) In the matter of certificates for oil shipments—these certificates were required to avoid penalties. The Act presumed that "our fishermen are carried in decked vessels and not in boats." But, in fact, they were carried in boats, and therefore the Act could not be obeyed. [See below C.O. 194.55 (1814).] (3) Praying for a continuance of the expiring bounty on fish imported into the British Empire. C.O. 194.51 (1811). In 1811 a printed Report of Merchants and Principal Inhabitants of St. John's, forwarded by J. McBraire,1 William Carson and G. R. 1 James McBraire (MacBraire), a merchant of Irish descent, was instrumental in founding in 1806 the Merchants' Society, out of which the Chamber of Commerce developed. He was also a member of the first Volunteer Fire Brigade formed by the Merchants' Society in 1811. In the same year of 1806 he was a co-founder of the Benevolent Irish Society, which has wrought so nobly for the welfare of the Irish community in St. John's and elsewhere, as its Centenary Volume (1806-1906) shows. This Society was formed in furtherance of a Resolution, taken by a unanimous

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Robinson, stated that the Government has disposed of land on building leases "so exorbitant and unprecedented and so high that the building of private dwellings is prevented. Imagination could not portray a more dreadful picture of human misery than would be realized were the town in the depths of winter to become a prey to fire—streets narrow and unpaved, unlighted, and the town during three months isolated from its neighbourhood." They therefore asked for £2,000 of the rents from leases to be devoted to town improvements—streets, market place, schools, poor relief. C.O. 194.53 (1812). On November 12, 1812, Governor Duckworth wrote to the British Government: ". . . The question of colonisation still remains. Of the policy of preventing the measure there is but one opinion, but with respect to the means there are many. . . . The merchants of St. John's have formed themselves into a Society and are making combined efforts for the acquisition of a power which ought not in my opinion to be vested in them. Yet the town has become so extensive and its inhabitants so numerous, that it does indeed appear necessary that provision should be made for its better regulation by creating some local authority—such as a Grand Jury, with power to make binding regulations if approved by Government. An arrangement being made upon this principle and the magistracy being placed upon that respectable establishment which should render it above the control of any improper influence, would remove all idea of the formation of a Colony, and answer every good purpose of a local legislature unaccompanied by any of its evil consequences." C.O. 194.54 (1813). Governor Keats in 1813 wrote home: "I enclose a letter from the Chairman of the Committee of Merchants. I incline to the opinion that interest may in some degree have influenced their statements." McBraire, for the Committee, pleaded for licences to import grain from Great Britain and Ireland, and for permission to neutrals to bring provisions from the United States to Newfoundland. meeting of citizens of the capital, including representatives of the military, mercantile and official establishments, to the effect: "That a Society founded on the principles of benevolence and philanthropy would be the most effectual mode of establishing a permanent relief to the wretched and distressed." In the list of original officers, Captain Winckworth Tonge figures as President and James MacBraire as Treasurer. K

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C.O. 194.55 (1814). By the interpretation of 49 Geo. Ill, c. 98, s. 38, Newfoundland cod oil was penalized; the law assuming wrongly that the fishery was conducted in decked vessels. "We fish in open boats of small dimensions, many of them used by one fisherman only and none of them by more than five. The owners of these boats frequently fish 200 miles from the ports from whence the oil is exported, and numbers of the fishermen reside at that distance. In the collection of fifty tons of oil by the exporting merchant, it may be the whole produce of 100 boats, and the smallest of those above described, hence it amounts to an impossibility to comply with the Act. Newfoundland cargoes are being held up, especially in Liverpool." The Society solicited on behalf of the Trade generally "your Excellency's interference to have the evil remedied." Signed by J. McBraire, President of the Society of Merchants, St. John's, July 19, 1814. Collector Brooking, under the same date, backed the plea with a technical memo to the Commissioners of Customs in London. "The fish are generally caught by boats and carried on shore where the liver is taken out and the oil manufactured. Such fish as are caught on the banks are split and salted on board the vessels, and the livers are collected in casks and afterwards brought on shore and the oil there extracted. The seals are now generally taken on vessels fitted out for that purpose. The pelt and fat are taken off together from the carcase of the animal on boats, and when brought on shore the fat is taken from the pelt and rendered into oil, either by the heat of the sun and atmosphere or by boiling: such as are caught in nets are immediately taken on shore and skinned; and by this Yr. Honors will observe that the oil is not unladen from vessels but wholly manufactured on shore by persons residing at different parts of the Island." Morale was low in 1817. Trade declined and unrest mounted, alike in the metropolis that smashed the coach windows of its Prince Regent and in the ruins that had once been St. John's. But surprisingly enough morale was lower in unscathed Wessex than in burnt St. John's. A note of pessimism was struck by John Job, the founder of Bulley & Job of Teignmouth, in his evidence before the Select Committee on the Newfoundland Trade (1817)—that "self-elected Committee in London," of which Dr. Carson thought so ill. When asked, "Have you made up your mind as to what line you will adopt, in the event of Government withholding such assistance as is now sought for?" he replied: "We shall take early measures

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such as prudence may dictate to retreat from the trade before we lose the whole of our property." And the further memorial of the combined merchants of Poole, with its scaremongering about "mob violence" is of value only because it gives us a list of leading Poole houses in 1817: Spurrier, Garland, Sleat, Reed, Fryer, Gosse & Pack, Slade & Cox, J. Slade & Son. As inhabitants, the chief citizens of St. John's had much to say on the Landergan case; as merchants, they reserved themselves for a memorial essentially within their sphere, to which the political reformers also subscribed. It was for a Free Port in 1822. Frederick Carrington, Attorney General, Robert Job, William Carson, Patrick Morris, and all the familiar names are there—Gosse, Doyle, Dawe, Furlong, Walsh and Earle. And this is what they said: "With the single exception of fish, we import everything we eat and drink, and everything we wear and everything we use—even our houses, at least the materials. We conceive that the benefit of the Free Port Act, if confined to a barter trade might have been extended here with an advantage to us, no less to the Mother Country and at the expense of the American fisheries." (C.O. 194.55, 1822.) This was not their first Free Port effort. A similar group, with the West Indian trade in view, had memorialized London in 1817, but it was observed then that the group was a small one and that it lacked the Governor's endorsement. Their second memorial, too, fell on stony ground. Huskisson had not yet come to the Board of Trade to liberalize and enlarge the Free Port concept, and adjust it to his policy of far-flung reciprocity. In 1829, at the third attempt, success was won. The much finer language of the third memorial and the extension of the boon to Harbour Grace I have given in full in an earlier chapter (above, p. 46-8). C.O. 194.61 (1818). I come now to a remarkable item. It is not a Chamber of Commerce document, but a critique of practices in which its members, under a different name, were engaged; and it takes the form of a lengthy report left with the Governor by a certain Mr. Stewart "about to leave Newfoundland after many years." "All the people who have at any time made large fortunes in the trade of our Island have risen from low situations in the fishery. They were all of them at one time of their lives either planters or boat-keepers. Having risen 'from the cod-hook,' they make severe masters."

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Price fixing (he says) until recently was open and avowed, now it is informal. "At the Merchants Hall meeting at midsummer, the President of the Merchants Society tells the assembly of merchants, planters and boat-keepers the prospects of the season—the price of fish and oil at the various markets to which these articles are exported, the rate of freight, insurance, the comparative expense at which the various articles consumed have been imported for the season, and concludes with proposing what he thinks ought to be the price of fish and cod here for the season: after the appearance of some debate the prices are generally settled as proposed by the merchants, who have come to an understanding among themselves on the maximum previous to the meeting. This operation is called breaking the price of fish and oil for the season, and the value thus decided governs the prices at all the outports with very little variation, except that in some of the most distant harbours, where the whole of the trade is perhaps in the hands of one or two rich merchants, the poorer class of the planters and boat-keepers are frequently obliged to submit to receive a much smaller price for their fish and oil than the broken prices at St. John's." Sometimes, he continues, a second meeting is held to reduce the broken price on receipt of further news from foreign markets. If, however, the news is favourable to the fishermen, the information is suppressed. This item deserves a place in a documentary history of Imperfect Competition. C.O. 194.67 (1824). T. H. Brooking, as "President of the Chamber of Commerce for St. John's, Nfld," sent to the Governor (Cochrane) for transmission to the Colonial Secretary (Earl Bathurst) a communication from "The Vice-Presidents of the Chamber of Commerce for St. Jorin's" of May 19,1824—Messrs. Newman, W. Hodges and William Thomas signing. It concerns the Spanish project of a cod-fish monopoly, and the danger that through tariff manipulation the fish contract would be switched from British to French suppliers. Concurrently, Huskisson (Board of Trade) was writing to Wilmot Horton (Colonial Office), April 9, 1824: "Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Stratford Canning present their compliments to Mr. Wilmot Horton and request that he will have the goodness to inform them whether the French are considered, under existing treaties and the instructions issued from the Colonial Office, as having Exclusive Rights of fishery on the Western Coasts of Newfoundland, or only concurrent with H.M.'s subjects, and in the

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former case, whether the exclusion is partial or limited in point either of time or of any other particular." In the partnership of Canning and Huskisson, 1823-7, foreign policy and trade policy went hand in hand. C.O. 194.69 (1824). This volume recurs to the part which St. John's had played on the Select Committee of 1817. Before that body J. H. Atwood had said: "I carry on a trade from London and Birmingham, and have also an establishment at St. John's, Newfoundland." He was there (he explained) to present evidence on behalf of "the Committee of Merchants for Trade and Fisheries of St. John's, Nfld," being "a Committee duly elected by ballot." The depression of 1817 was due to concessions to the French and to their bounty system, and the high Spanish duty: and it might be necessary to shift 10,000 inhabitants from the Island. But to lessen the need for this extremity, the soil should be cultivated and provisions imported from the United States. Witness had been twice to St. John's. He was told in May, 1817, that the town was in a state of distress and beggary, with some of the inhabitants in a state of absolute famine. C.O. 194.71 (1825). "St. John's, Nfld, March 29, 1825. To Wilmot Horton, Under Secretary of State: Dear Sir. In the absence of His Excellency the Governor, I am directed to acquaint you that the Chamber of Commerce of this town: having seen a copy of a Memorial presented on 17 December last by merchants and traders of the United Kingdom concerned in the Newfoundland Fisheries to the Lords of His Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council for Trade: in which an alteration in the circulating medium of this Island is recommended: beg leave to express the hope that no step will be taken in a matter of so much importance to the Inhabitants of this Colony, until the arrival of His Excellency the Governor, when the sentiments of the resident population can be ascertained and thro' him transmitted as to the utility or expediency of the proposed change. James Cross (President of Chamber of Commerce of St. John's, Newfoundland)." From the same comes a second of March 31, 1825, in which Memorialists "recalling that of May last (1824) concerning Spanish and Portuguese fish duties," pray for a reduction of these duties, for the free importation into Newfoundland of articles of the first

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necessity, and an unrestrained export of goods legally imported. Provisions in the United Kingdom were now too dear to be brought thence. Therefore they desire (i) the free import of salted provisions, whether from Great Britain or the U.S.A., (2) the entry of oil and skins from Newfoundland to Great Britian free of duty, and no export duties from Great Britain to Newfoundland. C.0.i94.7i (1825). Memorial of the Chamber of Commerce of St. John's to the Colonial Secretary, May 20, 1825. This is an outstanding document, and given here in full to show how central Labrador was to the policy, activities, and institutional framework of the Newfoundland economy. The Memorialists urge the very great importance to Newfoundland's fisheries of continuing under the Government of Newfoundland all such ports off that coast as are resorted to from hence. They declare that between sixty and seventy vessels are annually fitted out from the port of St. John's alone, nearly 200 from Conception Bay, employing together nearly 5,000 men in the Labrador Fishery, besides which others proceed thither from other parts of the Island—and that of late years, the Bank Fishery having been less productive than formerly, the vessels employed therein are for the most part sent to the Labrador in the summer season. That since the cession to France of the West part of the Island (usually denominated the French shore), nearly all the vessels employed in the Seal Fishery are afterwards sent to the Labrador; and that the Seal Fishery has latterly assumed a degree of importance which entitles it to the highest consideration, having this spring yielded employment to 5,000 men at a season during which the climate could afford them no other means of support. The Memorial further states: "That the Fishery at Labrador commences at a later period of the season than on the shores of Newfoundland now occupied by the British, and affords time for the seal fishery to be fully completed as that to the French shore formerly did, and that the Labrador and Seal Fisheries are thereby well adapted to each other: and that furthermore the vessels which are necessary to the seal fishery would now be absolutely useless in any other branch of the Cod Fishery than that to Labrador, and so remain unemployed except during the continuance of the Seal Fishery, which is but two months in the year, and for the single use of which their owners could not afford to keep them. Whence it will appear to your lordship that every impediment

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to the Labrador Fishery hath a direct tendency to reduce the Seal Fishery. That the whole business of supplying these fisheries is involved in a course of settlement to be made in the fall of the year, the supplies being advanced in the spring by the merchants to the fishermen on credit and for the most part entirely on the faith of the voyage; that it would therefore be absolutely impossible to continue the fishery in any place beyond the reach of our Supreme Court of Judicature, which has moreover by a long course of decisions become the depository of all its customs and usages; and that the several laws made for the protection of the fisheries being engrafted on these customs and usages are and only can be applied or properly understood within the Government of Newfoundland. That the annexation to Canada of any part of the Coast of Labrador usually resorted to from hence would oppose such difficulties to the settlement of accounts, as necessarily to lessen the confidence and ultimately destroy the credit upon which the Fisheries are carried on, and without which they could not subsist. That this evil could not be remedied even by the establishment of Courts of Judicature on that coast, because the greater number of causes should originate in the courts here, where the transactions have taken place, and that the appeal from Labrador Courts, it is apprehended, would after such annexation be to Quebec, where it would be equally impossible for plaintiff or defendant to appear. It is therefore prayed that the Coast of Labrador may be continued under the Government of Newfoundland, as provided by 49 Geo. Ill, c. 27 [1809, Newfoundland]." C.O. 194.72 (1826). On January 20, 1826, T. H. Brooking, President of the Chamber of Commerce, St. John's, wrote on behalf of the Trade: "Your memorialists have heard with considerable alarm, that the persons engaged in the Irish Provision Trade, notwithstanding they have long been unable to supply that demand for H.M.'s colonies except at such prices as our Fisheries are unable totally to pay, have since the passing of the said Act [temporarily permitting imports from foreign countries] been making strenuous exertions to get the monopoly of that trade. Your memorialists reiterate their absolute dependence on the relief obtained by such importation." And again on November 10, 1826, that after a year's effort, the attempt to establish British coin as a circulating medium has been a complete failure. "The system adopted by His Majesty's Government by the introduction of £5,000 in 1825 and the same amount in 1826 has completely failed. While H.M.'s Govt. continues to charge a premium of 3% for bills on the Treasury, in lieu of the silver which may be tendered to the Commissariat, so long and certain will the remittance

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in British silver continue to be made to the U.K., thereby frustrating the views of H.M.'s Govt. and obliging the Govt. annually to import a large sum for the payment of the troops and other public expenditure of the Island. Whereas, if the premium were given up, the sterling money would remain in the country as a circulating medium, in common with the other coins now in use. A material difference of opinion exists among the members of the Commercial Society in respect to establishing the circulation of British metallic currency: apprehensive as a considerable portion of them are, that it would eventually supersede the Spanish dollar, and in the absence of British silver occasion a return to Paper Currency, than which no measure could be more prejudicial to the trading and general interests of the Island. Thos. H. Brooking, President." The author of the famous Report of the Committee on the Depressed State of Agriculture (1821)—William Huskisson—had not written in vain, for he, after setting out to diagnose the ills of English agriculture, had ended with a eulogy of the Return to Cash Payments. It is therefore not surprising that at this third time of asking, the Society over which Mr. Brooking so soundly presided was deemed worthy of Free Port status. C.O. 194.74 (1827). Governor Cochrane forwarded a Memorial from the Chamber of Commerce of January 29, 1827, which said: "that the British Fisheries in America are depressed, but that they have been benefited by the Colonial Trade Act, permitting the free import of provisions and necessaries for the Fisheries in British ships. That the Collector of Customs exacted duty under 6 Geo. IV, c. 114 on a variety of foods (rice, barley, etc.) and goods, which are fit and necessary for the fishery; that molasses and other oil are to the fishermen next in general use to that of the first necessary of life. That in view of the trade relations between the U.S. and Great Britain [it was the period of retaliation by Order in Council], much benefit would result to Newfoundland if permission were granted to make flour and biscuit in Great Britain of foreign grain bonded there, to be exported to Newfoundland and Labrador for the use of fishermen, duty free. The memorialists would fetch it to Newfoundland. That in Oporto an extra duty is laid on codfish of 8£%, and this is more than a local impost." After adverting to the above Memorial from "the Chamber of Commerce of this town," Cochrane commented on a further Memorial, soliciting that the Island and particularly the port of St. John's may not be deprived of the presence of a Naval Officer.

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"Here (he says) the higher class is composed solely of those whose commercial transactions bring them daily into collision with the lower. In Harbour Grace, the largest and most flourishing of the outports there are but ten or twelve of the former, in other places, two, three or four; and from these persons I am compelled to select the magistracy [thus making them judges in their own cases]." C.O. 194.74 (1827). The Governor's Secretary wrote to the Chamber of Commerce on March 26, 1827, concerning Irish immigration. "Last year not less than 1,050 have been brought from Ireland alone, of which not more than 650 have since left the country. As probably the greater part of the persons that have thus remained in the colony have been without the means of support, and formed a large portion of those relieved during the winter by Government and the Community, it becomes a matter of serious consideration, how the evil can be checked, and what will be the most effectual means of preventing a recurrence of it for the future. The salutary provisions of the former Passenger Act having been repealed by the late Fishery Act [5 Geo. IV, c. 5r, 1824] and the doors thus thrown open to the unlimited admission of persons within the country, it is obvious that the ease and cheapness with which the superabundant population of Ireland may be transported hither, the facility with which in the summer time they can be supported here, and above all the expectation held out to them of their being provided at the public expence with a free passage back to their own country in the winter, are strong inducements to emigration from Ireland and will, probably this year, occasion a much greater influx of inhabitants into this Island than at any former period. As the maintenance of this excessive population beyond the means of supporting them has hitherto fallen upon the Government as well as the expence of providing for their return to Europe or their transfer to the other colonies, I am desired by His Excellency to submit through you to the consideration of the Chamber of Commerce the necessity of discouraging by all means in their power such importations for the future." Having given this notice, His Excellency "shall deem it his duty to withhold all further aid," and to request the Chamber of Commerce to "inform those who are engaged in the importation of passengers from Ireland accordingly." This appeal was followed by a dispatch to Lord Goderich (who took the office of Colonial Secretary for a few months after Bathurst's long reign of fifteen years) under date of September 25, 1827: by which month, however, Huskisson had succeeded him. The Irish were shipped from Waterford under wretched conditions

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in vessles part laden with salt. Disease (typhus) was rampant among them. Conditions were worse than on the Slavers. "Until the year before last the Passenger Act applied to Newfoundland, except in the case of hired servants, when another Act was passed from the operation of which Newfoundland and the Labrador were altogether expressly excluded. . . . False representations must have been made by persons who make a trade of importing paupers in the spring as a substitute for ballast." Meanwhile, as President of the Board of Trade and before moving into the Colonial Office August 17, 1827, Huskisson had initiated revenue changes in the interest of a balanced budget, which evoked a protest not only from St. John's, but from Port de Grave, Harbour Grace and other outports. But the appeals met with no success. (C.O. 194.76.) The next communication was to Huskisson as Colonial Secretary. C.O. 194.76 (1828). Chief Justice Tucker to Huskisson, April 12, 1828: "Under an idea that some representation will probably be made to the Governor at Home by the merchants of St. John's relating to the order recently received by the Collector and Comptroller of the Custom House here to demand British money or Spanish dollars at the rate of 43. 4d. each, in payment of duty under 6 Geo. IV, c. 114, I forward the Chamber of Commerce testimonial." Memorial (aforesaid) to C. J. Tucker (acting as President in the Governor's absence), April 8, 1828: "This order is in fact a demand of an additional duty of 10%, and is contrary to 6 Geo. IV, c. 114, the I2th section of which positively states that 'such monies may be received or taken according to the proportion and value of 5/6 the ounce in silver.'" Tucker to Chamber of Commerce, April 10, 1828, replying in the negative: "The Chamber of Commerce argue that the merchant has a right to pay duties in Spanish dollars at 5/6 the ounce; by which calculation each dollar is worth 4/9, instead of 4/4, the value affixed by the order here alluded to. This does not hold good unless the Spanish dollars are composed (A fine silver, which we know they are not. The actual dollars are worth a fraction under 4/4." The above exchange of views shows that Tucker was familiar with the working of the currency. In this, as in Public Health and his own province of Juctice, he shows himself to be acute, forthright, and even-handed. He administered the Island in the Governor's

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long absence, 1827-8; and when he sailed December, 1829, for Waterford on a well earned holiday, the Chamber of Commerce, whom he had not hesitated to oppose, gave him a handsome send-off. They knew him for a Newfoundlander through and through. C.O. 194.78 (1829). A Petition of the Commercial Society of St. John's to Sir George Murray, Huskisson's successor at the Colonial Office, said: "Your Petitioners direct their Committee, the Chamber of Commerce, to consider ..." and "The Chamber of Commerce reported to them...." Also, "Your Petitioners pray you will take notice of their views and ask you to consult with Mr. G. R. Robinson, M.P. for Worcester, who has had real knowledge of the interest of the Colony." Recommendations follow concerning wages and employment of seamen and fishermen. "They beg you to sustain them, the petitioners, in the right of fishing on that part of the coast which is commony called the French shore situated between Cape John and Cape Ray in common with the French." On the crucial wages issue St. John's sought the support of Poole. Mr. Brooking sent his Report to B. Lester, Esq., of Poole; and Poole replied in a printed document, expressing general approval, but with a reservation as to the removal of the security for "current supplies." The statement is lengthy, but important. "It is a known fact that the majority of planters are dependent on the merchants: to the southward of St. John's there are comparatively few otherwise; to the northward there is probably a larger number of independent planters; but still a large majority of them could not presecute the fishery with any advantage without the aid of the merchant; they are honest and industrious, but in many instances, unable, at the expiration of the fishing season, to provide the means of subsistence for their families during the ensuing winter in any other way than by obtaining supplies from the merchant upon the credit of the next fishing season, and they apply to him with confidence, knowing that they have a legal security to offer him, the security of their forthcoming fishing voyage; under sanction of this law, they consider the merchant as their friend and banker,1 upon whom they may draw for relief in their necessity. And the instances 1 In Rencontre West (1952) I made the acquaintance of Mr. Robert Webb, a storekeeper there. His father was a Somerset man (Merriot, near Crewkerne) married to a Rowsell; and he told me how the old man made and lost a fortune in the iQ2o's, finally owing money to several firms at St. John's: "and (he added) I am sorry to say some fishermen." I carried the thought with me to Notre Dame Bay, and when I left I was quite clear that the merchants of each place are as attached to the fishermen with whom they deal as any schoolteacher to his or her pupils.

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are comparatively few in which this confidence has been abused by either part. The system of current supply is thus a bond of union between the merchant and planter securing to the latter should his necessity require it a supply of the necessaries of life, and to the former a remuneration in fish and oil, the objects of his mercantile pursuits, should he have made advances on credit: and in most cases securing to him a preference to the disposable surplus of the planter's catch in successful seasons; the abandonment of this system would be injurious to both; the effect of it would be to encourage traders from Nova Scotia and other places, who would come to the outharbours with supplies of provisions and clothing, and barter pork for oil and jackets for fish, and supply him with spirits and other articles of luxury (which the current supplier would often refuse) so long [but only so long] as the planter had oil and fish to give in exchange, for should the fishery season have been unfavourable or even partially successful, and the planter's voyages (as must necessarily in such cases happen) be inadequate to obtain the necessary supplies to support him and his family during the winter and for the ensuing spring outfit, the trader would give him no credit, and he must necessarily be exposed to painful privations through the winter, want the means of prosecuting the fishery with advantage in the ensuing spring, and gradually sink into irretrievable poverty. While the merchant, with well supplied stores, finding the collection of produce annually diminish, would narrow his establishment by degrees and eventually withdraw his capital and relinquish the trade, and leave it to pedlars and speculative adventurers, and a now valuable fishery would fall into decay." Furthermore, the proposed change would imperil the wages of planters' servants, which now have priority even over the current supplier. In this argument there is hard economic thought resting on ineluctable fact. C.O. 194.80 (1830). Representation of the Chamber of Commerce on the Disturbance of their Fisheries by the French, signed by William Thomas, President, November 29, 1830. "We should hold out for the right to fish on the French coast without disturbing the French." French commanders had been hauling up the anchors of British boats, "thereby exercising a right of sovereignty which the French Government has ceded by Treaty." The outrage was on the North-East Coast. Accordingly, in November, 1830, instructions were given to William Sweetland to proceed to this coast, and the Commercial Society, in sending him, said: "You are to tell the French commander that you are sent by the Commercial Society of St. John's to insist upon your rights. If he

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is obdurate, take evidence and protest. His Excellency is going there soon with H.M.'s ship Champion" [an appropriate name]. After he had made this protest, he was to go on to Labrador and load with green fish. Incidentally, about this time, Halifax (N.S.) was falling down on its postal job. "An authentic account of the accession of His Majesty (King William IV) was received in this town 29 days before the official account reached your Committee." Therefore, mails should be sent direct from Liverpool to St. John's, February-October, in private ships "particularly as the late changes in our intercourse with the United States will have the effect of lessening our communications with Halifax." As economic historians know, 1830 saw the end of the long standing trade friction between Great Britain and the U.S.A. over the West Indian trade: and the end also of the roundabout routing to which that friction had given rise. C.O. 194.88 (1834). Pending the arrival of Governor Prescott, November, 1834, a heavily signed Memorial, headed by Bulley, Job & Co., begged for additional schools under the School Society. And to the farewell congratulations from Wesleyans, Dorcas Ladies, Carbonear, Harbour Grace, the Church of England and the St. John's Commercial Society—fifty-six signing—praising him for securing Free Porto, for encouraging agriculture and visiting all parts of the Island, Sir Thomas Cochrane returned this gracious answer: "When I remark that your Society is composed of nearly every person of respectability concerned in trade, I ..." etc.—but it is all fully reported in the Public Ledger of the date (November 4,1834); and rather than bathe in compliments, we substitute a coy advertisement in that issue: "Oct. 28. Removal. Benjamin Bowring & Son have removed from the Premises lately occupied by them to their newly erected Stone Buildings, where they are now unpacking a very large and varied stock of manufactured goods, which they have just received and offer for sale at very reduced prices." The Commercial (or Merchants) Society was the business community in full dress, so to speak; and the Chamber of Commerce was its executive organ, with President, Vice-President, and Committees. Can the St. John's Board of Trade tell us when it took its modern name? There must have been printed Rules for the old

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Chamber of Commerce. Has any firm preserved them among its archives?1 But let me try in conclusion to evaluate its work in the years from 1776 to 1834. It was. °f course, in no sense unique. Innis, in his Codfisheries, p. 369, notes that a similar organization was very active in Halifax from 1806 onwards; and I am given to understand that this body claims to go back to 1750, the year following the foundation of Halifax itself. No one can say when St. John's was founded; for like Topsy and the British Constitution it just grew. But I think we may say that the Chamber of Commerce was in continuous and active life, at least, from 1806 onwards. Its analysis of trade structure is often brilliant: its financial acumen high. It thought not only for itself, but for the town in which it played so large a part; and not only for the town, but for the whole country, in which it constituted the only large town. It took nothing lying down. Its outlook was thus mercantile, civic and national. Public health, education, land policy, the rebuilding of the city after destruction by fire, the feeding of the population in the emergency of famine, to all these problems it addressed itself with sympathy and skill, and, one may add, with literary elegance. It won the confidence of naval governors, who assuredly were never in its pocket; and it was on the side of law and order when law was arbitrary and disorder rife. The one charge that might be brought against it is that it attended strenuously to the interests of its members, but what should we think of the Medical Association or Trade Union that did not do the same? When I began the perusal of these Colonial Office Records, I had no notion of the mercantile feast which awaited me. Nature abhors a vacuum. The Society of Merchants, Chamber of Commerce, Board of Trade—call it what you will—filled a vacuum and gave an irresistible impetus to the demand for Representative Government. It is no slur on the memory of Carson to say that it did many things which he and his friends could not have done and which were as well worth doing as anything which he or they did. In fine, it was the voice of Commerce at its best. 1

In reply to this question Mr. H. T. Renouf writes, October 14, 1953: "Some records of the St. John's Chamber of Commerce have recently been deposited at the Gosling Memorial Library. These records have not been examined closely but appear to cover the period of the Chamber's activities from 1846 to 1900. The Newfoundland Board of Trade, which is the successor of the St. John's Chamber of Commerce, was incorporated by a special Act of the Legislature in 1909. The record of the Newfoundland Board's activities from that date to the present day are held in the Board of Trade offices."

CHAPTER TEN

ORDEAL BY FIRE Prometheus stole fire from Olympus, and Zeus enthroned on Signal Hill, took a manifold vengeance; until at last on December 12, 1901, Poldhu waved to Avalon, and godhead itself was banished to the woods; whence it breaks out ever and anon, fitful, fierce, and, till the rain comes, very bad to beat. (Incidentally Mr. Maxse Whiteway's two brothers were with Marconi on Signal Hill when the message was received.) St. John.'s has two claims to distinction: it is the oldest town in North America and it has been burnt more often than any capital city in the world. The great fires figure in the official documents descriptively and in relation to consequential relief. But fortunately there is material even closer to the fire phenomenon in certain Letter Books of the Phoenix Fire Office, King William Street, London, England. For this office carried substantially the whole in 1816-19: more than half in 1846: and more than any other office at home or overseas in 1892: of the fire insurance on buildings and property in St. John's, Newfoundland. We have in letter form the detailed reports of two distinguished servants: Mr. Jenkin Jones for 1806-9, and Mr. J. J. Bromfield for 1845-6; and on these and other material in the Company's House History I have been privileged to draw. If the Phoenix and Colonial Office documents are combined, the story falls naturally into four parts. I The Origin of Fire Insurance in general, and in particular in St. John's. II Fires, fire prevention and fire relief in St. John's. III The Fire of 1846 in detail. IV Postscript on the Fire of 1892. I Timbered London, like the remnant still visible in Holborn opposite the end of Gray's Inn Road, was burnt out in 1666; and a generation later, when joint-stock money was seeking new fields of employment, it occurred to one, Charles Povey, to open an office for the insurance of goods and merchandize against loss by fire—hence the Sun Fire 163

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

Office of 1709. But the disfavour into which the Bubble Mania brought the company promoter, discouraged the joint-stock form, and it was over half a century before there were any imitators. At length, however, in 1782 a "New Fire Company," taking eventually the name of Phoenix Fire, was formed; to be joined by its younger brother, Pelican Life, for life insurance, about 1800. The foundation meeting of the new fire company was held in a London coffee house November 20, 1781, when, with Nathaniel Jarman in the chair, it was "Resolved that a plan should be formed for an interinsurance company among the sugar-refiners." The deed of settlement was dated January 17,1782. At law it was a private partnership with unlimited liability. In 1813 it got its special Act of Parliament (as did other Insurance Companies of the period): and eventually in 1895 obtained its modern status in the Phoenix Assurance Company's Act. Among sugar refiners a man's standing was measured by the number of vacuum pans he possessed. There were some 300 in London, and of these Jarman had ten. It would seem that the sugar bakers, being dissatisfied with existing rates at Lloyd's or elsewhere, determined to insure among themselves. But their company very quickly shed the limitations of a "mutual." It went after business abroad as well as in London, prompted by the fundamental law of insurance, the multiplication of separate risks; and in fire insurance especially it is on the multiplicity and separateness of the hazards undertaken that a company's stability and profits depend. Bridgeheading the ports of Western Europe, it promptly opened offices in France, Germany and the Peninsula—Nantes and Havre de Grace, 1786: Hamburg, 1786: Lisbon, 1787 (where it looked after Sandeman's Port). Then pushing out against the westerlies it reached the American mainland: opened in New York the first British office on that Continent on June 6, 1804: to which place it sent policy forms and 2,000 quills for the 'writing of insurance. From New York, it pushed north up to Montreal, Quebec, Halifax, and St. John's, Newfoundland. In St. John's it opened an agency on May 6, 1805, in the name of Hart & Co., starting it off with 500 policies, numbered 257,000 to 257,499. Similarly it pushed south to the Cotton States and into the Caribbean. Being in origin a group of London sugar-refiners, its interest in the sugar-producing West Indies was natural and close; and so its first two heavy fire loss years were 1794 (Ratcliffe, Thames-side—£50,000): and 1807 (St. Thomas, a West

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Indian island—£200,000). But 1794 was the only time it ever made a call on its shareholders. On all later occasions the company's growing resources stood the strain. The course was now set for the circumnavigation of the world. Picking up the trade winds near the Equator, the barque of insurance followed them down to the Cape of Good Hope; and thence to Mauritius: Calcutta: Australia and New Zealand: China and Japan: reaching finally the Pacific coast of North America. In all these places Phoenix opened offices and did continuous business. What it and other offices did for England was to create a great new invisible export, based on knowledge, discrimination and good faith. Never, one is often told, was British prestige so high in the U.S.A. as in the weeks after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, when the British companies paid up on the nail and to the hilt—it cost Phoenix £624,000. But whereas in 1846, with losses of £114,000 odd, payments exceeded premiums on the year, in 1906 the much heavier payments were less than the premiums from all sources owing to expansion in the interim. By devices of underwriting and re-insurance, the loss ratio is nowadays smoothed out. This world business did not fall into its lap. It had to go after it, to contact its customers, evaluate its risks, and be prepared for the transfer of large sums on occasion. It was business based on knowledge garnered from every continent: and for the launching and supervision of its overseas operations Phoenix had the good fortune to secure three men of outstanding ability—Jenkin Jones (whose bust is in Head Office, King William Street, London): Thomas Richter: and J. J. Broomfield. Jenkin Jones was the Company's Secretary for thirty years (1805 on): he trained Thomas Richter: and Thomas Richter trained J. J. Broomfield. Broomfield visited and revisited the territory opened up by Jenkin Jones, and that is why in the Archives of the Company the letters of the two are grouped together under the senior's name. Jenkin Jones's letters, as they relate to St. John's, are for the year 1808-9—some seven years before the first general conflagration in that city. Both sets of letters exhibit the cool judgment which was only possible because St. John's was just one among the many hazards to be classed. Making the round of North America with Jenkin Jones, one feels like saying that his mental horizon consisted of a Paradise of brick and stone and an Inferno of timber and shingle: with the possibility always of mitigating the infernal element by suitable methods of prevention. Let us go with him on his rounds in 1809. L

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Halifax (Nova Scotia). "7 or 8 American offices here; and besides the Phoenix, another British office, the Alliance. Fires only local, regular corps of firemen, with good supply of fire engines. Every householder in a company. On hearing the alarm, he goes to his station with a bucket and a fire-bag, to squirt water and bring away property. In addition the prompt services of the Military can be relied on." This was what could be done with a town of timber and shingle. New York was an excellent fire risk: ditto Montreal: not so the West Indies (where incendiarism was rampant among discontented blacks): or Quebec: or St. John's. New York. "Fire insurance in this place is totally different from the same practice in the West Indies: no possibility of those sweeping losses which have been so fatally experienced in some of the Company's dependencies. The heaviest risks are upon merchandise in stores, of a construction certainly more secure than the warehouses of London, and the general security of the town does not appear to be much inferior." Montreal. "An old-fashioned French city ill laid out, but the houses almost all of solid masonry and the only important risk is from a certain proportion of them being covered with boards. The greater number of fire-proof buildings, every third house being of that construction, certainly prevents every danger of a fire spreading to any extent. I cannot imagine it possible for more than 3 or 4 houses to be destroyed by one accident. They do not employ tiles or stones, which are thought not to suit the climate as well as tin or sheet iron. The number of houses, churches and convents covered with tin and protected by heavy iron shutters and iron doors gives the town a most gloomy appearance, but confers full security against those dangerous fires which were anciently experienced in Montreal." Quebec. "Of Quebec I can by no means report in the same favorable manner, and we must have acted some time since on a strange error in charging it at lower premiums than Montreal. . . . The lower town is a most hazardous body of property—streets narrow, houses crowded, wharfs filled with staves. St. Peter St. is the Wapping of Quebec. . . . In a high wind the brands from the upper town would blow on the lower." He has therefore recommended the agent to decline all new policies and renew no old ones in the Lower Town. But St. John's was his chief concern in 1809. For the Phoenix was "the onlie begetter" of fire insurance in this island capital, more

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inflammable than the London of Samuel Pepys. And so Jenkin Jones writes to Matthew Wilson, Esq., from St. John's, Newfoundland, June 6, 1809: "By a vessel on the eve of departure I informed Mr. Richter of my arrival here. Altho' I felt some reluctance to the voyage so early in the season, I am now extremely pleased that it has been undertaken; the result of it will strongly confirm the utility of leaving nothing unseen. Mr. Eastcliffe of the Engineers executed a short time since a very complete plan of the town now in possession of the Office, and a few general observations upon it with a description of the amount and locality of our present risk will enable you to regulate our business here with greater accuracy. No material alteration has lately taken place except that some new buildings of the usual construction have been put up, and certainly without any amelioration of the general security. The body of the town is comprized in the Lower St., which is from one extreme of the Harbour to the other, not much less than i mile and | long. This street, as you will see, is formed on one side by the stores and buildings on the wharfs, on the other by rows of buildings used for retail shops. Altho' called a Street, it is in fact only a crooked and narrow alley, in some places contracted to 6 feet wide, in others expanding to as much as 12 or 18 feet. This street runs nearly in the direction of the prevailing winds, and is a funnel through which they blow occasionally with great violence. The buildings are uniformly, thro'out the town, of wood and have the roofs covered in with shingles. There is not a private building of a different description in the whole town. St. John's has of late years rapidly increased in population and buildings, and the properties on the water-side have become of great value. In proportion with these causes, the buildings upon them have become more numerous, and indeed a more crowded range of wharfage and stores I have yet seen in no places. Even the narrow coves reserved by Govt. for boats have been encroached upon, and every year adds to the list. I have enclosed a list of the water-side properties in the order they occur in going down the harbour and have arranged in the same paper the existing insurances in their relative places as well as I was able. The List follows:— LIST of the WHARF PROPERTIES (and situations and sums insured with Phoenix) in ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND, Town side of the Harbour, beginning at the Inner End. Name. Situation. Remark. Sum. £ Radford .. .. — — — John Duniom .. — 5,000 This is a—very good Willm. Newman .. — risk but must have expired.

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Name.

Situation.

Upper Wharf Miller & Fergus Pye Corner John Widdecombe Nevins Sparks Plantation Stuart & Rennie Hunt, Stabb, Preston &Co. Upper Wharf Parker & Knight Codner —. Thomas Williams Church Hutton .. . . Noble's Plantation Hill — — Costello & Sims Kough Lower Wharf Miller Fergus & Co.

Daniel Marrett Stout & Hair

Cowell's Plantation —

Milledge P. Lemesurier Elmes Geo. Elliott Parker & Knight

t Flood's Wharf

5,000 5,000 2,000

— —

—

.—

850

Hart Eppes & Co. Jas. McBraire & C Bower, occupied by Parsons & Co. The King's Wharf creates some Interval . . N. & I. Gil

°PP°site Murphy & Co. Name of Meagher. Remainder elsewhere. —

200

—

— 1,500 6,225 :i,ooo \ 1,000

• Lower Wharf

1,000 1,000

900

—

Remainder elsewhere. This is

10,000

— 300

— _

— From private information. —

1,500 3,000

3,000 600

Crawford & Co.

—

2,000

—

Hunter & Co.

Remark.

£ 400

I'OOG 500 500 350

Murphy & Gleason Walter Baine & Co Patrick Redmond Cunningham Bell & Co. Patrick Ryan Murphy & Gleason

Sum.

2,000 2,200 400 200 i, 860 4-515

— have a These parties Brewery but I presume this policy is for the wharf. — In Lower St. opp. this Wharf —all Meagher's property. — their This is opp. Wharf. do. "Merchants' Hall" on Wharf. On the Wharf. Keen's Insce. is I believe here. Parker, the "Royal Oak" —opp. Hunter's Wharf.

1,000

—

—

—

.—

—

—

—

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Name. An Interval of some Extent Dunscombe & Co. formerly Brian .. Manley .. ..

Situation.

— Striplings Plantation — — — — —

Sum.

Remark.

— 500

— —

£

Winters .. .. — — Follett Hayles & Co. — — Squarry .. .. — — Warren .. .. — — John Roach . . .. — John Bowden . .\ 200 — Robt. Bowden .. / — Wythicombe & Babb — — — Kemps .. .. — — .—. Thos. Rendles .. — — — Wilcocks .. .. — — [Note that: 1. The insurances total ^69,200: and probably represent the great bulk of the insurance carried by Phoenix in St. John's. 2. Where there are blanks, the property is not known to have been insured. 3. We are not told whether in 1809 any other company, British or American, was doing business in St. John's and we cannot of course learn from this letter what the fires of 1816-19 were to cost the Company.]

Insurances on the land or northernmost side of the Lower St. are included and located to the wharfs to which they are opposite. By this means and a reference to the plan you will readily comprehend our present situation. As no blocks of massive brick buildings occur thro'out the whole line of the street, the only chance of stopping a large conflagration (for it is to such an event and not to trivial accidents that we have to look) would consist in some open space effectual to that purpose. But in examining the street from the wharf called the King's Wharf all the way till you come to Parker & Knight's Upper Wharf, I am quite sure that no person could calculate with any precision on any point at which the flames might be suppressed. That whole space is so closely built up, the property accumulated about it is of such a quality, as—Rum, Pitch, Staves, etc.—that the havoc might be dreadful if a fire should ever unfortunately get to a great head. It is not indeed presumable that no effectual rally could be made in some part of so extended a line, but it is certainly impossible to designate the exact spot where it could be undertaken with effect—this would depend on circumstances: the direction of the wind, the promptness and judgment with which buildings could be pulled down, etc. There still must remain the hazard which attends a shingled town of experiencing a fire in different parts at the same time and finding the flames spread by the roofs, while the lateral extension of the fire might have been prevented. As far therefore as construction and contiguity of buildings constitute the fire risk, it is impossible not to consider the mercantile part of St. John's as one of the most hazardous and formidable of its kind.

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In speaking thus generally, however, a distinction of risk is yet discernible in the two wings of the line of wharfage. From the King's Wharf the buildings eastward are not so numerous and are detached from one another, and the same remark may be applied to the buildings westward of Codner's. Equity requires a distinction of premiums in the two extremities of the line, and those situated more central, as it is probable that a fire would not extend very wide in either of these situations. In reference to the Insurances, of which a list was sent out to me, I have to remark that the highest premium has been indiscriminately applied, (a) is an independent risk and appears to have been charged extravagantly high; (b), (c), (d) are all risks of a better kind, and might, I consider, be safely undertaken at 42/-. There is an omission in the list of an insurance of £5,000 for Hunt Stabb & Co. which ought to be insured at the same premium. After Parker Knight & Co.'s premises, called the Upper Wharf, the buildings begin to thicken, and are in general fronted by other buildings on the opposite side of the St. I can suggest no discrimination of premium for any risks in the long range extending from thence till below the King's Wharf. You will see that our Risk here grows accumulated, and I can by no means commend taking large sums, nor more than the present aggregate in the whole district. Cunningham & Co.'s premises, tho' new built and respectable in themselves, are in the heart of the town, and £10,000 is too much on so small a surface. Milledge (29,004) has rather, I think, more insured than I have stated: the situation is one of the worst. The plan of the town will illustrate the narrowness of the St. all about this part, and you will see that a very large sum is accumulated between Parker Knight's Lower Wharf and McBraire's premises, and tho' the distance is considerable, and in some parts of the line there are no buildings on one side of the St., yet the aggregate is at least £18,000, a sum in my judgment too large by much. After McBraire's the buildings, as I mentioned before, are more divided, and a premium of 42/- might be charged in the other extremity of the town. Having made these remarks upon the Lower St. I have only now to say that the rest of the town is not attended with any peculiar risk. The ground ascends from the water; and is pretty steep; so that in the Upper St. you are nearly on a level with the roofs of the buildings below. In one or two spots a few houses adjoin, but in general the risks are very detached—the plan will explain them as well as can be done by description. In many parts the houses are in the strictest sense independent risks and I conceive in such instances there is neither policy nor justice in charging more than 2i/-. There is, I am told, an insurance of Mr. Houstoun's for about £700, which ought to be reduced to that premium. It will otherwise be discontinued. There are 3 fire engines provided in the town, with Fire Companies attached, exclusive of those belonging to the ordnance. They appear to be kept in good order, and in case of accidents very laudable exertions have always been made to render every assistance. The

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place, however, is under very little regulation as to measures of safety, which are only beginning to be adopted: but the only one which could importantly ameliorate the quality of the risks would be a compulsion to build with stone and brick, and this, tho' practicable at very little difference of expence, is not likely to be adopted from the singular ideas upon which the lands have been planted. The premium of &3/- which has been latterly charged here nearly indiscriminately, has occasioned much complaint and will of itself operate a considerable reduction of risk. After the description I have lately given of the body of the town, it cannot be supposed that I could conscientiously recommend any considerable reduction of the premiums for risks in it. I may venture to mark, however, that while the premium is the same here as in the West Indian towns, the buildings are covered for six months in winter with a deep snow, the dependence for assistance is not on negroes, nor are the white people so debilitated as to be unable to exert themselves. On the contrary, sailors and seafaring people are the bulk of its population, and in case of fire, it may be safely calculated that exertion will be greater as well as more judiciously directed. I have offered these remarks because I find many of our most respectable customers on the list have desired their insurances to be discontinued on account of the rates. I have subjoined a memorandum, shewing the cases which I understand are in this predicament. It is hardly necessary for me to say anything respecting the S. side of the harbour, as we have nothing insured there. It is principally used as fishing flakes and the few stores which have been erected are well detached from each other. In point of rates it should be considered on the same footing as the outports. It was my intention to have called your attention to the subject of the Average Clause, which from what I have lately understood seems to be inserted in most of the foreign policies now issued. This regulation is most strongly objected to, and I really think with good reason where such high premiums are charged. But what seems the more serious evil attending it is, that, being an innovation in the practice, it is known but to few; whilst those who are aware of it, have usually remonstrated and obtained its expulsion. (This was particularly the case with Messrs. Cohen's of Jamaica, and some others, and would, in the event of losses, if enforced in some cases and relaxed in others, prove extremely injurious to the character of the Office.) It would lead me too far to enter at large into this subject, which has been frequently the pretence for animadversion, but I really think it demands reconsideration. Upon my return to England I trust I shall be able to persuade you to adopt some modification. I find a small loss has occurred here upon Policy 299071, Smith. The claim is, I understand, for £100—the case is a very fair one and the building destroyed was of considerably greater value. My next stop is intended for Halifax on my way home, but at present no vessel offers. Jenkin Jones.

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P.S.—The fishermen, or establishments for curing, whether on the Coast or in the Outports do not appear very hazardous, and are almost always single risks. 31/6 seems a full rate and is not likely to be objected to. In no event can I conceive it necessary to reduce the &3/- premium for the centre of St. John's below 5o/-." A few days after the dispatch of this letter of June 6, 1809, there appeared in the St. John's press of June 15 a notice by the Phoenix Fire Office:— "Recent advances will only apply to that part of St. John's where the buildings are most crowded, e.g., Lower St. Elsewhere and in Out Harbours premiums to 2 guineas, viz.: isolated buildings and contents i g., buildings, where few, ij gs., buildings where numerous but well detached 2 gs. Out Harbours ij to 2 gs." At the outset of the Company's life foreign business was conducted by means of foreign acceptances at Head Office. Then began the practice of having agents abroad or sending out the policies direct from England. The modern set up is—for Empire countries branch establishments of the parent concern, and for foreign business the formation or acquisition of subsidiary companies. In St. John's the agency established in 1805 was shortlived: it was renewed permanently in October, 1849, m tne name of William Rendell and George T. Rendell, trading as John Rendell & Co. But while men like Jenkin Jones and Broomfield were on the road, St. John's lost nothing through policies coming out direct from Head Office or through a Mainland agency. A year before the fire of 1846, and with no foreknowledge of the disasters ahead, J. J. Broomfield, before visiting Harbour Grace, wrote from St. John's (October 25, 1845): "Mr. Brooking introduced me yesterday, at the Commercial Rooms, to the Resident Merchants, who expressed their satisfaction at my arrival, and stated that they had long wished that some person from the Office should inspect the town, for they were assured that the Board entertained an erroneous opinion of the general risk of St. John's, making no allowance for the great improvements that have been effective in the last 10 years by widening the streets, and on the removal of old timber buildings, supplying their place with houses of brick and stone construction. I reminded them that in all cases where stone stores with slate roofs had been erected, a reduction of 50% in the premium had already been made, and from the mass of timber and shingle still surrounding many of the stone buildings, it was a question whether the latter really formed a separate risk to be entitled to so great a reduction. The general impression, however, is that the Phoenix rates both classes too high, and this opinion is grounded on the fact that the American Coys, are willing to undertake

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the same risks at about $ of the premiums and also from the circumstance of the rare occurrence of fires of late years. Altho' I have not had sufficient time to collect any particulars applicable to the individual, yet I may remark generally, that St. John's, Nfld is the worst built town that I have seen since I left England—the streets are all of a very irregular width, especially Water St., which is in one part 60 feet, in another 40 feet wide. This is owing to the operation of the recent Act of the Legislature, which provides that in every case, upon the expiration of a lease, the building shall be pulled down and not allowed to be re-erected at a nearer approach to its opposite neighbours by 60 feet, so that in process of time, when the leases of all the wooden buildings shall have fallen in, a clear open space of 60 feet will be secured thro'out the whole line of Water St., and as the same Act requires that all the buildings facing the street shall be of brick or stone construction and slated, a very great improvement will be thereby created. Gas pipes are being laid down in Water St. and supplied from a Gasometer erected at the western extremity of the town by River Side—the works are already in operation—several of the street lights are in use and it is intended to be introduced into the shops and retail stores generally thro'out the town. A meeting of the merchants was held on Wed. last (zist inst.) preparatory to the formation of a Coy. for the purpose of supplying the town with water, which can be obtained from 2 sources, viz., St. George's Road on Signal Hill or the main river at the other end of the town, both of a sufficient elevation to secure an abundant supply to Water St., Duckworth St. and Gower St. The expence is estimated at c. ^6,000. The project seems pretty certain of being carried into effect, and the merchants adduce this as another ground for the reduction of premiums. A Company is also being formed for extinguishing fires—the firemen are to be exempt from taxes and in addition to be paid for their services on each occasion of their being called out. They will require 4 new engines, and it is their intention to memorialize the Board of Directors for the expence of the other two. I told them it was not the practice of the Phoenix Co. to provide engines in every place where they might happen to have insurances. The merchants, however, referred to the circumstances of a gift of a former engine, which is now worn out, and they conclude that the Coy. will not refuse to assist them on this occasion, when it will be shown that the inhabitants themselves are incurring a considerable expence for the attainment of an object that will have the effect of protecting the Coy's interests. I have not, however, given them any hope their application will be attended with success. I expect to return home by the next packet. J. J. Broomfield." Only a month before the fire of 1846, Lawrence O'Brien, taking the chair at a meeting of Fire Insurance Wardens and Fire Companies, thanked the Directors of Phoenix for their gift of two

174

LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

engines (January 7, 1846)—"to be dispatched with all possible expedition." Hence Broomfield to O'Brien: Phoenix Office, London, June 18, 1846: enclosing a bill of lading for two engines, to be shipped ex London in a few days' time:— "The engines were completely finished and ready for shipment on the yth Apl. last, and we have, from that time to the present, been anxiously watching for the opportunity of a vessel sailing from London belonging to one or other of the merchants of St. John's, to forward them by, but without success: and as we have been informed it is quite uncertain when any ship of the kind might offer, we deemed it advisable (rather than detain the engines an indefinite time longer) to send them by the John &• Mary, on freight we endorsed on the Bill of Lading; the expence of which we presume the Fire Wardens will not object to pay, as it was understood at the time of your application to the Board, that the conveyance of the Engines to St. John's should be provided for by your merchants. The engines having been constructed in the best possible manner, without limitation as to the cost, I trust on arrival they will prove to be effective in all points, and meet with the approval of the Wardens and Captains of the Fire Coys, of St. John's. I may add we have effected an insurance of the voyage, so that in the event of the vessel being lost the engines may be replaced. J. J. Broomfield." The engines thus would only arrive towards the end of July, i.e., some six weeks after the city had gone up in flames. At any rate the new fire engines must have escaped, to spray again another day, provided that there was water to spray with, as there was not in 1892. II

In Part II we lean on the Colonial Office documents. C.O. 194.50 (1811). Downing Street to Governor Duckworth, June, 1811. "It appears proper that you should comply with the application of the Inhabitants, who have formed themselves into a Society for the Prevention of Fire, and in addition to the amount of fines which have been or may be levied on a neglect of their Regulations, you may pay into the hands of the Treasurer and the Society for promotion of the objects for which it was established the whole part or such part of the balance of 96 : 6 : 6 : now remaining in your hands, arising from the rents of lands leased at Newfoundland, as you may judge expedient."

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C.O. 194.54 (1813). Governor Keats to Downing Street. From Fort Townshend, St. John's, September 23, 1813: has to report: "that the Govt. Records and Papers, which are every day becoming of more importance to the Public and Individuals, have hitherto been kept in a very loose and insecure manner, either in the Secretary's Office or the Court House, according as the Governor has been resident or absent—exposed to fire (by which those anterior to 1749 were destroyed)1 and much too open to any attempt which the dishonest might form, and from which they have not at all times been exempt, and the loss of any of these papers would be attended with inconvenience, and their destruction by fire would prove highly injurious and embarrassing to Govt. [as Hugh Palliser had noted 50 years before], and would involve the property and affairs of numerous individuals in great difficulties. I would propose a small Record Office being erected in an appropriate situation in the Govt. House, to be made secure from fire; an estimate of the expense of which I transmit for your Lordship's consideration, viz., £220." •—say $600: a staggering outlay for a Record Office, more than the cost of a good seat on the Coronation route! C.O. 194.57 (1816). Calamitous Event: the Destruction of a considerable part of the Town of St. John's by Fire on the I2th of February, 1816. Keats was Governor and at the time in England. Keats to Bathurst: London, April 6, 1816. "In the distress arising from so large a portion of the inhabitants at the most inclement season being deprived of their residences and great part of their property, a Private Subscription has been opened among the inhabitants, which at the date of Mr. Coote's letter amounted to upwards of ^2,000, to which the magistrates, after contributing liberally, have, under a consideration of the pressing necessity of the occasion, also contributed a sum of £200 from the District Fund." John Coote, Colonial Secretary in the Colony, to the Governor: Feb. 18, 1816. "Fire broke out at the house of a person by the name of Walsh lately erected on that part of the town formerly known by the name of King's Beach. It appears that the fire, first beginning Cf. D. W. Prowse, History of Newfoundland, p. 314. "Under the governorship of Lord Rodney, 1749, begins a series of records preserved in the Colonial Secretary's office. Through the courtesy of the Hon. Robert Bond I have been allowed to peruse them; they make reference to other record books, which are either mislaid or were removed to England, or destroyed in the French invasion." 1

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in the upper part of the house, was not discovered until it burst thro' the roof—which was about 8 p.m., Monday I2th, when it was immediately communicated to the houses adjoining and burnt with so much fury as in a short time to convey its destructive influence to every part of the buildings on the West side of King's Beach as far as the Custom House (which, however, has been fortunately preserved). The whole of Gambier St., Holloway St., a great part of Duckworth St. and the north side of Water St., as far as the Cove adjoining the premises occupied by Messrs. Hunter & Co. are totally destroyed. Fortunately none of the Houses or Stores on the South side of Water St. has been materially injured, with the exception of Mr. Macbraire's, whose house, after being for a considerable time on fire, appears to have been most miraculously saved but not without having sustained considerable damage. So excessively violent and so extensive was the rapidity of the flames, spreading in a variety of different directions, as to render the utmost exertions to arrest its progress for a long time of little or no avail. Had the flames communicated to the Stores on the S. side of Water St., in all probability the greatest part of the town would have been destroyed: in which case our situation must have been truly deplorable. As it is, about 120 families have at this inclement season become exposed to all the miseries of distress and want; a few of whom may perhaps be so happily situated as to be provided with the means of providing for their future subsistence, but by far the greater part of these who have become sufferers on this melancholy occasion, are reduced from a state of apparent comfort and competence to absolute ruin and poverty. To alleviate the sufferings of whom a very liberal subscription has been opened, and between 2 and 3,000^ already raised for this charitable purpose, which, however, will be very inadequate to the relief of so large a portion of the Society for any length of time—the number of individuals who are immediately dependent on the charitable fund being, as I understand, about 1,000 men, women and children. It appears that about 120 houses have been totally destroyed, a great many others materially injured, and the actual loss sustained is estimated at considerably more than ^100,000. Among the number of houses totally destroyed are the two printing houses in Duckworth St., the entire range of Mr. Crawford's new buildings, and the newly erected Methodist Chapel. The Custom House was on fire for some time, but happily extinguished without much damage. Amidst this awful scene of confusion so unavoidable on such occasions, it is a melancholy fact, that too many of the populace were more intent upon plundering the unfortunate sufferers than in affording them aid and assistance for the preservation of property, or the extinction of the flames. Some of whom have since been already convicted and publicly punished for offences of this description. Still, however, property to a very considerable extent, which is known to have been rescued from the flames, is kept in concealment from the suffering owners by these unfeeling wretches."

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CO. 194.5 (1817). November 7, 1817. St. John's again badly damaged by fire, this time on Lower side of Water Street. Stores burnt out. Losses c. £500,000, including many foodstuffs. An excellent map shows the limits of the 1816 and 1817 fires respectively. The fire of November 7,1817, ran from Government Wharf to the King's Wharf; and it was succeeded by another and smaller fire on November 21, west of Government Wharf, where the fire of November 7 was halted. C.O. 194.61 (1818). R. W. Newman, M.P., of Sandridge, Devon, to Under-Secretary Goulburn, May 30, 1818: urges the rebuilding of St. John's property promptly. For "after October the climate will put a stop to operations. I am told there is a very good plan at the Phoenix Fire Office, which may assist you, if you should require to see a map of the place." do. Aug. 28, 1818. Fire broke out near Ordnance Yard, St. John's, but was kept in hand, after causing some damage. It originated in a private house "through gross negligence." The Army and Navy helped to extinguish it. do. December, 1818. Draft of bill for widening streets of St. John's and other measures of fire prevention. Compensation to be awarded to owners for ground taken. C.O. 194.62 (1819). July 19, 1819. Part of town again destroyed by fire, but no loss of life. Wanted—a law for compulsory fire-breaks. (On December 15, 1817, Jenkin Jones of Phoenix-Fire had written to the St. John's press a letter on rebuilding and fire prevention: the city could not afford to build of stone only: firebreaks should be compulsory—letter in C.O. 194.60.) B.T. [Board of Trade] 1.189 (l823). Activities of Governor Pickmore (1816-18) put on record:—£4,000 paid out to sufferers from the 1816 fire: freight and victualling provided for certain parties of recently arrived emigrants in distress, of which 974 Irish, 27 English: c. 1,000 persons in all. C.O. 194.69 (1824). The Treasury reminds the Governor that post-fire relief "is not to be granted on the principle of indemnification for loss sustained, but

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only to afford temporary relief to those persons who may be deprived of the means of subsistence by this calamity—total not to exceed £10,000." Huskisson in 1824 was at the Board of Trade. He was also a director of Sun Fire and he would be aufait with fire losses affecting the London insurance market. C.O. 194.74 (1827). In a pamphlet on Education, Patrick Morris, the veteran reformer, compliments Sir Charles Hamilton on being the first Resident Governor, and pays a tribute to "Mr. Huskisson, who has frequently and particularly on a late occasion, acknowledged the value of the trade and fisheries of Newfoundland." In his argument he submits that the absence of a local legislature was one of the factors responsible for the fires of 1816-17. The Act for rebuilding the town arrived only in 1820, when it had been largely rebuilt. The country needed a local legislature, the same as Canada and the Maritimes. "We are now of sufficient age to take care of our private affairs." C.O. 194.82 (1831). A Committee of the Inhabitants of St. John's ask for "free grant of a market site cleared by the recent fire." C. J. Tucker was not prepared to make a free grant without the approval of Downing Street. There were years of wide-spread, and years of medium-spread fires. 1831 was one of the latter, and so was 1833. On July 7, 1833, the premises of B. Bowring & Sons were completely destroyed by fire, which started on the premises of J. B. Thompson, 3 doors away. "I fear (writes Ben Bowring) that the insurance I have made will by no means cover my loss within 12 or 14 hundred pounds. In all, 50 houses valued at £80,000, were burnt out . . . . This time we hope to build with stone on or near the place where last we lived. . . ." In 1834 he was back in Liverpool, to which he had now retired, but the fire risks at St. John's were ever in his thoughts: "I think we should be tolerably secure even if a fire should happen on the other side of the street or above us or below us. I should not speculate in Board Lumber to fill up the yard—Boards would very likely conceal the source of a fire. Fire is with me, under the present

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circumstances, of the very first importance: do not go to bed yourselves without seeing every fire and candle safe."1

Harbour Grace in Conception Bay aspired to be a second St. John's and it paid the penalty of urban ambition, when by a fire of August 21, 1832, it was reduced to a heap of ruins—over 600 homeless, property destroyed, £100,000, but no lives lost. Three years later fate was kinder. For when Harbour Grace and Carbonear contended for the coveted status of Free Port, Harbour Grace beat Carbonear to it. The Treasury decided between the two in a ruling of October, 1835; and the recent rebuilding of Harbour Grace no doubt influenced the preference. Ten years later the visiting inspector of Phoenix Fire Office, November, 1845, reported: "Harbour Grace, a flourishing port, appears to be the most favourably situated for insurance of any town I have seen in Nfld—the houses being generally detached or not more than 4 or 5 in a range—in most cases free from the risks of buildings in front, by having a clear open space to the Harbour, and at the back there are no other buildings than the out-offices belonging to the house. Carbonear contains about 5,000 inhabitants. The streets are narrow and the houses, which are ill-built, are crowded together, most of them in a dilapidated state, some altogether closed, and business thro'out the town seems to be at a low ebb. There are only two brick buildings in the town, the rest all timber and shingled. There is one fire engine belonging to the town, but it is never exercised, as there are no firemen to perform the duty. The only parties, I believe, who insure with the Phoenix are Messrs. Fryer, Gosse & Pack."

One last C.O. document, to remind of the constant interest taken by the merchants of St. John's in the fire hazard. C.O. 194.91 (1835)Chamber of Commerce to Governor Prescott, September 30, 1835. Regrets the proposed removal of the Military to Signal Hill. Their services in putting out fires are badly needed. In their old position at Fort Townshend,2 commanding the town [situated between Memorial College and the Roman Catholic Cathedral], the military were the first to raise the alarm. If the move takes place, the road from Signal Hill should be put under the care of the Royal Engineers. 1

2

A. C. Wardle, Benjamin Bowring and his Descendants, p. 51, et. seq.

Began 1773, finished 1779. Between 1780 and 1829 the Governors resided here,

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THE GREAT FIRE OF THE QTH OF JUNE, 1846. July 23, 1846. J. J. Broomfield to Thos. Richter, Esq., from St. John's, Newfoundland.1 "I reached this port on the 2oth instant and immediately on my arrival inspected the burnt out district, which combines almost the whole of the town. The work of destruction has been complete—not a vestige of any of the timber buildings in the locality is to be seen and the once substantial stone buildings having iron doors and shutters present only the appearance of crumbling shattered ruins, rent from top to bottom, with the solid iron shutters still hanging to many of the windows warped and twisted in all directions. I am told that in less than an hour after the breaking out of the fire, the houses on both sides of Duckworth St. and Water St., together with all the buildings in the intermediate space were wrapped in one vast sheet of flame, which the fury of the wind (blowing with a gale at the time) drove before it with such frightful rapidity that the engines that were brought to the fire could not appear near enough to throw a single drop of water on the burning mass—and as the fire proceeded, the men who should have assisted to extinguish it, hastened to their own homes to endeavour to save the little property they possessed. Thus the fire was left with scarcely any check until it had cleared away every building in its course to the extreme eastern end of the harbour. At one time great fears were entertained for the safety of the stores on the S. side, they were several times on fire from the ignited shingle blowing over the harbour, but, having men stationed on the roofs, they were fortunately preserved. There is scarcely a firm in the town but what suffers severely, more especially those who had stone buildings, in which they trusted their goods would not be consumed, and not only did not take the precaution of removing their own property, but actually allowed other persons to deposit their furniture in the buildings, until they were quite full, so that when the fire reached the premises not a single article could be saved. The demolition of the wharfs alone, which are burnt to the water's edge (mostly uninsured) entails a loss of upwards of £70,000. Comparatively few of the buildings are insured, and that only for about a moiety of their value. The calamity is great, but the merchants all appear in good spirits and have already begun erecting temporary buildings of wood to house the fish. The subject of re-erecting Duckworth St. and Water St. of a parallel width thro'out of 50 feet and 60 feet respectively, to 1 Cf. the account in Prowse, pp. 457—461. The fire was started in George Street, off Queen Street, at the shop of Hamlin, the cabinet maker, by the overboiling of a glue-pot.

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contain stone or brick buildings only, with slated roofs, is being warmly discussed by the Representatives in the House of Assembly, but in the meantime wooden erections are starting up in every direction, and will, I have little doubt, soon cover the whole town. It is said they must be permitted to shelter the people until the stone houses are built, when the timber buildings are to be gradually removed, and it is calculated that a period of 2 years must elapse before the town can be reconstructed with stone. Commissioners have been appointed to consider the value of the property destroyed in the town and the amount of insurance affected, with other particulars which I hope to send as soon as they complete their report. I have commenced adjusting some of the claims and forward such as I have been enabled to complete. In most cases the documents (regularly attested by a Public Notary) have been sent to London already, and where that happens I have obtained duplicates or the abstract amounts of the claim and which is attached to the copy of the Policy. I fear that little advantage will result to the Company from any salvage in consequence of the merchants being so much underinsured. Messrs. Job Bros, saved perhaps more than any other firms in St. John's, and yet Mr. Job tells me that he shall have to claim for the full amount of his Policies and will then be a loser. Messrs. Thomas also saved a large amount of property, but I have not yet had an opportunity of looking at either of their papers. Messrs. Meynell & Wilson inform me that they wrote to Mr. Tarbet immediately after the fire, stating that their loss on goods would not probably exceed £500. This, however, has proved incorrect, as you will perceive by their claim. I have just this moment received Messrs. McBride & Kerr's papers, showing a saving of £1,709 : 16 : 8 : on goods in their timber yard insured by No. 756,908. Messrs. Stuart & Rennie, insured by No. 726,014 for £4,000, claim only £2,744 : u : 8 : which may be further reduced, if the Coy. insist on excluding the several articles of merchandise claimed for that are not specified in the Policy. The parties, however, throw themselves on the liberality of the Coy. to admit the claims. Mr. Alsop has just furnished me with a particular of his claim under No. 708,024 showing a saving of £1,709 : 9 : 9 : I have drawn a bill on the Trustees for £100 stg. at 3 days sight payable to the order of Wm. Thomas, Esq., Chairman of the Relief Committee of St. John's, in conformity with your instructions. I have also drawn another bill for £100 stg. 3 days sight payable to the order of Mrs. Susannah W. Flavin for her claim in full under No. 590,80—the assured is a poor widow, residing at Sydney, Cape Breton and her agent Mr. Brown begged to have a bill that he might forward to her. In all other cases I have given the parties to understand that the only mode of payment will be thro' some agent (duly authorised) in London. Messrs. Thomas have just sent me particulars of claim for the M

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whole amount of their Policies, they are besides losers to a large amount. I am obliged to close to be in time for the mail. J. J. Broomfield. P.S.—I will just mention that the holders of leases at St. John's, tho' not bound to rebuild in case of fire, are liable to pay the same rent for the 5 years after the fire as they were subject to when the buildings were standing." Aug. 3, 1846. Broomfield to Richter. "I last addressed you on the 23rd July and forwarded such of the claims as I was enabled to adjust during the short interval between my arrival here and the departure of the mail for Halifax. That despatch, owing to the constant occupation of my time by parties who came in throngs, to explain the manner in which their particular premises fell a victim to the flames, and also to present their statement of loss, which each one was anxious to have forwarded by the Packet that was to leave St. John's the 3rd day after her arrival—was necessarily completed in a hurried manner, and on that ground I trust that I may claim yr. indulgence for any inaccuracies that may appear. It was not my intention again to trouble you with any further particulars of the progress of the late fire, but as I have been enabled in the various conversations I have had with all parties to ascertain their opinions as to the probability of the fire spreading over the whole town (prior to its being burnt) and those opinions being perfectly unanimous, I consider it my duty to acquaint you with them, and to proceed to state, that the general opinion at the commencement of the Fire was that the flames would not cross the Fire Breaks, and so fully persuaded were the merchants and others of this, that very few persons living on the eastward of Warren's Cove attempted to remove any of their property, until the fire had passed that boundary—then and not till then the occupants of the block bounded on the E. by Beck's Cove began to remove—but still the merchants in the next block eastwards were not apprehensive of the fire communicating with their range of stone built stores, and I am assured by those who have resided for many years in St. John's and been present at all the former large fires, that the fire of the gth June might have been stopped (on the Water side at least) at Beck's Cove, but for the injudicious step taken by the Governor of blowing up Stabb's wooden house with gunpowder, the result of which was that the shattered fragments of timber were ignited by the explosion and the burning brands scatter'd in all directions, several alighting on the oil vats of Messrs. Bowring Bros, in the rear of their stone buildings and immediately caused a terrific blaze, which involved the destruction of the whole of the block. Even then it was supposed that Messrs. Baine Johnston & Co.'s solid stone buildings on both sides of the street in the next division would offer a

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permanent resistance to the further spread of the fire, and many that lived to the eastwards of the latter premises delayed moving until it was too late—and so on till the whole town was consumed. The people thought they were warranted by former experience in considering the fire breaks a sufficient protection—hence the enormous sacrifice of property that occurred, for had a contrary view prevailed I am told there was sufficient time after the commencement of the fire to have effected a removal of goods from Water St. alone to the amount of £200,000. With a knowledge of these facts I think it is fair to conclude that the whole town would not have been laid waste by the fire, but for the unprecedented violence of the gale of wind, that continued without abatement the whole of the day on which the lamentable accident happened. The agents of the American Offices have been here and settled the claims upon them (with one exception) by bills payable at 3, 6 and 9 months after date. And where short-dated bills on Hartford were given, the agents insisted on obtaining a reduction of 2j% from the amount of the claim. The one exception is the claim of Messrs. C. F. Bennett & Co., £3,000, which the agents have refused to entertain on the ground that their policy has been vitiated by the circumstances of gunpowder having been kept on the premises; they have intimated, however, that they will have no objection in compromising the matter, by making the assured a present of £ of the amount insured—and both the Messrs. B. being at present in England, there the matter rests. The whole amount of the liability of the American Coys., called upon by the late fire, is, as near as I can ascertain, £32,000, divided thus, viz., Hartford £20,000, Etna £6,000 and Protection £6,000. I find that with very few exceptions these offices are not joint insurers with the Phoenix—their clients being either parties who have withdrawn from the Phoenix altogether or those who had previously been uninsured. Mr. Brooking is engaged on behalf of Messrs. Bradford & Co. the underwriters at Lloyds (who called on you at the office) to adjust claims for which they are liable amounting to £14,000. Of the settlement of the remaining sums done (£16,000, supposing the whole amount to be £30,000) I have no information. The losses of the other London Companies are as follows, viz., Imperial £14,011 : 5 : 8 :, Sun £3,000 and Globe £500. There was only one case of salvage, and that lessened the loss to the Imperial, which would otherwise have been £14,200. I have furnished each office with particulars. I take the opportunity of sending by the schooner Mary Hounsell, which sails today direct for Liverpool and is expected to be 6 or 7 days in advance of the next mail that will leave this on the yth or 8th inst. via Halifax, and by which I hope to be able to forward the rest of the claims accompanied by a complete list of the whole. All persons here are now anxious to be insured, and numerous applications have been made to inspect risks both

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in and out of the town, which I have promised to do as soon as the adjustment of the claims are completed, and in my next letter will furnish you with the particulars of each case, as well as of the general aspect of the town, which is now rapidly rising from its ruins, but the whole construction is at present of timber." J. J. Broomfield. Aug. 8, 1846. Broomfield to Richter ex St. John's, Nfld. "Dear Sir. I have received your esteemed favor of the 17 ult. on the 5th inst. and remark with reference to the circumstance of the building claims being unaccompanied by estimates— that the buildings were so much under-insured, that the parties have thought it sufficient to certify that the value of the buildings exceeded the sum insured upon them. I have, however, in my reports on the loss papers, given the estimated value in each case, and from the recollections I have of the buildings as they stood at the time of my laying them down on the Office Plan of the Town, I am satisfied that the value is not over-stated; but on the contrary, the cost of the erection in similar materials like the former buildings, would considerably exceed the sum specified. The Conversion of Currency into Sterling1 has been differently effected. In some cases it is charged at the rate of exchange existing at the time of the purchase of the goods, as entered in the assured's books—but in most instances it is at the fixed exchange of 20% (as mentioned in yr. letter), though the parties assure me that in so doing the advantage is on the side of the Office. In my last despatch I forwarded on the 3rd inst. per schooner Mary Hounsell, sailing direct from this port, the packet of papers being a bulky parcel will not pass through the P.O., but will be forwarded to the Office by Messrs. Job & Co. of Liverpool, and I expect will reach you a few days before that which goes by the mail. I attended on the 3rd inst. at the prorogation of the H. of A., when H.E. the Govr. gave his assent to the bill passed for reerecting the town of St. John's on an improved plan: the main features of which are to maintain for Water St. and Duckworth St. a parallel width of 60 feet each, thro'out the whole length of the town—all the buildings on both sides of the streets to be of brick or stone with slated roofs—no timber building being allowed in any part of the town S. of Duckworth St., including the merchants stores on the waterside which are all to be of sound 1

Cf. the following in a Church account of 1847:— Currency.

By Fuel and Candles „ House Rent . .

£

s. d.

'

16 10 o 6 0 0

(Methodism in Twillingate, p. 13.)

Sterling.

£ s. d. 13 15 ° 5 0 0

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construction, and n Fire breaks are to be opened 60 to 80 feet wide, crossing the streets at right angles. Another important bill incorporating a company for supplying the town with Water was also passed, and an engineer has been engaged and is now on his way from Scotland, to undertake the management of the Works. // these enactments are fully carried into effect, a large amount of business may be done with comparative safety, but as 3 years are allowed for the rebuilding of the town, many of the timber sheds will remain until the expiration of that period, and form a considerable source of risk. At present about \ of Water St., both sides, is covered with wooden houses and stores, but very few attempts are making to erect stone stores, it being too late in the season. The merchants are, however, collecting materials (which have to be imported) and will commence building in the spring. Other parts of the town are being covered with wood, mostly low buildings of one storey only. As you will have many applications for insurance, I would remark that the probability of fire in some of the temporary timber houses is very great, arising from the circumstance of the old chimneys, which the late fire has left standing, being appropriated for the new buildings, although cracked and unfit for use. In the merchants' temporary stores this is not the case, as they never require heat for them. South Side. The buildings on the S. side of the Harbour have not much increased since my last visit [Oct., 1845]. The only additions seem to be a new store built by Mr. Brooking since the fire and a store and vat erected by Bowring Bros, last spring. At present there is no appearance of any further accommodation. The only ground available for building on the S. side is, as you are aware, a narrow strip of land between the foot of the mountain and the water, varying from 20 to 80 feet in width, and full a mile in length. Each mercantile establishment generally consists of 2 stores, a dwelling house for a foreman, I or 2 vats, and the usual boilers and furnaces for rendering the oil, that portion of the seal fat that remains in the vats after the oil has been drawn off. These are very securely constructed, and I am told an accident has never been known to happen from the use of the furnace. The stores are of various construction, some consist of a ground floor only, others of 2 stories, one (Messrs. Baine Johnston & Co.) is 3 stories high, including the ground floor. They are all timber-built, excepting one belonging to Messrs. Thomas & Co., which is stone built, with a flat roof covered with lead. The only means of access is by water, except for 2 or 3 stores at the West end, where the road is continued over the bridge from River Head. There will be a large amount of property deposited in these stores this ensuing winter, principally fish, the oil being now nearly all shipped. The buildings are all detached from each other. The several premises do not form a continuous line of communication.

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inasmuch as there are intermediate spaces from 200 to 500 feet in length, occupied by fishermen for the purpose of drying fish (by exposure to the atmosphere only) on flakes which consist of a platform made of hurdles wide apart, covered with a thin layer of small branches of the fir tree, just sufficiently strong to bear a man's weight when carrying the fish. These hurdles are raised about 8 or 10 feet from the ground and supported by numerous props of wood. I think the whole line may be considered, under ordinary circumstance, as being divided into about 5 or 6 separate risks. I herewith enclose the remainder of the claims which altogether amount to £114,574 : 5 : 8 : say £115,000, the sum insured ^122,230 and the salvages £7,655 : 14 : 4 :, and hope that the settlement will meet with your approbation. [The efficiency and lack of fuss with which one man, without a staff, settled in a fortnight these very heavy claims against his office, is remarkable."} H.E., the Govr., in his speech to the H. of A. stated that the Commissioners appointed to consider the amount of property destroyed by the late fire had reported the total loss in Buildings and Contents to be £888,356. The last steamer brought £15,000 in gold, a donation from the Home Government, with a promise of £15,000 more by the next mail for the relief of the sufferers. Subscriptions are pouring in from all quarters for the same object, and it is the intention of the Authorities to apply some part of the funds towards the permanent improvement of the town by advancing small sums, as gifts, to poor persons who have had their houses burnt and were uninsured, to enable them to rebuild with brick and stone. Annexed is a list of the risks I have been requested to inspect, and for which orders will be forwarded to the Office by the several agents. Your instructions relative to the marking on the Plan of Savannah the timber buildings in that town shall have my strict attention. I am given to understand that there is now great facility of communication between the various Islands and Ports of the West Indies by steam, so that a visit to each of the principal places where the Coy has large amounts at stake could be easily accomplished; after complying with your suggestion with reference to St. Thomas and Trinidad, without any great prolongation of my absence from the office, provided the Directors consider it expedient, which, if determined on, a letter addressed to the care of the Agent at St. Thomas would meet me before I left that settlement. At the moment of my closing this letter, Mr. Job of the firm of Job Bros. & Co. called to inform me that he had received news by the last mail from England that an insurance of £2,000 on the buildings and contents of their store on the south side of the harbour had been effected by their house at Liverpool at 3 gs. [guineas] %, but the letter did not state at which office—and as a

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further amount will be required to be done in the same manner before the winter, Mr. Job desired me to forward to you an account of the exact situation of the store in question, with reference to its nearest neighbours, for he considers the rate of 3 gs. excessive and expected the Phoenix would not ask more than 2 gs. The store is a comparatively isolated risk, inasmuch as the wharf on which it stands has no other wharf, and consequently no other buildings, within 300 or 400 feet on the west side, and from 200 to 300 feet on the E. side—the spaces between it and the neighbouring premises being occupied by fish flakes. The merchants generally expect the insurance on the S. side to be done at 2 gs. %. A copy of the Act to regulate the rebuilding of the Town of St. John's is published in this day's paper, which I enclose, as well as a copy of the Resolutions adopted at a public meeting of the Inhabitants held yesterday, expressive of their gratitude for the liberal assistance afforded them for several years. I leave St. John's by the mail and proceed (via N/Y) to Norfolk Va. J. J. Broomfield. P.S.—I have just learnt that the American offices decline taking any risks in St. John's at present." Oct. 5, 1846. Broomfield to Richter ex N/Y. "I have met with Mr. Dunscombe, a merchant from St. John's, Nfld, who arrived this morning to inform me that on the i8th ult. that Island was visited with a violent hurricane, that has destroyed 3/4 of the shipping belonging to the place, and has torn down a great number of the newly erected temporary buildings in the town of St. John's causing a considerable sacrifice of human life. He also stated that the merchants were quite disconcerted at the rate of 4 gs. % which it seems the Coy. has required for Brick and Stone Buildings in the town, as well as for the stores on the S. side of the harbour. They will, however, prefer paying them that extreme rate, rather than be uninsured. Mr. D. further informs me that a Govt. engineer is now on his way to St. J's, to superintend the rebuilding of the town—the solid construction of which it has been determined by the Home Govt. shall be fully carried into effect. ..." J. J. Broomfield. And yet, come fire, come hurricane, whether paying two guineas, three guineas, or even four guineas per cent., the merchants of St. John's never wilted! Yes, four guineas at a time when Sandeman's Port lay in cool cellars at Oporto at the uniform rate of 1/5 of one per cent, (four shillings), without reference to the risk of the cooperage.

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

R6sum& of claims paid on the fire of 1846.

say c. c. say

American Coys. At Lloyd's Other London Coys. Phoenix

i 32,000 30,000 18,000 115,000 £195,000

Total claims paid

c. 59% £888,356

Phoenix proportion of total Total estimated losses

IV

POSTSCRIPT ON THE FIRE OF 1892 EXTRACT FROM THE NEWFOUNDLAND ROYAL COMMISSION OF 1933. 80. The year 1892 was a calamitous one. In February a violent storm caught unawares a number of fishermen in Trinity Bay who were out looking for seals. The majority succeeded in fighting their way back, but many were blown out to sea and there was a heavy loss of life and great suffering and distress. In July of the same year there befell the worst disaster in the history of the Island. Twice previously had St. John's been ravaged by fire, but the conflagration which raged for 16 hours on the 8th and gth July eclipsed all previous experiences. The fire broke out in a stable at the eastern end of the town and, fanned by a powerful gale, spread with alarming rapidity. The firemen were compelled to work without water, as the pipes were under repair and the supply had not been restored. Volunteers were called for, and the townspeople flocked to fight the flames, but it was soon apparent that no human effort could check their progress. The heat was so intense that brick and stone offered little more resistance than wood. Flying embers were soon scattered over the city, and in less than two hours new fires had started in several places. By the early morning of the gth July, fully threequarters of St. John's lay devastated. Over 2,000 houses and stores had been destroyed, and nearly 11,000 persons were left homeless. The damage to property was computed at $20,000,000, of which less than $5,000,000 was covered by insurance. Of the principal shops and warehouses, scarcely a vestige remained; the business and professional quarter was completely gutted; the chief public buildings, the Hospital and the Church of England Cathedral and many churches were alike reduced to ruins.

MEMORY OF AN EYE-WITNESS. My friend Mr. P. F. Kavanagh of St. John's was then fifteen and a half years old. All that night and the following days he spent

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helping his family (they were burnt out at midnight) and the many friends and neighbours in a similar plight. He writes now: GREAT FIRE OF 1892. "On July 8th, 1892, a fire started at about 4.30 p.m. which was to destroy about two-thirds of the City of St. John's. It was a very fine day with a light south westerly wind. As evening drew on the wind shifted to a very strong wind from the west, which lasted throughout the night and part of the next day. The fire had its beginning in the barn of one Timothy O'Brien located at the junction of Cookstown and Freshwater roads, about one mile from the waterfront in a northwest direction. A driver for O'Brien, Tommy FitzPatrick, fell in the barn with a lighted pipe in his mouth, and ashes from pipe ignited hay stored in barn. Firemen were called from the three stations in the city composed mainly of volunteers. But lack of water and burned hoses were responsible for the fire making rapid headway. The fire took an easterly course down from the higher levels of the town to the waterfront destroying everything in its path to stop finally at the battery. Most of the central and east end part of the city was levelled. Some of the notable places burnt were the Anglican Cathedral, B.I.S. (Benevolent Irish Society) Hall, Synod Building, Gower St. Church, and all the waterside premises from Bowring's to John Woods below the present Furness Withy Co. premises. Some 3,000 of those left homeless were temporarily sheltered in Bannerman Park in tents. These tents were supplied by a relief ship which arrived from Boston a few days after the fire with clothing, food, drugs and building materials. During the fire considerable looting of household effects and supplies from stores took place, and between this and the fire people lost many articles of value. It was customary in these times for people to house considerable quantities of gold coins, which were stored in places like cellars of houses. In many cases the gold melted and it was a common occurrence for people to search the ruins of homes for this lost gold for some time after. Loss of life was limited to one person, a Miss Stevens who lived with the Colliers at what is now the back of the Crosbie Hotel. It was thought that this lady lost her life while attempting during the fire to save some of her possessions. Rebuilding started early in the fall of the same year from materials sent as free gifts from various sources, and these were allotted to individuals by a committee appointed for that purpose." Amount of Insurance effected on Property in St. John's destroyed by the Fire of 1892. (Prowse, p. 526.) Company. Liverpool & London & Globe .. Phoenix London .. ..

.. ..

Amount in 'ooo $ .. 375 .. 750

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

Company. Atlas .. .. .. Queen Northern .. .. Royal .. .. .. Norwich Union .. .. Guardian .. .. North British . . .. London & Lanes. .. Manchester .. .. Commercial Union .. Imperial . . .. .. Lion .. .. .. City of London .. .. Lancashire .. .. General .. .. .. Phoenix Hartford, U.S.A Citizens .. .. .. London Assurance .. Sun (London) .. .. Total of all companies ..

..

..

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

.. .. ..

.. .. ..

Amount in 'ooo $ .. 100 550 .. 300 .. 500 .. 45 .. 200 . . 235 .. 500 .. 100 .. 200 . . 240 .. 50 .. 37 .. 30-8 .. 120 38 .. 20 .. 50 .. 150

..

..

$4,590,800

CHAPTER ELEVEN

GRAND FALLS AND CORNER BROOK THE RAILWAY PRELUDE FROM CONTINENT TO ISLAND. FROM TRANSPORT TO PRODUCTION. In the company of Robert Gillespie Reid (1842-1908) we travel from Scotland to Australia (gold mining); then to America (bridge building); then to Canada (bridge building and railroad construction for the C.P.R.), then to Newfoundland (railway construction, land development, operation of railways, coastal steamships and allied services). Justly termed the Cecil Rhodes of Newfoundland, he was knighted in 1907, and at his death was a Director of the C.P.R., the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Trust Company. To his railway, steamships, docks and hotel the Canadian National Railways eventually became _ heir, but only after the original concession had been for a long generation the shuttle-cock of politics. Reid died a wealthy man, but he made more outside the Island than in it, and the responsibility for the operation of the railway (which in the first instance was virtually forced on him), was an incubus to his descendants. Reid had to pay the price of opening up the interior of a very difficult country. The terms originally offered were prima facie most generous. Indeed, Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary of the time, called it "an abdication without parallel," and F. E. Smith (Lord Birkenhead) in his little book on Newfoundland followed in the same strain. And the dissatisfaction, which grew up in consequence, led to changes in the contract, which cost both the Reids and the taxpayer dear. Moreover, they were fatal to Reid's great program of national development in Newfoundland and Labrador. Some weeks ago I travelled by train from St. John's to Port aux Basques, and then from Sydney to Mont Joli; and, as we crossed by day the stately bridge over the Grand Narrows in Cape Breton Island, I remembered that this was the last of his great bridges—International Bridge over the Niagara Falls: bridges between Montreal and Ottawa on the C.P.: bridges in Texas: the Soo Bridge, 1887, and lastly this Grand Narrows Bridge, 1889. To it he sacrificed his health; for on one occasion he had to stand for hours in ice-cold water, watching the completion of a critical piece 191

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

of bridge-work, and thereafter was a martyr to rheumatism. Reid's work in Newfoundland began in 1890, when he took the contract for Hall's Bay Railway,1 which was extended to Port aux Basques and completed in 1897. In 1898 he contracted to operate all the trunk and branch lines in the Island for a period of fifty years, paying $i million for the reversion of the whole at the end of that period and receiving 4^ million acres of land. When this, the unpopular contract, was modified in 1901, the $i million was returned. He further contracted to build eight steamships for the coastal services of passengers and goods (which operated in the face of difficult competition from other firms); and took over the dry dock in St. John's and the telegraph system. The crash of 1894 occurred while the main line was under construction, and Reid was instrumental in inducing the Bank of Montreal to establish itself in the Island, as the Island's financial mainstay. Moreover, the continued railway employment alleviated a desperate labour situation. When eventually the Newfoundland Government took over the railway and settled with the Reid Newfoundland Co., to which the founder's interests had passed, that company remained possessed of large land grants. Some of the original grants had been sold to the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Co. (Grand Falls and Buchans), but much remained both for forestal and mineral development. At this point, Corner Brook came into the picture; and with it, through its varying fortunes, the Reid interest was closely associated: Mr. Angus Reid, R. G. Reid's grandson, being to-day a director of Bowater's, Newfoundland. An intimate sidelight on the difficulties encountered in the early days of road-building is thrown by a memorandum from Alexander Graham of St. John's, Newfoundland to Lord Amulree, Chairman of the Newfoundland Royal Commission (1933). Coming out from Scotland to farm, Graham was stranded in the crash of 1894 (he had put his funds in the Commercial Bank!): he got lumber work from Reid for one season: then learnt under him the railroad business, where he witnessed the rude lot of the workers' "families reared in tilts and camps along the line, impossible to keep clean and warm." Next he worked on high-way construction for the Government, where the unruliness of the labour force from the South disgusted him, and he went in fear of his life. So he returned to the railway 1 Hall's Bay (Springdale) is an inlet of Notre Dame Bay, and the Railway never got there, being switched west of Badger to cross the height of land down to the Humber Valley and West Coast.

GRAND FALLS AND CORNER BROOK

IQ3

as a superintendent. The Reid Company, he thought, did a good job in World War I, but at little profit to itself. For "it was made the target for abuse by every political party, and blamed for every ill-wind that blew." Ned Pratt has sung of "The Last Spike," and pleased all Canada from Montreal to Vancouver. When will he return to his homeland and give us "A Streak of Rust"? GRAND FALLS AND BUCHANS The Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company (A.N.D.) is controlled by Associated Newspapers (London); and the chairman, Lord Rothermere, is the first Chancellor of Newfoundland's Memorial University. Like the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway, the Newfoundland Railway, completed from St. John's to Port aux Basques in the 1890*3, opened up the hinterland of the Island and pierced its Northern valley spines revealing new mineral and forestal resources. It was thus a stepping stone to modern industrialism; and among the first to tread- it were the Harmsworth brothers, the newspaper proprietors of London, England. It was they who created the A.N.D. (Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company) (January 7, 1905) and this company was associated with the Newfoundland Railway in the following distinct but related ways:— 1. By rail the promoters explored the route and were drawn to its possibilities. 2. A.N.D. constructed branch lines which are linked with the N.F.R.—namely from Millertown Junction to Buchans Mine, and from Grand Falls to Botwood, the port from which ore and newsprint are shipped. 3. The first labour force drafted into Grand Falls was recruited in part from railway construction camps. 4. The land grants to the Reids, the contractors for the Newfoundland railway, were a central part of the concession on which A.N.D. was based. This was the crucial association. Grand Falls was opened with ceremony on October n, 1909. The Governor, the Premier, the Bishop, Lord Northcliffe and his colleagues, and some 1,200 employees were present. On January 29,1910, the London Daily Mail announced that "For the first time yesterday an English newspaper was printed on paper produced in

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

England's oldest colony." How had this been accomplished? The Memorandum of Association declared that the object of A.N.D. was (a) to acquire and (b) to work any lands, mines, timber or pulpwood limits and to manufacture pulp and paper, etc. The Colonial Act of 5 Edward VII, c. 10 (June 15,1905) "An act to encourage the manufacture of pulp-and paper in this Colony" confirmed the agreement between A.N.D. and the Government. Incidentally s. 6 of this Act declared the lessee's mills and property within the Watershed Area to be exempt from municipal taxation. The Schedule describes the area under concession "situate in the districts adjoining the Red Indian and Victoria Lakes." Next come certain parallel agreements with parties who already had concessions in the area, viz.:— the Exploits River Lumber Pulp & Paper Co., the Reid Newfoundland Railway, holding alternate blocks as part payment for the railway contract, the Newfoundland Timber Estates Co., with property at the exit of Victoria River and Red Indian Lake. The Agreements with the Government and these proprietary concerns gave A.N.D. an aggregate logging area of 2,230 square miles, which has since been more than trebled, viz.: to 7,456. Lot 59, taken over from the Reid Newfoundland Co., comprised Grand Falls itself: that is to say the Falls and the Town site named after them. Thus A.N.D. secured unitary control over the water and land (including the minerals) in their area. A.N.D. was born in 1905: its parent, the Daily Mail, in 1896. In the early years of the newspaper, this and other publications controlled by the Harmsworth interest met their increasingly heavy demand for newsprint from Scandinavian and North American sources. After 1900, as the career of Theodore Roosevelt reminds us, the Trust and Cartel Movement spread rapidly over America and Western Europe. It was what economists call "horizontal" combination. One way in which consumers could protect themselves was by going back to the source of supply (as, for example, the British Co-operative Wholesale Societies did by opening tea estates in Ceylon and South India). This is "vertical" combination. And it was as a notable example of vertical combination that A.N.D. straightway won a place in the economic text-books. It is also of significance to the historian, as an example of the way in which

GRAND FALLS AND CORNER BROOK

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history may repeat itself. For in the Napoleonic war, when Napoleon cut off the Baltic timber on which Britain had come to rely, British statesmen fought back by preferential treatment of Colonial and in particular of Canadian timber. Huskisson made it the cornerstone of his imperial policy. The Harmsworths, similarly, in their day were friendly to the Imperial idea; and the South African War, on which the Daily Mail made its name, strengthened this feeling. But at first Lord Northcliffe was shy; for as he said to his brother Lord Rothermere, "Though we understand everything about newspapers, we know nothing about wood pulp and the manufacture of newsprint." Nevertheless Rothermere persisted and after visiting Canada and sending one of his staff, Mayson Beeton, to visit Scandinavia and Newfoundland, he came in person to Grand Falls (1903) and agreed with Beeton as to the strategic value of the site. The terms offered by the Newfoundland Government were attractive; and Northcliffe, when persuaded that the technical difficulties could be surmounted, gave the project his full support, having perfect confidence in the financial judgment of his younger brother. In this way the Harmsworth interest came to Grand Falls. The Buchans Mining Properties are worked by the American Smelting and Refining Co. (ASARCO), who hold it on lease from Terra Nova Properties Ltd., a subsidiary of A.N.D., on a 50/50 basis. The crucial point is that the 1905 contract gave to A.N.D. mineral as well as lumbering rights, subject to the payment of royalties. They were valued at first chiefly as a security against fire and other damage arising from uncontrolled mineral prospecting. But senior officers of A.N.D. took hold of the asset and put Buchans on the mining map. Perhaps the best way of appreciating the range of A.N.D. will be to start at the height of land above Red Indian Lake and descend by stages to the coast thus:— 1. Buchans. 2. A selected logging area, back of Badger. 3. Grand Falls. 4. Bishop's Falls. 5. Botwood. BUCHANS. The economic lessons of Buchans are fourfold, (i) The uselessness of mineral wealth till it can be reduced to

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

usable form. The Buchans ore deposit contains zinc, lead and copper, with a tiny quantity of gold and silver: and it was not till 1925 that a selective notation method was perfected, whereby the very fine-grained zinc-lead-copper sulphide could be separated. Incidentally, copper goes largely to the electrical industry: lead into batteries, alloys, lead-pipes, paint: while zinc is used chiefly for galvanising and brass. Xanthates, a salt of "xanthic" (Greek "yellow") acids, is a chemical essential to the modern application of the flotation process. And the sequence, as a layman sees it, is:— crushing: further grinding to greater fineness: the floating of copper and lead, zinc being depressed: the separation of copper from lead by flotation of copper and depression of lead—all three to my ignorance just bubbles of grey gruel: concluding with the finishing processes of thickening, filtering and drying. By association with Asarco, A.N.D. obtained the indispensable aid of advanced research. (ii) The application of science to mineral prospecting. On the plateau where Buchans lies is the river outcrop first detected by Mattie Mitchel, an Indian guide: next to it is Oriental, which, like Johnnie Walker's Whiskey, is still going strong. Had this been all, Buchans might have been a short-lived mining camp. But science has revealed extensions of the deposit—Lucky Strike, with its "Glory Hole": and lastly Rothermere shaft, newly named after the present Lord Rothermere. These were found by geophysical prospecting, directed by Hans Lundberg, a Swedish scientist. They ensure a considerably greater length of life for the mine, and there may be more to come. (iii) The inter-dependence of mining and transport. This is just one more example of the story that began with George Stephenson and his coal-burning coal-hauling locomotive engine. A.N.D., because of its haulage needs for heavy traffic is in the railroad business. Proceeding from Millertown Junction to Buchans one has the unusual experience of travelling by a motor car on rails. In Buchans itself there are numerous trucks and passenger-cars; but there is no way out except by railway—at present. It is, however, planned to extend the motor road to Buchans itself. (iv) The flow of "like to like." This is internationalism of a beneficial order—an American general manager, a Newfoundland assistant general manager, a superintendent from the London School of Mines with experience in the Mysore Gold Fields, which I had myself visited in 1935.

GRAND FALLS AND CORNER BROOK

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Similarly the men themselves came largely, I was told, from the vicinity of Bell Island. LOGGING AREA. The logging area, back of Badger, to which we come next, had also a fourfold lesson. (i) The first is a warning to bears. Don't pinch the flour! Bruin with his naked paw had torn through a tierce of molasses, but then, stupidly, gone off with a bag of flour which left a trail behind. So they got him and were waiting now for Mrs. Bruin. I hope they missed her. (ii) Roads and rivers have a tale to tell. We crossed the river by an automatic ferry on wire. You pull one wire, and it takes you across: you pull the other and it brings you back. I had crossed by a similar contraption the Cauvery River in S. India. At first our road was winding, being an old logging road; but as we approached the cutting area, the way was straight; for it had been bull-dozed. They call the rivers "brooks" in these parts; and in turn we passed "Coronation"—from the Coronation of George VI: "Caledonia"—from a plane of that name, which flew over at the time: "Chamberlain"—from Neville Chamberlain's "victory" of Munich: and Churchill—from World War II. (iii) After lunch in camp and a lesson on the difference between the red sticky fir and the grey rough-barked spruce, we moved up into the front line, scrambling over the "pug." There I watched a D.y caterpillar tractor cutting its way through virgin forest: swish this way, and swish that: back a bit now, and have at that big fellow. So the monster works his way along, following the line of white wands planted in advance by the engineers. (iv) And, of course, the inevitable question. How long will it last? Fire and disease are the two enemies. But, I was assured, the country is not living on its forest capital. On this topic more later. GRAND FALLS. I have before me, by courtesy of Grand Falls Studio, a magnificent series of large-scale photos. They show: the dam at Grand Falls1; the mill pond: the mechanical stacker: the mill in operation: the delivered roll of newsprint: Grand Falls townsite: Grand Falls Staff House, where I had the pleasure of staying: Grand Falls House, I 1 scrambled (under escort) to the edge of them, and also viewed them from the top of the mechanical stacker.

N

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

where I had the honour of dining: the view of Exploits River from Grand Falls House—Northcliffe's favourite vista: Bishop's Falls: stacks at Bishop's Falls: loading paper at Botwood: Botwood ore pier. Three trains of thought emerge. 1. Historical. I tried to pick up bits of history about the early days, such as this from an old-timer. "When the Station Road into Grand Falls was began, a bunch of lads from Trinity Bay came up looking for work. They had been at Bishop's Falls Sand Pit, but could not stand the flies, so they came up here and stayed to work on the railway. George Bishop, the man who drove the first nail into the station shed, is alive at this day." I plead earnestly that the school teachers and clergy of Grand Falls should collect every piece of local history that is to be obtained and put it for the young people into a story. I heard much about Sir Mayson Beeton, the son of Mrs. Beeton of cookery-book fame. He was, says the Daily Mail obituary of June 25, 1947, "a director of the Daily Mail Trust, on the board of Anglo-Newfoundland Development Co. for many years, and played a leading part in establishing the great paper mills at Grand Falls." I had the pleasure of meeting at Carmelite House two gentlemen who had been his colleagues, Mr. Sursham and Mr. Laycock, and I would that these two put into book form some of their unrivalled experience. How rich the historical associations of this area are, I have tried to show in my account of David Buchan. Technical. The first thought that comes on the technical side is the tie-in between wood and water. Wherever it is available, water is the cheapest method of transporting wood from forest to mill: in the mill itself the fibre is waterborne: water plays on the wood at every turn, to cleanse it, cool it and form a dilute "slurry." Water is added, extracted and put back, and the same water is used again and again. It is needed also for washing and drinking, and so in addition to "service" water there is the "town" water, sand-filtered and chlorinated. The fall of water is also the source of power; and because the plant was sited nearly fifty years ago, the mill was located at the foot of the Falls—long-distance transmission being in its infancy then. 2.

GRAND FALLS AND CORNER BROOK

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3. Social. Grand Falls with Windsor (formerly called Grand Falls Station) had in 1945 a population of 7,000 odd, but both it and Corner Brook are better measured by the Electoral District of which they are the centre, since they are the district's raison d'ltre. District. Grand Falls .. Humber ..

1921 9,200 4,700

1935 14,300 15,100

1945 19,400 20,500

% increase. % increase. 1921-35 1935-45 55-8 35-4 219-6 35-6

Grand Falls is a company town. As owner of the land A.N.D. has controlled the building of the town and provided the central amenities. Capitalism has had a chance to show what it can do and the showing is good—ice-stadium, golf links, sports ground, a Daily Mail library, a local newspaper: and every known avenue to heaven —Church of England, Roman Catholic, "United," Presbyterian, Salvation Army, and what not. To one who has given many years of study to the Co-operative Movement it was very gratifying to find a flourishing consumers' Co-operative store on a central shopping site presented by the Company. The town is situated on 32,000 acres of freehold land. Under the 1905 Agreement with the Government of Newfoundland the Company is exempt from any Municipal taxes which may in the future be levied, should the various towns such as Grand Falls, Bishop's Falls, Botwood, Badger, Millertown and Terra Nova, where the Company has large operations, become incorporated. Up until 1948 the Company built and owned the majority of the dwelling-houses in Grand Falls. These houses were rented to the employees at extremely low rentals which did not fully cover depreciation and maintenance. During 1938 the Company spent in excess of $1,000,000.00 for rehabilitation of workmen's houses. In 1948 it was decided to sell these houses to the tenants, who desired to purchase, on the basis of a price equal to ten years rental with payment on a monthly basis over a ten year period, and without any down payment. Approximately 300 houses have been sold under this scheme. The Company is retaining some fifty houses for key personnel with approximately fifty houses unsold and occupied mostly by retired employees. During World War I the Company started a policy of making available building sites for houses in Grand Falls. These sites were serviced with water, sewerage, electricity and fire protection. The land is leased for ninety-nine years at an annual rental of ic. There

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LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

are no taxes, other than nominal charges for the services supplied. The average charge made for these services would amount to approximately $100.00 per annum. Up to the present time, approximately 450 houses have been built, with 150 of these since World War II. The average cost of a house site 60 X 100 ft. is approximately $3,000.00. With the return of veterans from World War II there was an acute housing shortage in Grand Falls. To help solve this housing problem the Company, since 1949, have been lending money to employees which approximates one third of the estimated completed cost of the house. This loan is repayable over a ten year period at three per cent, interest. As for Medical facilities the Company provides a staff of qualified doctors and nurses and maintains a well equipped hospital and outpatients clinic. The hospital has a capacity of twenty beds and is found adequate for the ordinary needs of the town. In addition to the above services and town amenities, the Company maintains paved roads, snow clearing, street cleaning, garbage collection and incineration. Landscaping, which was begun many years ago, is being vigorously pursued and an ambitious programme is now being planned under the direction of one of Canada's leading architects. BISHOP'S FALLS. The scenery around Bishop's Falls is superb. There is no ugly burnt-over land in sight. A solitary watch tower at the highest point of the woodland range keeps its eye on the enemy. The rocks on the further side of the river are the home of seabirds. Salmon streams flow into the main water below the Falls. One can stand on a jutting platform and watch the water flowing over like molten glass. The dam face is tipped with three feet of two-inch plank which raises the wall this much, but is made of wood weak enough for the ice pile to carry it away and thus not flood the town. The pulpwood mill was built by Albert E. Reed, an English paper manufacturer, and taken over by A.N.D. It is in process of conversion from a pulp mill to a power station. The mill is to be closed, and the power generated here will be taken to Grand Falls or Botwood. My worry was lest the closing of the mill should set the community back, but in view of possible alternatives this is not apprehended. One asset is patent. Bishop's Falls is at the railway fork to Botwood (N) and Lewisporte and St. John's (S): through it passes the finest stretch of motoring road in the Island, namely

GRAND FALLS AND CORNER BROOK

2OI

that which runs from Grand Falls to Botwood. No place will gain more surely than this from the opening of the Trans-Canada Highway. BOTWOOD. (Named after Archdeacon Botwood.) We are now on the seaboard. When the railway reached Botwood in 1909 it had a population of 700, which now approaches 3,000. There is no fishing: and the saw mills produce for local needs only. It is a shipping port and railway repair centre, but the port may not be ice-free till May. During the war it was an important air base, for which it is favourably placed in respect of landing water, freedom from fog and good communications inland. Here one may watch the unloading of the rolls of newsprint at the transit shed. A "Clarke Fork Truck" grabs it and lays it on the ground, where it is easily rolled on to a slowly moving belt, which conveys it to the ship. I watched s.s. Caxton loading for Manchester and London. Formerly one of the biggest buyers was Prensa, the liberal newspaper of the Argentine Republic: but to-day, as at Corner Brook, the United States market takes an everincreasing percentage. Fire pumps, with suction action, line the loading shed. In another shed were the cars from Buchans mine, with concentrates of lead, zinc and copper, each in their own car. On the main pier are two giant loading cranes; and there are separate wharfs for coal and oil. Botwood Bay is as beautiful as the Bay of Islands. The main channel runs for twenty-eight miles to Sergeants Cove on Exploits Island, where the pilots are dropped. As we returned from a day's cruise in the sunshine of late afternoon, our skipper explaining how you shoot sea fowl, meeting the covey as the boat dips, and every boat that passed us waving a greeting, I could not resist the hope that here in this noble "bay of bays" there would one day be held an International Regatta, the Cowes of Newfoundland. CORNER BROOK Corner Brook in 1923 was a village by Humber Mouth of some 250 persons, living on fishing and lumbering. To-day it is a second Grand Falls. In 1923 it had a solitary mill, the saw mill of Christopher Fisher: to-day it is the site of a great newsprint concern. As A.N.D. is to Grand Falls, so Bowater's is to Corner Brook.

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Contrary to the belief of the day, the forestal resources of the Island could accommodate a second great enterprise; and its situation in respect of ice-conditions and proximity to main market is more favourable than that of its senior. When the "big steal," as the opposition termed the Harmsworth concession, was announced, a great point was made of the iniquity of tying up the remaining "bit" of public land in the province. But war enables one to face facts, and the newspaper shortage of 1914-18 showed the advisability of still further reliance on supplies from Commonwealth sources. Now the first-comer to virgin territory has the advantage of first pick, but successors, on the other hand, have the advantage of profiting by his experience and coming on the scene when the technique of the industry is more advanced. The first-comer meets this by reconstruction and modernisation; but the process of adjustment is costly and for the time being checks the flow of production. Corner Brook, then, as an Island enterprise, is the junior foundation, but its lineage is the more ancient of the two. For in the shuttle-cock of financial fortune it was successful only at the third attempt, when an old established firm of English paper-makers came on the scene. The sequence was Armstrong Whitworth, the Newcastle engineers, acting for a Newfoundland interest: International Paper, an American concern: and finally, 1938, Bowaters of London, England. The Bowaters originally were a Manchester house and came to London in order to be close to North Kent, the classical county of paper making, with its rich springs and estuary waters. At Sittingbourne a little inland and at Kemsley, on tide-way, over against the I. of Sheppey, the Bowaters have their mills to-day. At Kemsley you may see a giant paper making machine, almost as large as the largest in Corner Brook, and space for a second machine of equal size, which cannot be installed owing to the unfortunate shortage of raw materials, imposed by currency restrictions. The early paper makers came to this region to be near Medway water. At Sittingbourne they found rich springs: and the "old" mill of Sittingbourne which Bowaters operate has been making paper continuously for over 200 years. A certain Samuel Lay was making paper here 1786-94. Later E. Smith was in business here down to 1850 and making paper from his own moulds. Since then the chain of interest has run:— Edward Lloyd of Lloyd's Newspaper.

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Pearson of the Daily Express, founded 1900. The Berry Bros. (Lords Kemsley and Camrose). Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook. Sir Eric Bowater, and other members of the Bowater family. Edward Lloyd worked up the circulation of his weekly until in 1902 it exceeded the then record figure of 1-2 million copies per issue. He made his paper at Bow, East London and in place of the oldfashioned rags used straw and esparto grass. He pressed and stored his straw at the E. Smith Sittingbourne mill; and in this way became a manufacturer of newsprint, building a mill and supplying newsprint in bulk to Pearson's Daily Express. In 1918 he sold his newspaper, and with the proceeds modernised the old mill and bought 500 acres at Kemsley for a model mill town. In 1927 he sold out to the Berry Brothers, newspaper owners from South Wales; and J. G. Berry took his Kemsley title from the place in which he now had an interest. Meanwhile the Bowater business had been growing. This distinguished family within a generation supplied two Lord Mayors of London; and now a third, Sir Noel Vansittart Bowater, a cousin and colleague of Sir Eric, elected September 29, 1953. When Sir Eric Bowater, upon his father's death in 1924, became head of the family business, he greatly extended it with the financial backing of Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook. One fruit of the association was the building of Ellesmere port mill for the supply of the Manchester editions of their papers. In 1932 the Rothermere-Beaverbrook interest was bought out; and Bowaters was henceforth independent of press control here. Finally, in the home field Bowaters bought from the Berry Bros, the E. Lloyd paper mills at Sittingbourne and Kemsley, so that these mills also are independent now of press control. As rearmament proceeded in Europe in the igso's and the threat of war became serious, paper makers looked afresh to Commonwealth sources of supply. An additional incentive was the resistance of Cartel pressure from Northern Europe. Sir Eric Bowater had visited Canada as far back as 1923, and later selected provisionally a site in East Newfoundland for a sulphite mill, but this was dropped when presently the much larger Corner Brook property came on the market. Armstrong Whitworth, armament engineers of Newcastle upon Tyne had entered the field originally with a view to finding

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employment for their wartime personnel.1 Their interest thus was temporary. The International Paper Company of America were interested primarily in the securing of supplies of pulp and pulpwood for mainland mills. Bowaters wanted to make paper for its own sake, to make paper only and to stay. It was therefore altogether to the Island's interest that this firm, now the leading paper makers of Britain, should acquire the Corner Brook property, which it did in 1938, paying $5|- million for it and assuming the funded debt. In 1943 it bought out the Bank of England's preference holdings. The concession embraced 11,000 square miles, which thus was larger than that of A.N.D., but it did not confer mineral rights. From the London angle the Bowater set-up is a Big Four, composed of: 1. Bowater's Newfoundland Pulp and Paper Mills (Corner Brook)—selling in U.S. through Bowater's Paper Co. Inc. New York. 2. Bowater's Lloyd Pulp-Paper Mills (Sittingbourne and Kemsley). 3. Bowater's Mersey Paper Mills (Port Ellesmere). 4. Bowater's Thames Paper Mill (North Fleet, Kent). These are serviced by Bowater's Sales Co.: Associated Bowater's Industries—building boards, fibre containers (Croydon), fibre drums (Brentwood and Disley), paper bags (Bolton, Lanes.), groundwood mills (Sweden), china clay (Bodmin Moor, Cornwall). The Corner Brook directorate is composed (1950 Report) of the President, Sir Eric Vansittart Bowater: a first Vice-President from Montreal: with ten others, six from Newfoundland, one from Montreal, one from London, two from U.S.A. The Vice-President and General Manager is Mr. H. M. Spencer Lewin, whose house and beautiful grounds adjoin the Glynmill Inn. A feature of the organisation is the frequency and closeness of the personal relations between London and Corner Brook. Thus each year Bowater parties come over from Newfoundland to visit English mills, and vice versa. At Corner Brook the economist will find two fruitful lines of study: the economy of the "flow" to, through and from the Mill, and the action of the "multiplier" on Employment and Civic Growth. 1 Acting for a Newfoundland interest, they built the Corner Brook mill, and the Deer Lake Hydro-electric plant, with financial help from the British and Newfoundland Governments.

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THE FLOW. 1. To the Mill. The standard unit of a cut of wood is the cord of 128 cubic feet of pulpwood—say eight feet by four and four feet high. The logs reach the mill by various routes: (i) By stream down the Humber River from the logging areas to salt water, where it is boomed and towed into the mill. (ii) By sea from coastal areas, e.g., in North Newfoundland; towed by tug, on a boom or in great barges of 2,000 cord capacity.1 I saw a converted American landing craft unloading logs at the millside; and in the Bay of Islands I watched all day a tug with boom making no progress, till the ride turned. "She ain't making no headway," said my acquaintance in Frenchman's Cove. Fir he called Var. "My grandfather." he said, "jumped overboard from a French trawler: they weren't treating him proper: and that's how we got to Newfoundland." (iii) By rail. The C.N.R. runs from Curling into the mill-yard, through which the main line passes. Motor transport too plays a part. I saw at Lake St. George logs being unloaded from a truck and forked into the water by the aid of a sickle-shaped hook—for towing over to a rail point on the other side. I saw at Nicholsville, North of Deer Lake, motor trucks that had come down the Lomond Road, on the weighing scale: after which the loads were tilted into the river. For a second or two the truck itself was lifted into the air. (The binding of the logs in steel slings is a new labour-saving economy, motivated by the fact that the cost of delivery to the mill is three times the cost of cutting.) Logs float down stream slowly making their own way. I expected to see jams and men poling them through, but did not. Casual drift, I was told, is pushed in again and thus sent forward. Short of Corner Brook there is a large Assembly pool. Upon entering the Mill. From without the distinctive sight of a paper mill is the triple pyramid of logwood over which an endless belt crawls like a spider. By night the light on the tip twinkles like a star. The logs from the boom are floated into the run-way and drawn up by a current induced by an "impeller" (thus saving, I was told, the labour of a dozen men). The impeller is behind the jack ladder, on which the 2.

1 To economise water transport in World War II Bowaters built a road from Hampden on White Bay to the headwaters of the Humber, fourteen miles distant.

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wood ascends, guided by conveyor chains to barking drums, where the bark is detached by the aid of water sprays. Men with poles pick out "rejects"—half barked logs and stray timber, and let the rest go forward, to be steered into one of three streams. (a) (b) (c)

To the groundwood mill for pulping. To the "chippers" for conversion into sulphite pulp. To the storage pile, for use in winter, say, December to April, when the log pond is frozen. Frost in the pile is a nuisance, and dynamite may be needed to loosen it.

3. In the Manufacturing Process. The paper making machines consist of six units.1 Into them flows the "slurry" or porridge to which the wood has been converted (approximately 80 per cent, is ground wood pulp, produced mechanically, and 20 per cent, sulphur-cooked chips—the sulphurous acid being generated in "acid towers" and pumped into "digesters" filled with chips). At this stage the slurry is only -5 per cent, solid. 99-5 per cent, is water, apart from a tiny quantity of alum and colouring material. In this form it passes over an endless wire, through which the water drains. A series of operations involving suction presses and steam-heated cylindrical dryers reduces the moisture content to 8 per cent., which is the percentage required for efficient printing. In this way the liquid stream becomes by degrees solid paper. Finally the paper is wound on a reel with wooden cores (which come from Canada) and cut into the sizes required by the trade. The standard roll for U.S. weighs 1,500 Ibs. The main market is the Atlantic seaboard—New York, Miami, Savannah, Jacksonville. On July 24, 1952, I saw the Port Vindex (London register) pass out to sea en route for New York, South Africa and Australia. In return will come, from Port Sulphur, Texas, supplies for the acid towers of the sulphur mill. In paper making as in mining one fact stands out above all others. The Conveyor Belt is the Symbol of Modern Industry. The mill capacity is 1,000 tons of newsprint, 150 tons of sulphite 1 Machines No. i, 2, 3 and 4 are 234 inches wide, capable of producing a trimmed sheet with maximum width of 225 inches and at present a speed of 1,300 feet per minute. No. 7 Machine, "Bowater's baby," is 284 inches wide, capable of producing a trimmed sheet of 266 inches wide at a present speed of 1,650 feet to 1,750 feet per minute. Paper Machine No. 5 is 120 inches wide, capable of producing a sheet of 112 inches wide at a present speed of 1,000 feet per minute.

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pulp and ten tons of groundwood pulp per day. This per annum works out to: 325,000 tons newsprint. 47,000 tons sulphite pulp. 3,000 tons groundwood pulp. But the maintenance of this output depends on the cutting programme, to which we now turn. FOREST CONTROL. The conifer rotation is eighty years. "Virgin" forest, like the economist's representative firm, is of all ages. As one tree goes out, another takes its place. There is a natural forest "climax." All the wood used to-day is derived from forest that has been reforested naturally. Newfoundland may one day come to the method of controlled growth by re-planting—as in Great Britain, Germany and Sweden. But this is at present not so urgent as the prevention of forest fire and other damage. One burning can be survived. A single tree to an acre may suffice to cover it again. But several burnings are fatal to plant life. Bowater's cutting programme for the next ten years is at the rate of half million cords a year, against an inventory of eighteen million cords, ready to cut (i.e., thirty-six years of cut). Disease is another enemy. It is considered dangerous, on this account, to introduce exotics. In general it may be said with confidence that the two great companies, Bowaters and A.N.D., are as alive as the Government itself to the necessity of ensuring the future of the forests. By elaborate reconnaissance knowledge is secured and mapped. Resources are re-assessed. Aerial photography is a potent modern ally. Newsprint is not the only use for timber. The two companies need timber for structural purposes, and they have reserves to meet this. They may also let out limits to operators of sawmills, but they do not as a policy promote such operations. There are stands of hardwood in the mainly soft wood forest, and these are not wasted. The newly erected birchwood veneer factory, outside of St. John's, is designed to make full use of this forestal asset. A "Newfoundland Hard Woods" organisation procures permits to cut birch on the property of the companies. It is an overall agreement between the Government and the two companies. Finally, it has to be noted that as an employer the paper company of to-day has two large labour forces: one in the mill and offices, the

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other in the woods. Head office plans the building of camps and roads. The district superintendent sees to the building of them. The cutting of the wood is given out to contractors. A contractor is a foreman who has agreed to work a camp for a season's cut on an allotted area. The company pays the men and charges the wages to the contractor's account. If he gets into difficulty, the operation can be taken over by the company, but the contract system is popular and valuable. The men like the team spirit which it evokes. The company decides where the cut is to be. The individual worker —the lumberjack—works at rates, fixed by the Labour Board. The contractor's job ends when he has got the wood to the despatching point. From that point onwards the company is in charge. Corner Brook is proud of its scenery, "Newfoundland has its back door to the world. Its beauty is on the West Coast." This is true enough, but not in an exclusive sense. There is nothing more beautiful on the West Coast than certain water ways in the south and east: for example, that from Gaultois to St. Albans in Bay D'Espoir, or parts of Notre Dame Bay. I think in particular of the run from Exploits Island to Moreton's Harbour through Black Island Tickle: substantial homes, gaily painted: stages loaded with fish: behind them a roll of green pasture, with fields of potatoes and hay: here a waterfall with cords of piled wood: out there an iceberg on the point of breaking up into ribs of gleaming glass. But at Corner Brook there is the dual attraction of water way and land travel. For the Exploits and Humber River systems form, as it were, an artery across the Island, with Botwood at one end, Corner Brook at the other and Grand Falls in between. How does such an area grow: what are the problems of its growth ? This brings us to our second category. THE ACTION OF THE "MULTIPLIER." The idea behind the phrase is the multiplication of activities consequent upon the presence of a basic industry. The base is newsprint and dependent on it are: (a) Activities directly associated with the company, e.g., Deer Lake Power House: Hammond Farm, the Company's farm: Glynmill Inn. (b) Activities connected with the economic life of Corner Brook —"subsidiary industries." (c) Activities connected with the social life of Corner Brook —"civic amenities."

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20g

DEER LAKE POWER. Outsell, Introduction to the Geography of Newfoundland (1949), p. 56, writes:— "Water Power. An abundance of water-power is available in the island. Most of the sites are located around the perimeter of the island at the plateau edge where falls and rapids have developed. Heavy rainfall throughout most of the year, combined with high humidity and low evaporation produces a high rate of run-off, while the multitude of lakes provide natural reservoirs. At present 12 sites have been developed with a total of 221,600 h.p. and nearly all these sites are capable of expansion. . . . Half of the developed sites are within the Avalon peninsula with a total of 11,100 h.p.". (These are the small sites.) "2 sites on the Exploits River at Grand Falls and Bishop's Falls have been developed by the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company. The Bowater Mills at Corner Brook are provided with power from a plant situated at Deer Lake." (These are the three large sites.) The Hydro-electric plant at Deer Lake provides Corner Brook with its power—the town as well as the mill, being carried directly into the mill sub-station by means of a thirty-two mile doubletower transmission line. It also for the present supplies power to Buchans.1 The figures given in the Donald Ross Industrial Survey (1950) read: River or Capacity in Horse Power Owner. Anglo-Newfoundland Development Co. Bowater's Newfoundland Pulp and Paper Mills Total in Island

Location.

Grand Falls Bishop's Falls Buchans Deer Lake

Water

System.

Exploits Deer Lake

Installed 1948. 54,000 16,000 2,500 150,000

Estimated

260,000

356,000

Ultimate. 104,000 36,000 2,500 150,000

Considerable as these figures are, the total is small by comparison with the estimated power potential of five million h.p. at Muskrat and Grand Falls in Newfoundland-Labrador. THE HAMMOND FARM. (Little Rapids, outside Corner Brook.) If you took two lads of intelligence, one from Sittingbourne, Kent, and one from Corner Brook and asked them this question, "What has Bowaters to do with straw?", they might with quite different answers equally deserve full marks. 1 The water, flowing down from the higher level of Grand Lake, is canalised and led through great pipes to the power house at the lower level of Deer Lake. But there are no scenic Falls as on the Niagara and Exploits rivers.

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Sittingbourne boy: "Straw is a raw material of the modern paper mill, not less than pulpwood. Observe that great straw stack outside our mill. Some comes from France, much from Essex and other corn-growing counties of England. The trade is highly organized. A straw-trading company, acting for the paper companies, has a buying agency in touch with travelling merchants, who collect from the farms. In straw value the order of the grains is wheat, oats, barley. Straw makes excellent cardboard and corrugated paper. But the most valuable of all the grasses is Esparto grass obtained from the Atlas Mountains of North Africa." Corner Brook boy: "Bowaters have a dairy farm at Little Rapids, Humbermouth, the manager being Mr. Michael Bell, formerly of Scotland. A paper mill makes a drain on the resources of the land: a dairy farm puts fertility back into the soil. In the Humber Valley water is abundant and never fails, but the soil, being light and sandy, needs strengthening. Therefore straw is imported from Prince Edward Island and humus is added to the soil through the intermediary of the feeding herd. These are Ayrshires from Aberdeen, registered pure-breds; and they add to the wealth of the locality in two ways: they supply the town with pure milk; and serve as a stimulus to the smaller farms round about." By subsidiary industries I mean such things as: Deer Lake Motor Repairs Centre. Humberside Saw Mills of Wm. J. Landrigan Ltd. (concerned also in road construction and cement making). Corner Brook Garage Ltd., a selling agency, doing repairs—one of many. Newfoundland Engineering & Construction Co. Western Terminals for reception of General Merchandise (formerly the Clarke SS. Co., Quebec: now owned locally). Newfoundland Tractor Co. Canada Packers (suppliers of meat-stuffs). The Corner Brook Co-operative Society: and other stores in the shopping area. A feature of this community is the very real effort which has been made to achieve industrialism without loss of beauty; and the subject has been under expert examination of recent years. I quote from the Report of John Bland and Harold Spence Sales on the Urban Development of Greater Corner Brook, August, 1951. "The spectacular quality of the landscape in which Greater Corner Brook has developed, is such that it must not be ignored. The soft lines of wooded hills and the contrasting jagged rocks produces profiles of very great beauty that afford striking backgrounds to the

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settings of the buildings of the town. The indiscriminate destruction of the skyline by crude and sporadic building must be prevented. The pattern of development has been clearly determined by these physical features. The mill and the town site have been constructed upon the only extensive areas. The main roads have been extended along the easier and more practicable grades. Outside of the serviced area houses have been built anywhere upon sites from which a natural water supply can be extracted. An extensive scattering of houses and the utilisation of awkward sites from the stand-point of access has thereby resulted. The Trans-Canada Highway, which is now nearing completion, will have a decisive impact upon the circulatory system of the urban complex by completely reorientating the approaches to the area. Moreover it will seriously affect the functions of the roads by increasing the type and number of vehicles in use. The link between the TransCanada Highway and the Humber Road through the town site will therefore become an arterial route, vitally affecting the area through which it passes. It is therefore of the utmost importance that a clear and separate route should be achieved by striking the Humber Road at a point where an appropriate intersection can be designed and diffusion can appropriately take place." From my room in Glynmill Inn I looked out across the big pond to the woods beyond, with houses straggling to the skyline: system and beauty at the centre: private enterprise and rawness on the outskirts. It is a familiar story. But what Sweden has done, Newfoundland could do. Stockholm, with its thriving industries, green belt and absolute cleanliness, might well be taken as a model. For the foundations of the two economies are very similar: namely water-power, mineral and forestal resources. Sometimes an industrial centre grows at the expense of outlying feeders. The reverse is true of Bowaters. In the Northern Peninsula, especially, with its fine stands of spruce and fir, they are community builders, taking over old sawmills, and preventing, perhaps, temporary desolation, equipping advantageous points with schools and houses, building roads across the peninsula, or to reach the railway; and thus giving an economic unity to North Newfoundland by land as well as by sea. The Labrador, too, is within their ambit. Port Hope Simpson is now sending pulp wood to the Old Country under their direction. How the Labrador forest will be utilised remains to be seen. But one may guess and hope that it will be in association with the technical experience and marketing contacts of Bowaters and A.N.D., with their proven sense of responsibility for the community life which they bring into being.

CHAPTER TWELVE

WABANA, AGUATHUNA, AND INTRODUCTION TO KNOB LAKE

WABANA. Wabana is an Indian name meaning the place where the light first shines, and was applied to Bell Island in Conception Bay as being the most easterly land mass on the Atlantic coast. Aguathuna is also an Indian name meaning White Rock and was adopted at the request of the inhabitants of Jack of Clubs Cove (the first name of the place) in the district of St. George on the West Coast beyond Stephenville. Thus these two mining enterprises, controlled now by a corporation on the mainland, commemorate their Island nativity. They are, however, not the oldest or only mining enterprises on the Island. There are old copper and iron workings in or near Notre Dame Bay, and mining in this region may be resumed one day. Tilt Cove union mine (later leased to the Cape Copper Company)— copper and iron pyrites: Little Bay—copper: Pilley's Island—iron pyrites: Bett's Cove (by Nipper's Harbour)—copper and nickel. On July 29, 1910, Arthur Pittman wrote from Tilt Cove to Judge Prowse. "From 1846 to 1886 the Old West mine produced 64,461 tons of copper ore, averaging about 10%. Some of the ore gave over 20% and the lowest quantity shipped about 4%. During that time it yielded 14,185 tons. For the last two years they have been making an open cut on the West Bluff and from it have saved 4,000 tons of ore. The East mine between 1888 and 1909 yielded 1,241,021 tons. Smelting was an expensive item for the Cape Copper Company; and with the necessary costs of mining and shipment involved a debt of £90,000. But the tide turned at last and in the u years previous to the end of 1909 dividends of £445,000 were earned; in one year alone there was a dividend of £99,340—this was some 5 or 6 years ago, when the price of copper was over £ 1,000 per ton." (Papers of Dr. Cluny Macpherson.)

Last summer, as we left Twillingate, I was shown on a rock the rusted iron ring to which the ore boats had tied. Over on the West Coast there is an example of an old working coming to life again: namely the copper-lead mines at York Harbour, Bay of Islands, opened fifty years ago and now in action once more. From the 212

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white house by the water's edge a waggon way leads up to the mine, keeping to one side of a precipitous water course. Mr. J. Barrett, Curling's Grand Old Man, told me that c. 1912 he was cashier to the company, when it was the American Mining and Manufacturing Co., but they could not persuade the men to stay—they would go off for fishing and haymaking. But now the old workings have been pumped out for a new start under Messrs. Strathey & Patterson. It is i,800 feet from the water to the pit-head, quite a climb for a man with a heavy cash bag on his shoulder. More significant for the mineral pattern of the Island are the fluorspar deposits located near St. Lawrence at the South end of the Burin peninsula.1 Development began in 1932, the product being shipped to the Sydney smelter. Production rose during the war from 8,000 tons in 1937 to 15,000 in 1940 and 26,000 in 1946. All these are seaboard deposits, like the two we are about to describe. The exception is Buchans. That enterprise was dependent on inland transport; and its development fell logically to those who took over the land grant concessions of the railway builders, i.e., to the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company Ltd. In a chapter on the Economic Development of the Maritime Provinces of Canada, 1867-1921 (Cambridge History of the British Empire, Vol. VI, Canada, Ch. XXVII), in which I appear as coauthor on the strength of some observations on co-operation and agriculture, Professor Innis wrote:— "Situated in that part of North America which is nearest to Great Britain, and possessing numerous ocean ports open the whole year, they were subject, tariff or no tariff, to the industrial competition of the two most highly developed areas of western civilisation. Their industries, like their coast line, have been beaten upon by pitiless waves. The diversified character of their raw materials has limited the development of mass production, and cheap ocean navigation has exposed them to the competition of countries in which mass production has increasingly prevailed. The result has been to compel a readjustment of economic life and a concentration upon bedrock activities. They have exploited raw materials in which they had natural advantages, and developed by specialisation the distinctive resources of their soil. At Confederation the population was chiefly English, Scotch and Irish; and apart from some increase of French in New Brunswick the racial constituents have remained, on the whole, unchanged. The population is homogeneous, highly individualistic and remarkably adaptable. Individual enterprise, acting 1 On the opposite side of Placentia Bay, Argentia, the American base, commemorates the silver once mined there. In the Bay itself Roosevelt and Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter.

o

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on a variety of natural resources, is the keynote of their economic life." (op. cit. 658.)

This goes for Newfoundland also. Later paragraphs in our chapter describe the attack on the bedrock of coal and iron by the Dominion Steel Corporation, as it was styled in 1910, and by the more quietly successful Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company. These two in 1920 united to form the British Empire Steel Corporation—BESCO, the predecessor of DOSCO. For the former of the two constituents, ore was obtained from Wabana, Newfoundland, by arrangement with the company which was working that field. In the case of the latter (the Nova Scotia), "difficulties in procuring suitable local ore led in 1894 to the acquisition of a deposit at Wabana on Bell Island in Conception Bay, Newfoundland. This ore proved marvellously rich; and in order to be closer to the new ore and to take advantage of cheaper and better coking coal, properties were purchased in 1900 in Cape Breton adjacent to those of the Dominion Coal Company" (ibid. 665)—a third constituent of the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (DOSCO). Thus Wabana is Newfoundland's contribution to the partnership of Island ore and Mainland coal; and the ore goes to the coal for smelting at Sydney, Cape Breton, following the law observed long ago by Stanley Jevons in his Coal Question: namely that the more compact ore goes to the bulkier fuel. The Island story is brought down to the present in three publications :— (i) B. V. Outsell, An Introduction to the Geography of Newfoundland. Geographical Bureau, Ottawa, 1949. (ii) Wabana Iron Ore—a Description of the Wabana Iron Ore Properties of the Dominion Steel & Coal Corporation Ltd., being a paper presented as part of a Symposium on Iron Ore at the annual meeting of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy —Quebec, April 9, 1951, by C. M. Anson, General Manager, Steel Operations Dominion Steel & Coal Corporation Ltd., 1951. (iii) Album of Avalon, Guardian Press, May, 1952. Gutsell writes (pp. 51-2):— "The Bell Island Mines. The Wabana iron ore deposits (red hematite) are Newfoundland's greatest known mineral asset and are also one of the largest known deposits in the world. The red sandstones were first noted by the

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geologist G. B. Jukes in 1840, but it was not until 1892 that the rocks were identified as hematite. The following year mining operations were commenced and in 1895 the first cargo of iron ore was shipped from Wabana. Since 1899 the mines have been developed and operated by the same interests as the steel industry in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and this plant has taken more than 50% of the 40 million tons of ore that have been extracted. Between the two world wars Germany was the greatest single importer and only a small quantity went to the United Kingdom and the United States. Since 1939 exports have been maintained at a high level, despite the disappearance of the uerman market, by increased shipments to the United Kingdom. Bell Island, about 6 miles long and 2 miles wide, is built of Ordovician sandstone and shales, overlying Cambrian formations. The beds dip gently north-west and continue below the floor of Conception Bay. The workable beds are mined on the north-west side of the island and mining operations have been extended in submarine workings under Conception Bay for a distance of 2£ miles. The reserves of iron ore within the limits of submarine mining have been estimated at 2,500 million tons. The figures are based on geological data only and are very approximate, as other estimates have been as high as 10,000 million tons." It is laughable to think that the Newfoundland Estate Book of Newman & Co. has under the year 1776 this entry: "Belle Isle. Nothing received for it. Fell due to us thro' a mortgage." The latest figures issued by Dominion Wabana Ore Ltd. reveal significant market trends. (Bills of lading tonnage: gross tonnage in round ooo's) Cumulative Total since U.S. Total Total 1895 Year Canada Germany U.K. Belgium U.S. 605,000 — — 1,280,000 44,402,000 44,402,000 J947 674,000 — 1,717,000 46,120,000 — — 1948 758,000 95,000 862,000 47,600,000 711,000 — 30,000 1,480,000 47,600,000 1949 738,000 — — 20,000 1,045,000 48,645,000 48,645,000 195° 858,000 47,000 119,000 — 19,000 1,549,000 50,195,000 1951 666,000 150,000 713,000 These figures show that: 1. Approximately half the output goes to the steel plant at Sydney. 2. Germany is back again after her elimination during the war years. 3. The U.K. has become a big consumer, her average taking being several times that of pre-war years. (Was the 1950 drop due to shortage of dollars?) 4. The U.S. gets her ore elsewhere.

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5. The fifty million mark of aggregate output has been passed— the exact figure, as of 1951, being 50,195,299 tons. With the photos of the Symposium and the Album of Avalon before us, we leave the placid beaches of Western Bay (the birthplace of E. J. Pratt) for the turmoil of island mining. The illustrations show us: 1. Braw lads, with lamps on their helmets, just up from the mine. There are some 2,000 of them. 2. A great scoop-shovel at the working face, loading ore on to cars, which, like London's trams, are about to be discarded. For this is the sequence of invention:—from tram to trolley-bus: from railcar to road truck: from elevator to escalator: from electric locomotive to endless rubber band. 3. A panorama of the scene above ground, showing on the south side, facing Portugal Cove, the harbour and, leading down to it, the runway and winding motor road. 4. Further along, on the same south shore the loading pits of the ore ships. Here, as at Aguathuna, there is deep water for big ships. 5. On top, in the centre, the "deck heads" of the mine shafts, which will be a single deck head, fed by belts, when the "Rubber Railroad" is working. I saw the R.R. parts laid out in readiness alongside the old tracks. From the deckhead the ore is loaded by gravity into giant trucks and carried on a wide macadamised road to the cliff side, to be dumped into the loading pit. When both shoots are working, 9,950 tons of ore can be put into the ship's hold in one hour twenty minutes. I watched the Baron Murray loading for England. The British Empire Steel Products Co. Ltd., of Brettenham House, Strand, W.C.2, by Waterloo Bridge, handles DOSCO products in Britain. The office has been in action since 1919. British Empire Steel Products charters freight from different owners, and the ore is shipped in even quantities to different ports—London, Glasgow, Birkenhead, Middlesbrough, the Tyne, Bristol Channel (for South Wales). It sells to the British Iron & Steel Corporation Ore Ltd., which is the joint buying agency of British steel producers for their requirements of iron ore and manganese. The buyer finds the dollars. The Symposium photos are more technical than those of the Album. They show: (1) Self-propelled drill-mobile, at the face. (2) Slusher-hoist, delivering ore into 5-ton mining car.

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(3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

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"E.O." crawler shovel, loading ore. "Joy" loader delivering ore into shuttle car. Shuttle car delivering ore into 5-ton mining cars. Electric locomotive hauling ore-train along main level. 24-ton slope car reaching surface after z\ mile journey. Steamer loading 14,000 tons of ore.

Bell Island rises out of the ocean with a vertical cliff averaging 220 feet and it is some thirteen square miles in area. In shape, it resembles somewhat the county of Sussex in England. At the west end are the Bell and Clapper Rocks, so visible at every turn of the highway round Conception Bay. At the east end is Eastern Head lighthouse—Wabana's twinkle to the rising sun. On the outcrop I picked up several specimens of the distinctively marked ore, but this is now worked out. Present operations are submarine. It is the privilege of the historian to delve into origins. In Memoir 78 of the Geological Survey, Ottawa (1915), p. 75, A. O. Hayes writes: "The ruins of old stones in five places at Lance Cove [on the south side of the Island] point to the early settlement of Bell Island, but no accurate history is at hand concerning the pioneers. Primitive farming was carried on during the latter half of the igth century by Irish settlers, who took their product to St. John's in sailing vessels. Anchors were frequently made by enclosing the heavy 'red rock' in frames made from small fir trees, but no one realised the value of these rocks for many years. Eventually it was recognised and the property was acquired by Messrs. Butler of Topsail, from whom it was purchased by the Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Co. in 1893. The property was developed by R. E. Chambers." To this I can add a story given me at Bishop's Falls. Everywhere I had been trying to meet with, or be told about, old-timers; and after inspecting the remains of the old rail trestles below the Falls, I was introduced to Mr. James Butler, who volunteered the following: "My grandfather was the discoverer of the Bell Island ore, and he found it by accident. He had a coasting boat, running from Port de Grave to St. John's. Caught in a breeze of wind, he took shelter back of the Island and went ashore for ballast, to carry to St. John's. Unloading the ballast on the wharf, he got talking with a foreigngoing skipper; and the two wondered if it had any value. The upshot was that the skipper took a sample and had it analysed, and that is how Bell Island was started."

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When I pressed for more, he went on: "After the sample had been taken, the assayers wrote asking for a further 50 Ibs. for analysis. Grandfather took no notice of the letter, thinking they were asking for £50. He couldn't read or write himself. The first time Bell Island was sold the seven optioners threw it up, and some lawyers took a water claim on the north side of the Island. Meanwhile grandfather had moved to Topsail to his mother's brother there, and one day he took a prospector over to the Island. He expected $5 for ferry-service, but instead the prospector gave him a miner's claim and told him to keep his mouth shut. The claim in the end fetched $5,000." Later at Grand Falls I met an old gentleman, Mr. Ireland, who had been with the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company in its early days. He had been posted for a time to Millertown and used to go up once a fortnight to the Buchans mine when it was being started. Once at Millertown from his office window he saw a vast herd of caribou crossing the ice on Red Indian Lake, an unbroken line, which took hours to pass. This was about the year 1907. These incidents emerged, as I was trying to draw the old gentleman on the subject of where the mine-workers at Buchans came from. Many of them, he said, had come from Bell Island and Conception Bay—working along the railway as it was built, till they reached Grand Falls. Thus Grand Falls was the bridge head to Buchans. Detail such as this does not easily get into the history books; but as I crossed from Corner Brook to Botwood I was conscious of coming among a population which had flowed over from the East, either themselves or their parents, some from Fogo and Twillingate, others from Conception Bay and St. John's; and again and again these folk would tell me that their grandparents had come from the Old Country. Place names often tell a story. Why Millertown, why Lewisporte ? The matter was settled for me when at Botwood I met Mr. James Arklie, whose father was secretary to Lewis Miller & Co., the Scottish firm, after which the two places are named. There can be few countries in the New World whose place names have so much significant history in them as have those of Newfoundland. AGUATHUNA. If it had been called King of Diamonds Cove, the name might have stuck, or have been improved to Kingsville or Diamantina—for which escape let us be thankful.

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I was in luck surely that day; for I arrived without notice and after climbing the office stairs had turned to leave when a car drew up and out of it stepped Mr. A. House, the head of the concern. He took me round the quarries and explained the different processes: the limestone face on the water edge and underneath the convenient band of dolomite which, on removal, frees the stone: the new richer deposit further back, in colour not white but like grey putty: the drilling of charges to be exploded on Monday (it was a Saturday, and in Newfoundland you don't fish or explode on Sundays): a stone scouring hammer, which loosens the rocks: a scoop shovel, loading into trucks from which the stone is dumped into hoppers, where it is split, crushed and hand-picked: and then taken by an endless belt to the loading point by the ship's side. The ore ships are there one hour and gone the next without any of the ceremony which attends the leaving of a coastal passenger ship. The quarries used to generate their own power, but they get it now from St. George's Hydro. "Previous to 1913" writes Mr. A. House in a manuscript on which I am permitted to draw, "the Dominion Iron & Steel Company got its limestone from Cape Breton. The deposit was not extensive, and it was badly faulted: so search was made for a better. Limestone is required as a flux to cleanse the impurities from the ore: not a fraction remains in the steel. I was then Assistant Manager at Wabana, and was sent here to prospect, arriving on October 18, 1910, with an old-country engineering friend." There were no roads to the property, and the only way to it was by dory along an exposed north shore. Having located the property, they had it blocked off, sank test pits and sent the samples to Sydney: the property showing to be a high calciferous limestone deposit. That winter was long and severe, and the bay was frozen solid, but this made it possible to sound the depth of water along the shore, and from observations of storms next summer (1911), it appeared that the best place for a foothold was Jack 0' Clubs Cove, so named by the Royal Navy from the fancied likeness of the cliff to that gentleman in the pack of cards. The first need was timber, and gangs of men were set to work, cutting long lumber. The Company sent over a ship with cement, piledriver and other machinery, but while the cargo was being unloaded, a storm piled up the pontoons and broke the raft on which the lumber was stored. More lumber was obtained from the St. George's Lumber Company, a defunct concern, and towed round into

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a pond where they had set up their own sawmill. It was now February, 1912: and the ice at the pier site was fourteen inches thick, so they sawed through it and sank the ballast floor. "The weight of the timber going on just kept it about a foot above the ice and very convenient for handling the heavy logs. We put our blacksmith shop on the ice and built a bough fence about 15 feet high all around the block for shelter. We had every team that could be engaged from Stephenville, with our own, hauling timber. We worked long hours, and there were no squealers. On March 16, 1912, it touched bottom. We drove 200 piles 55 feet long, through the wide block. We poured in ballast relentlessly—30,000 tons at least. We had won against the elements." The danger all along had been this:—"should the ice move off at any time during construction before it reached bottom we would lose everything: on the other hand, if we waited until spring and open water, there still would be the difficulty of holding it in position with every breeze of wind." Mr. House continues:— "We had an able crowd of men from the north side of Bonavista Bay, and the labour locally was good. Of course, the class of work was new to them but it did not take them long to catch on. That was 40 years ago and many of them still work with the Company and hold responsible jobs. . . . We began quarrying operations in April, 1913. Our face was very contracted and it took us some time to get elbow room. We continued shipping stone and lengthening the quarry face. Our operations produced only a small part of the requirements that the Sydney Steel Plant required, but Marble Mountain on Bradore Lake produced the balance. As our production increased, Marble Mountain dropped off and in 3 years we were able to handle all the requirements for blast furnace purposes." Such was the epic of Aguathuna. And what sort of man is the boss ? Is he stern and hard-bitten like the elements over which he had triumphed? On the contrary, he was a kindly gentleman,with a smile for everyone, and everyone nodding in return. He was very proud of the club room, and other provisions for the social welfare of his people. Instinctively you would have asked him to serve as President of your Y.M.C.A. INTRODUCTION TO KNOB LAKE I take my introduction from an address given by W. H. Durrell, General Manager of Iron Ore Company of Canada, Montreal, to

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American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers National Open Hearth Steel Committee at Buffalo on April 21, 1953. "The Development of Quebec-Labrador Iron Ore Deposits by Iron Ore Company of Canada." "Iron ore was first discovered in Labrador in 1929, but it was not until seven years later that a 20,000 square mile concession for its development was obtained by Montreal mining interests. Geological parties were put in the field, and by the end of 1939 six of the currently recognised ore bodies had been found. At that time it became evident that what was long known as New Quebec, or Ungava, also held deposits of iron ore, and a license was obtained covering 3,900 square miles there, adjacent to the Labrador concession. Work was suspended during 1940 and 1941 because of the lack of money, and it was not until 1942 that the development really commenced with the association of the Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines Limited, headed by Jules R. Timmins, wellknown to Canadians, and The M.A. Hanna Company, of Cleveland, of which George M. Humphrey, your present Secretary of the Treasury, was President. "The ore field may be located geographically on Latitude 54° 50' N. and Longitude 66° 50' W. about 320 air miles north of Seven Islands, a port on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, some 500 miles below Montreal. The majority of the deposits are centred about this section, close to or astride the Quebec-Newfoundland interprovincial boundary. The area is a glaciated, plateau of moderate relief. Most of it is between 1,500 and 2,500 feet above sea level. Lakes and rivers are numerous, and in many parts, water covers over 50 per cent, of the surface. In the valleys and sheltered areas there are fair stands of timber. "Rock outcrops throughout the northern section are numerous. In the southern portion, outcrops are confined mostly to the crests or slopes of the larger ridges, and here test pitting, drilling and/or geophysical methods were amployed to determine geological features. "During the early years, work was confined mostly to prospecting, geological mapping, and some drilling. "The ore varies from one ore body to another and even from place to place within individual deposits. Most of the ore consists of mixed hematite but occasionally magnetite is present. To date siderite has not been observed within an ore body although it is prevalent in lean iron formation in some places.

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"In 1947 it was decided that as a prerequisite for financing, it would be necessary to prove 300 million tons of direct shipping, open pit ore. Intensive drilling operations to determine the depth of the large surface area of ore began. The field base was moved from Hollinger Lake to its present site near Knob Lake. 'Quonset' buildings were flown to Knob Lake to house exploration personnel. A portable sawmill was delivered so that buildings would be erected from local timber. A semi-permanent camp was constructed including bunkhouses, dining halls and kitchens, office, warehouses, chemical laboratory, and a modern machine shop. Although most of the supplies and equipment in 1947 were landed on the winter ice of Knob Lake, a land strip was put in operation by early fall so that large aircraft could land the year round. Heavier tractors were flown in and began the first roads. Trucks, jeeps, compressors, and drills followed. Portable churn drills and equipment for converting the unsatisfactory coring drills to chopping drills were purchased. The first large caterpillar-mounted churn drill arrived in the early fall of 1947; more followed in 1948. "The 300 million ton objective was reached in October, 1948, but by then the requirements had been raised to 400 million tons. By the end of 1950 ore reserves reached the present figure of 418 million tons of direct shipping ore. Over 2,700 tons of ore were indicated with each foot of drilling. This high rate of yield was largely due to the concentration of effort resulting from having accurate, detailed geological maps. Thus, the wastage of footage in barren sections was kept at a minimum. "Drill cuttings were used almost exclusively for analyses and ore calculations as it was found impractical to core the ore. Separate samples were collected for each five foot section. One to two pounds of each sample were stored for future reference after the sample had been logged and analysed. A binocular microscope proved to be indispensable for determining the mineral and textural composition of the ores and other formations. With it, the iron content can usually be estimated within two per cent. "Most, but not all, of the effort during the 1947-50 period was devoted to drilling. In 1947, adits were driven into two of the ore deposits, and three shafts were excavated the following year. These underground workings were driven to check the ore grade as determined from drilling and to obtain information as to structure, specific gravity, and moisture content of the ore. "Much shallow pitting and trenching through the overburden were

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done. Previous to 1949 this work had been done with hand tools or tractor blades. Small mechanical shovels equipped with a backhow attachment were obtained that year capable of digging to a depth of fifteen feet. These proved to be a tremendously important tool for outlining ore bodies. "With the ore in sight, Iron Ore Company of Canada was formed for the purpose of further financing the development. In this new organisation, five steel companies—Republic Steel Corporation, National Steel Corporation, Armco Steel Corporation, Wheeling Steel Corporation, and The Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company— joined with Hollinger-Hanna and the two concession companies in order to prepare for commercial production. Another new company, Hollinger-Hanna Limited, equally owned by Hollinger and Hanna, was formed to supervise management of the operations. "Iron Ore Company of Canada has been given the right to lease, under certain conditions, a large part of the iron ore reserves in both of the concessions, with the underlying concession companies retaining ample reserves for the Canadian Steel industry and for exportation overseas. "To give you an idea of size, the present concession area is almost equivalent to a strip a mile wide around the earth at the equator. A large part of the area is favourable to the deposition of non-ferrous metals, but the bulk of it is good prospecting ground for iron ore. "The importance of this iron ore area can best be appreciated by comparison to the famous Mesabi Range. On Mesabi, the area of favourable rock is no miles long and from one to five miles wide, with a productive zone about seventy miles long. On our concessions the area of favourable rock, situated in what is known as the Labrador Trough, is 225 miles long and from ten to sixty miles wide. In Quebec-Labrador, exploration already completed discloses that the productive zone is ninety miles long, with good chances of being extended at both ends. The Mesabi is covered generally by thick over-burden, and the iron ore deposits were found by test-pitting and systematic test-drilling. In Labrador and Quebec, most of our ore has been developed from a few surface deposits, and when it is considered that at least ninety-five per cent, of the area is covered by over-burden, and that there remains thousands of square miles of favourable territory still to be explored, it can be seen that the possibilities for developing additional ore are tremendous. More than 200 million tons are within a radius of a mile or two of our base camp at Knob Lake.

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"When bull-dozing roads to some of the known surface deposits, high-grade ore was uncovered in a number of places just a foot or two below the surface. These might develop into considerable tonnages, but we have not had time as yet to investigate them. In another instance, when a new churn drill was set up behind the machine shop to be tested, ore was encountered accidentally after drilling two or three feet. The hole was continued to a depth of 367 feet, and it was still in high-grade when stopped. It was later found that our entire base camp was over this ore body. This, I might mention, was the only deposit drilled which was not discovered as a surface outcrop. It contains more than ten million tons averaging 63 per cent. iron. "Almost any type of ore is available ranging from lump to highly manganiferous. Of the manganiferous ore, forty-four million tons will average 50 per cent, iron and 8 per cent, manganese. "In addition to the proven high grade ores in the vicinity of Knob Lake, there are millions of tons of slightly lower grade wash ores which will be mined but are not included in the 418 millions. Also, in the Wabuch Lake section of the Labrador concession, approximately 150 miles south-west of Knob Lake, there is an almost unlimited quantity of concentrating ore averaging better than 40 per cent, iron.1 "Mining will be the least of our problems. It will be entirely an open pit operation, with the mining season limited to six months because of the possibility of the ore freezing in transit between the mines and the port of Seven Islands." Mr. DurrelTs reference to churn drills adds meaning to the note supplied after my lecture by I.O.C.'s employment agent in St. John's, viz.:— "The most intriguing men on the job at Burnt Creek, without doubt, are the Newfoundlanders who man the heavy churn drills. What splendid men they are: tall, handsome, industrious, proud, polite, intensely interested in the work at hand—regardless of whether the structure being drilled is in Labrador or Quebec—these recent Canadians are among I.O.C.'s most dependable and efficient employees. Indeed, Newfoundland has given to the overall project not only its important portion of the great trough of iron, but also of its men." (E. C. Allingham, "The Great Quebec-Labrador Venture." Mining Bulletin of 1952.) 1 The lie of the land brings it just within Labrador, but the railway, which passes to the east of it, is in Quebec! C. R. F.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE LABRADOR POTENTIAL PRE-VIEW THE ECONOMY OF THE LABRADOR. The technological revolution (for it is nothing less) has reached the continental mass of Labrador. This mainland, in addition to its ancient fishery and trapping, has a high potential of mineral, and forestal wealth and an abundance of hydro-electric power awaiting development. But the summer is short, the winters are severe; and the development implies the introduction of mainland techniques as practiced already in Northern Ontario and Northern Quebec. Air transport and rail transport are playing key parts. It happens that Labrador is on the air route from Montreal to Prestwick and London, and there are few of us who have not seen Goose Bay and also few of us who have seen more than Goose Bay. Until, say, 1939, Labrador was what it had always been, a coastal fishery with a hinterland of trapping, financed by merchant houses but relying on the individual enterprise of the small unit. The new Labrador will be a field of industrial operations financed by large financial interests and employing the resources of modern engineering in large scale enterprise. As this exploitation proceeds, the four conservations so vital to Newfoundland, conservation of resources, of physical beauty, of social morale and of historical memories must be guarded jealously here also; and the new Labrador starts with one great asset. There will be no more wrangling over boundaries; for Newfoundland, with Newfoundland Labrador, is now part of the Dominion of Canada. It is difficult to see how chaos could have been avoided, if the sovereignty had remained in St. John's, while the finance came from the metropolitan centres of Britain, Canada, or the U.S.A. This consideration, by itself, amply justified the entry of Newfoundland into Confederation with Canada in 1949. The Privy Council Award of March i, 1927, said: "The boundary between Canada and Newfoundland in the Labrador Peninsula is a line drawn due N. from the Eastern Boundary of the bay or harbour of Ance Sablon as far as the 52° degree N. Latitude, and from thence W. along that parallel to Romaine River, and N. along the E. bank of that river and its head waters to their 225

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source, and then due N. to the crest of the watershed, and then W. of N. along the crest of the watershed of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic up to Lake Chidley." W. G. Gosling's Labrador (1910) demonstrated the strength of the Newfoundland case from the standpoint of history. It is unanswerable.1 THE LITERARY SOURCES. These fall into two groups, (a) official, (b) private. (a) Official. The Colonial Office Records (C.O. 194) and the Customs and Excise Records in London (Newfoundland volumes) contain much material on the early history of the Labrador. They are concerned with the supervision of the fisheries (cod, seal, salmon): with revenue regulation: with the administration of justice: and with a steady support for the Moravian Mission to the Eskimos. But the Privy Council Award was not only based on history, it published this history in a series of historical appendices, relating to the original inhabitants and early traders and to the competing claims of Americans, Canadians, and Newfoundlanders to fishing rights and property on the coast. Among these statements submitted in support of the Newfoundland case was that of William Collingwood (father of Mr. Tom Collingwood) of St. John's: "born in Poole, Dorset, England, and came out to Battle Harbour, Labrador, in 1855, as a Clerk in the employ of Slade & Co., who had fishing premises at Battle Harbour and Venison Island, etc." The territorial story begins with Governor Palliser's Proclamation of 1763 and the subsequent changes: 1763—Annexed by Proclamation to Newfoundland. 1774—Annexed by Act to Canada. 1809—Reannexed to Newfoundland. 1825—Reannexation affirmed, but St. Lawrence coast, Anticosti and the Magdalen Islands attached now to Lower Canada.2 The two things which stand out in this history are:— (1) The effective protecting power, from start to finish, of the British Navy. (2) The tie-in of the economy of Newfoundland with that of Labrador, which was not artificial but real and fundamental to both. It was, of course, by and large, a fishing economy. 1 W. G. Gosling, Labrador, Its Discovery, Exploration and Development. London, Alston Rivers, 1910. a By 6 Geo IV c. 59. For legal detail see L. J. Jackman in Newfoundland Quarterly, June, 1955.

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Labrador came into the fishery picture in the mid-eighteenth century. A Bristol memorial to the Board of Trade, 1759, runs: "It is thought proper to acquaint your Lordships that since this war several ships have gone to the northward even so far as the Straight of Belle Isle; that they have inspected the harbours which the French been used to fish at; and have found them very convenient for the fishery, and stored with much greater plenty of fish than our harbours and the coast to the southward." In policy the Labrador trade was regarded as a second Greenland trade, to be kept open for all British fishermen, and the West Country Customs Records, 1760 on, contain numerous references to the importation of furs, seal oil and seal skins both from Newfoundland and the Labrador.1 But for long there was no white resident population, and no machinery for the collection of customs duties; and there was a dispute of long standing on the question of liability to duty. Attorney General Simms, July, 1843, ruled cautiously that the Revenue Laws of the Colony certainly extended to Labrador, but could not with equity be enforced in the absence of a resident customs service. (b) Private. Private records comprise business records and the biographical material of missionaries and explorers. For the eighteenth century there is George Cartwright's Labrador Journal and the as yet unpublished Journal of Sir Joseph Banks' "Journal of a Voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador, 1766." For the present centuries we have the autobiographies of Sir Wilfred Grenfell and the narrative of the Gino Watkins expedition in which the leader lost his life. The title is The Land that God gave Cain, by J. M. Scott, one of the party, and like the leader a Cambridge man. And there are valuable unpublished clerical records, such as those of the Battle Harbour Mission at Battle Harbour, and the Journal of the Rev. Henry Gordon of Cartwright (a fragment of the original MS. now at Queen's College, St. John's), and no doubt others elsewhere.2 1 The Jerseymen were very prominent in the Straits, and one of the gaps in my scholarship is that I have not yet been to St. Helier to see what records survive there. (Since repaired—see the Newfoundland- Quarterly from June 1955 onwards.) 1 Among secondary authorities may be mentioned also: A Winter in Labrador, 1918-9 (small pamphlet). Journal of the Rev. Henry Gordon, Cartwright, Labrador. Dillon Wallace (i) Lure of the Labrador Wild, (ii) The Long Labrador Trail. Mrs. Leonides Hubbard, A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador (John Murray, London, 1908).

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But the outstanding private source, based on a scientific expedition, is the treatise by a Scandinavian scholar, V. Tanner, Newfoundland-Labrador, two volumes, Cambridge University Press, 1947. This in conjunction with the Privy Council appendices brings the story down to 1940: and I draw on it and them in what follows. CLIMATE. There are two Labrador climates. (1) Sub-Arctic, which characterises a narrow coastal zone of islands and of mainland bordering the sea—the Labrador of the fishermen. (2) That of the interior, in part heavily forested, where a summer climate replaces the ice-chilled coastal climate. Along the West of Lake Melville potatoes, rhubarb and hardy vegetables do well. But there are midsummer frosts at North West River, which is at the head of Lake Melville, say one summer in four. Some twelve miles from the coast begins the forest. Black spruce dominates in the Lake Melville district, white spruce, further inland. In burnt-out places white birch takes hold. Berries are prolific—especially cranberries and bake-apples. The frequent rains keep down forest fires. The Hamilton River is the St. Lawrence of the Labrador, and a key factor, not so much because of its waterway as because of its water power. This river at some 200 miles from its mouth forces itself through a range of mountains that border the high tableland of the interior in a succession of tremendous falls and rapids (the Grand Falls series). Above these falls the river flows with a small and even current. Below the falls it passes through long lakes and more rapids (Muskrat Falls) into Goose Bay, where the airport is sited, and so into Lake Melville, into which great lake flows also from north-west the North West River and from south the Kenamu River, explored by Gino Watkins. The Hamilton Inlet (i.e., the Estuary or Gulf) is shallow and full of rocky islands, presenting a bleak face to the Atlantic. Out to sea is the Hamilton Fishing Bank, which may one day be of value to the fishing economy. POPULATION THE FUR TRAPPERS. The earliest whites (if we omit the almost legendary days of the Norsemen) were semi-settled fishermen combining fishing with trapping and hunting—fishing with the Eskimos in summer, trapping

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with the Indians in winter. There are river trappers, and working further inland, height of land trappers; and Tanner describes the routine of the trapper on his zigzag path, where every use is made of wood and stream, according to the habits of the animals. It will take him three days or so to examine his trapline. He carries neither sleeping bag nor blanket, since the sack with his game in it is all he can manage. He can find his way by night in utter dark, when losing it would be certain death. Each man's rights are clearly defined, and there is no poaching. If in the course of his travels a man comes upon another's trap and there is a fox between the jaws he will take it out, hang it to a tree, and reset the trap. On the Seventh Day, being God-fearing Presbyterians, they rest. (This insistence on the Sabbath rest took Gino Watkins by surprise.) They celebrate Christmas with parties and dancing "and no one ever gets drunk"! In the spring they hunt seals with nets, but do not now fish for cod. What is the origin of this remarkable group? The best of them are old Hudson Bay men, who came originally from England, Scotland or Norway. If one could inoculate the new industrial population with their morals and morale, it would be a social achievement without parallel in economic history. Some have married Eskimos or Indians, but white culture has survived, and they have large families. By voluntary labour they have erected their own churches and schools. THE ESKIMOS. These are grouped around the Moravian Mission stations, in particular around Hopedale, Nain, and Hebron. Historically the advent of the white fishermen has pushed the Eskimos further north. To this Protestant Mission of eighteenth century origin (Unitas Fratrum) Tanner pays unstinted tribute: "A monumental asset." "They have saved the Eskimos from extinction." "The missionary loves the Eskimos, and they love the missionary." It is the tribute of a dispassionate scientist. (I spent a month this summer, 1953, working on their records at Nain and Hopedale, which are continuous from 1770 onwards.)

THE RESIDENT FISHERMEN. These are sometimes called "liveyeres" (live-here's)—by contrast with those who return to Newfoundland, when the Labrador season is over. Many are ex-sailors, claiming descent from the West Country of England and the Channel Islands, but they are less well off than the trappers, and their cultural level is lower. p

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These three groups, with some Indian trappers, formed in the I93o's a total of 5,000 souls or more (the 1951 census figure of 7,890 for Labrador includes the personnel at Goose Bay); and what the Moravian Mission has done for the Eskimos, the International Grenfell Association has done for the white population, resident and transient in North Newfoundland and the Southern Labrador. It was the creation of Sir Wilfred Grenfell, "surgeon, navigator, justice of the peace, philanthropist," in Tanner's words. He first came to Newfoundland in 1892, reaching St. John's the very week the town was burning. Medicine and education are the channels of the Association's work; and Christianity is its inspiration. Before Grenfell's time the white population suffered sorely from tuberculosis, beriberi, anaemia and avitaminosis. Now by means of hospitals, nursing stations and inculcation of hygiene these enemies have been held in check. (And what Grenfell did for his territory Dr. Olds of Twillingate has done for Notre Dame Bay.) We may think of this slender resident population as the keeper of a great continental area, about to be opened to modern industrialisation ; and Canada, with her fine record of Indian trusteeship, may be relied upon to conserve and strengthen the welfare agencies already at work. THE TRANSIENT OR "VISITING" FISHERMEN—who are of two types. 1. The planters or "stationers," who fish from the shore. These come out as passengers on the mail steamers or in a schooner. In June, 1937, Tanner watched a party of 400 planters spread out along the coast from Cape St. Charles, just beyond Belle Isle, northward. They fish from motor boats with hand lines, trawls and traps, bringing their fish to their stages and curing it there. "Shorecured Labrador" has been an important item in the Newfoundland cod fishery. 2. The "floaters" or "schoonermen." These follow the fish around and catch it when they can, taking it direct to Newfoundland for curing. Some fish only on the Labrador: others go from the Grand Banks to Labrador later in the season. The experienced floaters (says Tanner) know every rock and piece of water from Belle Isle to Nain. Here is a fine modern nursery for seamen, that ancient purpose of the Newfoundland economy. But the Labrador cod is small, and the "floaters" technique, on Scandinavian standards, is predatory, the by-products being thrown away (but where the dogs

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see or smell it, they swim over and clean up everything!): and the total earnings of the fishermen are consequently much reduced. However, since Tanner wrote there have been significant changes both on the economic and on the biological side. (I am indebted here to Professor Andrews of Memorial University.) (1) The Labrador coastline is to-day almost bare of fishing schooners and "station" fishermen; the old "floater" fleet with its thousands of fishermen has disappeared and the fish populations of Labrador are enjoying a period of conservation. The decline in the salt codfish industry of Labrador, however, is not due to overfishing but, primarily, to market conditions where demand for the generally small quality of fish has fallen off. (2) There are indications of slight oceanographic changes, such as temperature increase, in the waters of the Labrador current. These changes are affecting not only Labrador but the waters of Newfoundland and Greenland as well. Species of fish generally associated with slightly warmer waters are now frequent visitors to the Newfoundland coast. In Greenland where, a few years ago, the codfishery was almost non existent, there is now a lucrative fishery, i.e., the northern range of the cod has extended with the slight temperature increase in that area. Indications are that Labrador is being affected in a similar way and larger cod are reported to be general in areas formerly known as "small cod" areas. Nain and the area known as the Farmyards provide two striking examples of this change. The presence of larger fish and the possibility of new species will lend new life to the fisheries and fishing economy of the Labrador. THE OVERALL SCENE IN 1953 We have had our historical introduction to Knob Lake, and now we visit it. It is certainly well named. The Lake is just inside the Quebec Ungava Boundary: at one end is the sea-plane base: at the other a great Knob of Rock, visible from everywhere around. May the name never be changed! But first for some initials and some figures. I.O.C. Iron Ore Company of Canada. H.H. Hollinger Hanna—operating agents, Montreal. H.U.T. Hollinger Ungava Transport, with air fleet of sixteen planes, and others on charter. No accident to date—a wonderful record, in view of the narrowness of the initial air strips and the loads carried.

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Q.N.S. & L.R. Quebec North Shore & Labrador Railway—all cars to be fitted with roller bearings! U.P. Ungava Power—with two plants to provide power (i) for the mines, (2) for the dock terminal. A notable collaboration of operative units. A notable application too of labour saving techniques, e.g., pre-fabricated rail sections, and of power in all its forms. A notable example finally of synchronisation of effort—the task in chief of the project manager on the spot—with the result that the construction programme is on time throughout the system. "Iron ore by fifty-four" is the slogan to which all work. FIGURES, AS OF MAY, 1953. Ore reserves. So far, some 417 million tons of high-grade ore have been proved. Of this, about two-thirds are located on the Quebec side, one-third in Labrador. Production. Present plans call for the production of 2\ million tons in 1954; 5 million tons in 1955; 10 million tons in 1956. Given the St. Lawrence Seaway, production could reach 20 million tons annually. Hydro-electric power developments. 17,000 h.p. is being developed on the Ste. Marguerite River (Quebec) to serve Seven Islands; and 12,000 h.p. is being developed at Manahek Rapids (Labrador) for the mining camp. The two power plants are expected to be operating in 1954. Expenditures on project. All told, well over $200 millions will have been spent by the time production gets under way. The company has had over 6,000 men employed on the project at one time, and over the last two years has had an average of 3,500 men (of English, French and Italian speech) on its payroll. I have eaten in several of the camps and can testify that they feed well. When the whistle goes at noon they slide in smartly, and it's "mugs-up" quickly for the tea, which is so strong that you can almost walk on it! September 15 is a red-letter day in the calendar of my memory. For on that day in 1830 at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester—the first steam passenger—Railway, William Huskisso (the statesman whose life I have tried to write) was run over and killed. And on September 15, 1953, as it chanced, I presented myself at Mont Joli airport en route for Seven Isles and Knob Lake. First and Last railway; and this last road of 357 miles is, in fact, the

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first major railway enterprise on the North American Continent since the close of the railway building age some forty years ago. It was, therefore, just possible to recruit for the job experienced railway construction engineers, retired or approaching retirement, from the C.P. and C.N.R. Happily I had with me a letter of introduction from Mr. W. H. Durrell, and this was an OPEN SESAME wherever I went. TIME TABLE. First day. By "sked" flight to Seven Isles, and in the afternoon to the Marguerite Power Dam, approaching completion—only a question now of installing turbines and finishing off the house-—and then back by a graceful winding valley past the paper town of Clarke City to Seven Isles. I had my first lesson in the liberty men take with water, when it is in the way. In this case the river was diverted through a great hole bored in the rock, till the dam was ready to receive it. Second day. Having been placed on the "manifest" by a friend (and everyone you met made himself a friend: including the steward of Seven Isles Staff houses, Mr. Charles Bilodeau, who bade me sign my name on list that included those of Humphrey, Timmins, Durrell, and Duplessis), I went with him to Knob Lake: with an "all change" at Point 134 (when I was allowed to watch the mysteries of the Control Room) into a second plane, less crowded, which brought us through cloud and a flurry of snow to the airstrip east of Knob Lake, from which I was taken to the staff house on the Lake side to be welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Yeo of Cornwall. I spent the afternoon studying the wall maps, and struggling with the fact that (such is the lie of the land here) when you look West, you are looking not into Quebec, but into Newfoundland-Labrador. I noted too the trend of the ore beds, which run from north-west to south-east, and occur increasingly on the Labrador side—notably the great Ruth Lake Deposits. The Company, I understand, pays standard mining taxes, plus a rental of fifty cents an acre; and this will make a notable contribution to the Treasury of the Province in which the mining occurs. Third day. To the camp at Burnt Creek to talk with a chemist and an engineer: then to Howell's Bridge to see the work of construction and watch the monster EUCLIDS at work, scooping, shovelling, hoisting. They are a sort of Leviathan on tracks. Cars and tyres are on the mammoth scale. When they brought up the

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crane in winter, it was necessary to freeze the frozen water further to three feet, to prevent it breaking through. In the summer it would have sunk into the mud. There are no gangs of workers: only small parties in charge of great machines. Fourth day. Low flying, on a glorious day, in the plane of Mr. C. E. McManus, the project manager, over the whole system. The line has been cut throughout: track laid to mile 220 (that was the figure when I left—a mile or so more each day): and the head of steel will reach mile no by Christmas—I understood. We passed Howell's Bridge and Menahek Rapids, where the dam is under construction. It is water, water, everywhere. The great Astray Lake stretches its fingers towards Grand Falls. The wonder is not that they cut a way through a forest wilderness, but that they found the dry land to carry a railway on a straight south to north route. The final construction work will be the bridging of several great rivers. When you cross the watershed into southern Quebec, the scenery is quite different—rich timber of conifer and yellowing birch, tarns and streams winding through steep valleys. And so back over the Seven Isles (of which I counted six) to Mont Joli. The air route is along the north shore to Trinity and then straight across. At this stage I was in solitary splendour, seated beside the pilot, and he pointed out the mountain of Mont Joli, as we approached the south shore. The big emergent facts were three: Geographical. The ore is located on and across the water divide which forms the provincial boundary. Where the water flows north, that is Ungava. Where it flows south-east, that is Labrador. The railway begins in South Quebec and ends just in North Quebec (Ungava), but the upper half of it is in Labrador. 1.

2. Economic. It is the creation of American (supplemented by Canadian) capital: put up by the big American steel companies, who will take the product. The strategic purpose is to replace the Mesabi Lake Superior ore, as this declines, and the whole will lie within friendly territory in the event of war. With deliveries on the scale which will be reached, when the Company is in full production, I do not quite see how there can be a significant world price for iron ore. On this Continent (it seems to me) there will be a price internal to this great group—in principle a matter of book-keeping. For owners will be consuming what their capital has mined and carried.

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Technical. This is symbolised by the bridge over the Moisey Gorge, where the railway approaches the St. Lawrence watershed from the south. It issues from the mouth of a tunnel. That tunnel (and the next few miles of roadbed cut out of rock) was the bottleneck: and it was blasted open by men lowered down the cliff on ropes, to drill the holes for the dynamite which shot the rock. I saw a train moving up the valley north of the tunnel. Thus the power of the air lift (building up from small to great) and of the water fall, of gun powder and movement on tracks—the outcome of a generation of peace and war—is presented in unison in this remarkable railway-mining project. I make bold to suggest that it will rank as one of the major engineering projects of the twentieth century. Let us fly back in imagination, from Knob Lake to a city called Nain—barely two hours distant by air, say 200 miles of airflight. OVER a potential of mineral and forestal wealth, buzzing with prospectors based on North West River—south of us the roar and spray of Grand Falls, Hamilton River, with its unused water power (but how use it, how get at it, how live there?) equal to the harnessed total of Sweden. TO a coast line of rare beauty, carrying on its rocky face a mass of multi-coloured mosses and berries. To great chunks of islands, broken off from the mainland, so that you can almost get from Battle Harbour to Hebron without being in the open sea. To air so clear and keen that it tastes like wine and you almost forget the mosquitoes. To a thin scatter of population—schoonermen, stationers and residents, each one of whom knows everyone else and shares in the under current of a common experience—and common anecdotes.1 To a Labrador held together by two great loops of Christian charity —the International Grenfell Association, with its hospitals, medical specialists and volunteer workers: from St. Anthony to Cartwright ; and the Moravian Mission with its mission stations round which the Eskimos cluster: from Makkovik (but no Eskimos here) to Hopedale, Nain and Hebron. To a Labrador fishery that is but a skeleton of its former self, at 3.

1 Such as:—When World War I broke out, Max Budgell set off from Voisey's Bay, thirty miles South of Nain, with a party of Indians and tramped the whole way (500 miles or more) to the recruiting office at Seven Isles. There he was rejected for flat feet and interned as an alien without a passport: after which he went to Scotland and joined a Highland regiment.

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the same time that the Labrador people are enjoying unusual prosperity through the high earnings from work at Goose Bay and the defence bases—with sea-planes everywhere and at any hour. Finally, to a coast rich in historical memories of those living and those dead. Graveyards, clerical registers (containing valuable statistics) here and there old account books, all tell their tale. But above all rank the priceless records at Hopedale and Nain (those at Hebron I have not seen), carefully stored, compiled with scholarly care, and presenting only this handicap that the majority is in old style German. Here is work for a team of scholars over several years. As an economist, I select just one record, a page in a long letter from S.F.G., London (the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel —the London agency of the Mission) to the Brethren at Nain. It is concerned with the discovery of Labradorite. Lindsey House, London, March 7, 1774. "But among all the curiosities which you sent, one of the stones has proved the greatest, it looks like a piece of stone broken down from a rock, had a brown outside and where broken had when turned to the light in a certain position a blue lustre. Br. Layritz said that Br. Wolfus found it on Pownal's Island [the island off Nain now called Paul's Island]—if he remembered right. This stone we should have quite neglected had it not been for Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander: they took notice of it and said they had never seen any such. It appeared hard and struck fire. They begged a piece of it. We sent it to Mr. Cox the great jeweller and begged him to cut it in two pieces, he did it and said there had never been such stone in Europe, it was harder than porphyry, cast in a certain light a blue lustre and was a very great curiosity. He desired us to make the King and Queen presents of it, which resolving to do he made two neat boxes for them. The CURIOSI or curious men who are in search for new and curious things all uttered their surprise and were eager to obtain a bit. We gave a bit to Lord Hillsborough, to the Royal Society, to Mr. Banks, to Governor Schuldam, and we have kept a piece. This stone has raised the attention of many, not for its intrinsic value, but because it has never been seen before. Mr. Cox desired that if more is found and it should be in large quantities that some may be sent over and he will purchase it, or if there is not enough, he will cut it for us to make presents of it to those we may chuse. We would be glad to give bits to Lord Dartmouth, Mr. Pownal,1 etc., etc., as it is more (being the only stone of its kind) to these gentlemen than great gifts. 1 Presumably, John Pownall, Secretary to the Board of Trade, brother of Governor Thomas Pownall.

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But we must pray you not to send over this year a great quantity, as it would lessen its value. (Br. Hill says he knows where there is great quantity. If you can send us a box full do: but nail it up and let none send any to private persons, no, not the least bit. We have begged Br. Hill not to bring over a piece for himself, for the Captain, not for anyone.) We must deal very prudently if it is to be of any kind of utility, and as our Saviour has thrown this trifle, for his wise ends, into our hands, we would make the best possible use of it we can for the mission. . . . Be so good also to send us a particular account of where it is found, whether it is a part of a solid rock or found in the veins of a rock or whether it is found in loose lumps. A pretty pendant to the Theory of Scarcity Value, and an invitation to an Essay on Religion and Trade, which would vie with Tawney's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism for first place. This is ancient history, but not the record of a mission that has had its day. The Eskimo population around the mission (now about 130) is not destined to disappear. By admixture with white blood it is strengthened against epidemic disease and, under the fostering care of The Department of Northern Labrador, it is on the increase (female births prepondering recently, and the infantile death rate nearly as good as that of white residents). And therefore I close with a scene of August, 1953. SUNDAY EVENING IN HOPEDALE. Would I come to church ? But of course. So as the bell rang, we filed in, the Missioner in plain grey suit taking his seat on the platform. I and the village elder sat against the wall on one side: the Missioner's wife and an old lady with a couple of infants on the other. In the centre of the Church on the female side (for the sexes sit separately) another old lady or two, and no more. Oh dear! I thought, is that all ? Then a note of the organ struck: the two doors opened, and in a minute and a half there were near 200 in the building—this out of a total population of around 400. Down one aisle marched some fifty small girls, smiling coyly, and behind them fifty young women and matrons dressed in the latest fashion of Simpson and Eaton. Down the other aisle fifty small boys in perfect order of height, smiling very solemnly, and behind them forty to fifty grown-up men, smarter far than I was—all earning a minimum of $14 a day at the Defence Base. The service was three parts in Eskimo and one part in English; and I seemed to understand the Eskimo best because I could read it in their faces.

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And the preacher? If you please, an Englishman over six feet high, who served in the ranks of the Coldstream Guards through World War I, who operates now a smithy and a sawmill, gives firstaid to the sick, and has fitted about half his flock with sets of artificial teeth. No wonder those teeth gleamed. No wonder his flock believe in him utterly. I shall never forget it as long as I live. For this kind of fellowship, this kind of leadership, based on Christian love, this and not the iron ore of war is the world's ultimate potential.

APPENDIX I

STATUTES PRINCIPAL STATUTES RELATING TO NEWFOUNDLAND Titles as in Chronological Table of the Statutes, His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1951. 12 Cha. II. c. 18 (1660). Navigation. s. 5. Cod fish, herring, oil, blubber, whale fins or bones "which shall be imported to England and Wales not having been caught in vessels truly belonging to the people of England and Wales shall pay double aliens custom." 15 Cha. II, c. 7 (1663).

Encouragement of trade. s. 5. Provided that it shall be lawful to ship or lade in such [English] ships salt [from Europe] for the fisheries of New England and Newfoundland, and to ship or lade in the Mediterranean wines of the growth thereof, and in the Western Islands or Azores wines of the growth thereof. s. 14. Specific duties on certain sorts of salted and dried fish imported in other than English ships—on codfish, the barrel, 5 shillings. 15 Cha. II, c. 16 (1663).

Fisheries. s. 3. Be it enacted that no person or persons whatsoever do collect levy or take . . . in Newfoundland any toll or other duty for any cod or Poor John or other fish of English catching under pain of the loss of double the value of what shall be by them levied, and that no planter or other persons do cast or lay any seine or other net in or near any harbour in Newfoundland whereby to take the spawn or young fry of the Poor John, or for any other use except for the taking of bait only under pain of the loss of all such seines and of the fish taken in them, or of the value thereof, to be recovered in any of H.M.'s courts in Newfoundland or in any court of record in England or Wales. s. 4. That no planter or other person shall burn, destroy or stale any boat cask salt nets or other utensils for fishing or making of oil or other goods left in any harbour in Newfoundland or Greenland. 25 Cha. II, c. 7 (1672). Encouragement of Greenland trade. s. 2. It shall be lawful for any persons, natives and foreigners, to import train oil or blubber of Greenland or of Newfoundland or any of H.M.'s colonies and plantations, made of fish or any other creature 239

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living in the seas, without paying any customs or other duty for the same. But taken and imported in colonial shipping it is to pay specific heavy duties; taken in colonial and imported in English shipping, to pay nominal duties; if imported in foreign shipping, to pay prohibitively high duties. 7 & 8 Will. Ill, c. 21 (1695-6). Greenwich Hospital. William and Mary having given the manor and palace of Greenwich for a hospital, seamen registered for the Navy may get bounty, and, if wounded, admission to the hospital. 6d. per month out of seamen's wages, whether in H.M.'s ships or ships of any British subject, to be paid for the better support of hospital. [This statute is noted because in 1826 the Chief Justice of Newfoundland rules that all classes of Labrador fishermen were liable to the payment of Greenwich Hospital dues of 6d. per man monthly.] 10 Will. Ill, c. 14 (c. 25 in the common printed editions), (1698). Trade to Newfoundland. [This is the magna carta of the trade and fishery. The preceding statute c. 13 makes Billingsgate a free market for fish and prohibits importation by foreigners, with a few exceptions.] "Whereas many tradesmen are kept at work by the products of the fisheries of Newfoundland, which bring in wine, oil, plate, iron, wool, etc., therefore British subjects are to enjoy the free trade and traffic and art of merchandise and fishery to and from Newfoundland, and to enjoy the freedom of taking bait and fishing in rivers, harbours, etc., in and about Newfoundland and liberty to go on shore in any part for curing, salting, drying and harbouring of fish and making of oil and cutting down wood by making stages, shiprooms, train fats, hurdles, ships, boats, etc." Aliens not to take bait or use the trade or fishery. Ballast not to be thrown in harbours. Persons leaving not to damage stages or cook rooms. The first fishing ship into any harbour to be admiral of the harbour according to ancient custom: the second vice admiral: the third rear admiral. Masters to content themselves with such beaches and flakes as they need. No fisherman or inhabitant in Newfoundland to possess himself of stages which since 1685 have belonged to fishing ships, till the latter have arrived and are provided. But persons who have built stages since 1685 that did not since 1685 belong to fishing ships to continue in them. Every master of a By-boat shall carry 2 freshmen in 6 (one having one voyage and one never at sea before). Every inhabitant shall be obliged to employ 2 such freshmen as the by-boat keepers are obliged to, for every boat kept by them.

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Persons are not to rind trees or set fire to woods. Capital crimes to be tried in England. Admirals in every port to execute the Act and send the journal of ships, etc., to the Privy Council. Differences between ships and inhabitants to be determined by fishing admirals. Sunday to be observed: tavern keepers not to sell liquor on Sabbath. Whale fins, oil, blubber of English fishing taken in the seas of Newfoundland or any seas belonging to H.M.'s plantations, and imported into this Kingdom [sc. England] by English fishing are not to pay the new shilling in the pound on imports, but to be free, like all fish of English taking. 15 Geo. Ill, c. 31 (I774-5)Newfoundland Fisheries (Palliser's). "For encouragement of fisheries carried on from Great Britain, Irland, and British Dominions in Europe, and for securing return of fishermen, sailors and others employed in fisheries to the ports thereof at end of fishing season." "Whereas such fisheries have been found to be the best nurseries of able and experienced seamen, always ready to man the Royal Navy when occasions require," therefore after Jan. i, 1776, bounties to be given for n years for ships employed in British fishery on banks of Newfoundland, owned in Gt. Britain or Channel Islands of 50 tons and up, navigated by 15 men at least, of whom £, besides the master, to be British seamen having catched 10,000 by tale and laid it between Cape Ray and Cape de Grat before July 15 with a 2nd catch later. ist 25 vessels to arrive with such cargo .. .. .. £40 each. Next 100 .. .. .. .. .. .. . . £20 „ Next 100 .. .. .. .. .. .. . . £10 ,, to be certified, on oath of crew (administered free of fee), by the Governor of Newfoundland to the Collector of Customs in Great Britain, who will then pay bounties. Any part of Newfoundland not in use may be used for curing and drying fish. Whale fishing in Newfoundland also bountied. Entitled to privilege of drying fish—only British subjects from Gt. Britain and Europe. Provisions and fishing necessaries may be exported from Ireland and Isle of Man, sails excepted. Fishing ships not required to make entry at Newfoundland, except for masters reporting ist arrival and when clearing out—fee i/6d. per report "and no other." Ships clearing with other stuff than fish or oil to be under the usual restrictions. No ship master to carry fishermen to American coast. Regulations for employing fishermen at Newfoundland—provision for enabling them to return home to be made by contract, whereby hirer

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of men may deduct 405. per return passage: which sum the hirer shall hand over to conveying master. Hirer shall not advance in goods or money more than half the wages; full balance, bar passage money, to be paid in cash or bills payable in Gt. Britain. All fish and oil taken liable in ist place for payment of wages. . Penalties on seamen, fishermen, etc., absenting themselves without leave. Exemption of American trading ships from impressment repealed. Rum (being detrimental through immoderate usage) from America to pay is. per gallon or at rate of 53. 6d. per oz. in silver. Customs officers in Gt. Britain to see that ships are properly fitted out. Bounties may be insured. Forfeitures incurred in Newfoundland to be sued for in ViceAdmiralty court there—with appeal to Admiralty court in Gt. Britain. As from Jan. I, 1776, "the customs or other duties which now or hereafter may be due upon any goods imported into or exported from Newfoundland shall be under the management of the Commissioners of H.M.'s Customs in England." [Very important.} 26 Geo. Ill, c. 26 (1786). Newfoundland Fisheries. Bounties continued and adopted to "shares" system. Before paying the bounty, collector of customs to have from Governor of Newfoundland a certificate that all is in order. Provisions against desertion and sale of equipment to foreigners. 29 Geo. Ill, c. 53 (1789).

Whale Fisheries, etc. No fish to be landed or dried except by British European subjects: saving French treaty rights (this to check the activities of the Bermudians). 33 Geo. Ill, c. 76 (1792-3). Courts Newfoundland. See 49 Geo. Ill, c. 27. 41 Geo. Ill, c. 2 (1801).

Use of Fine Flour, etc. Granting bounty on importation of salted and pickled salmon and salted dry cod. Indemnity to merchants who during hostilities in Italy are driven to make Gt. Britain an entrepot, before going to Mediterranean markets. 43 Geo. Ill, c. 68 (1802-3).

Customs. s. 39. Oil and blubber caught in Newfoundland by British subjects resident there, admitted at the same duty as if it were caught by British shipping from Britain. (Continued by later acts.)

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47 Geo. Ill, session 2, c. 66 (1807). Regulation of seamen to check smuggling. s. 5. Provided always that it shall be lawful for any vessel in the Newfoundland fishery, being wholly laden with fish or other produce of said fishery, or with articles the produce of Newfoundland or coast of Labrador, to sail from any port in Newfoundland or Labrador, without convoy or without licence, but not from St. John's during the time that any admiral is stationed there, who is authorised to grant a licence for departing without convoy—this act to continue during the French war. 49 Geo. Ill, c. 27 (1809).

Newfoundland. "For establishing Courts of Judicature in the Island of Newfoundland and the islands adjacent; and for reannexing part of the Coast of Labrador and the Islands lying on the said Coast to the Government of Newfoundland.'' Amends and perpetuates 33 Geo. Ill, c. 76. Crown, by Commission under Great Seal, may set up Supreme Court of Judicature of the Island of Newfoundland for Civil and Criminal cases. Governor, with advice of Chief Justice, may set up Surrogate Courts. Details of method of trial (juries), etc. Jurisdiction on Labrador from St. John River to Hudson's straits (as in Proclamation of 7 Oct., 1763): reversing decision of 31 Geo. Ill, c. 31, which put Labrador coast and islands under Province of Lower Canada. 51 Geo. Ill, c. 45 (1811). St. John's, Newfoundland, etc. "For taking away the public use of certain ship rooms in town of St. John's in Island of Newfoundland, and for the instituting surrogate courts on coast of Labrador and in certain adjacent islands." s. i. Whereas it will be more beneficial to the general interests of the trade and fishery, if the said pieces of ground were wholly exempted from such claim by masters of fishing ships for ship rooms and were let out for buildings, dwelling houses and store houses and for other uses necessary to the trade and fishery. And whereas it has been proved, upon the survey of persons resident in St. John's and well skilled in the affairs of the fishery, that there is land at the West extension of the Harbour better suited for drying, curing and hurbanding of fish than any of the above ship rooms. Therefore, certain named fishing rooms—no. I Rotten Row, W., no. 6 Admiral's, etc.—may be granted let and possessed as private property in like manner as any other portions of land in Newfoundland may be. s. 2. In the matter of the Coast of Labrador, Island of Anticosti and other Islands, reannexed to the Government of Newfoundland by 49 Geo. Ill, c. 27 the Government of Newfoundland may here institute Surrogate Courts as in the Island of Newfoundland already.

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5 Geo. IV, c. 51 (1824). Newfoundland Fisheries. Provisions for better conducting of fisheries. s. i. Enumeration of acts repealed. s. 2. Aliens not to take bait or fish in Newfoundland and its dependencies: the privileges granted by treaty excepted. s. 3. Privilege of taking, curing and drying fish to be freely enjoyed by H.M.'s subjects, who may occupy vacant places for their fishing business, and cut down wood and trees on such vacant places, for building and repairing stages, ship rooms, train vats, hurdles, ships, boats and other necessaries for themselves and their servants, seamen and fishermen: and do everything they ever were entitled by Act to do without hindrance. s. 4. Certificates at is. to be granted to vessels clearing for the fishery—these to report on arrival in Newfoundland and register at a fee not exceeding 53.: on quitting usual clearance to be obtained. Vessels having on board other goods than fish to forfeit fishing certificate. s. 5. Penalties for throwing ballast into harbours. s. 6. Preventing annoyances in hauling nets: no persons shall take fish out of another's nets. s. 7. Agreement to be made with seamen or fishermen for wages. s. 8. Employers not to advance more than f of wage during service: balance at expiration of agreement. s. 9. Agreement to be produced by hirer in case of wage dispute. s. 10. Fish and oil subject in ist place to wage payments. s. ii. Penalty on seamen or fishermen absenting themselves from duty. Such a man becomes a deserter. s. 12. Instructions may be given to Governor of Newfoundland for fulfilling treaties (e.g., removing stages from French coast). s. 13. Persons defying these instructions may be fined £50. s. 14. Act of 51 Geo. Ill, c. 45 extended to ship rooms throughout Newfoundland: "provided that nothing shall extend to the prejudice of any private right of any person whatsoever." s. 15. H.M. may grant to any persons "any waste or unoccupied land in said Colony, not hitherto granted by H.M. to any one." s. 16. Penalties may be sued for in Courts of Record in Newfoundland. s. 17. Act to continue for 5 years, and from then until the end of the then next session of Parliament. 5 Geo. IV, c. 67 (1824).

Newfoundland. For better administration of Justice. Governor may divide colony into 3 districts and H.M. may institute Circuit Courts of Record: with appeal to Supreme Court: and Courts of General or Quarter Sessions at such times and places as the Governor shall appoint. Insolvency claims: creditors for supplies for the fishery for the current

APPENDIX I

245

season shall be privileged, and be first paid ao's. in £: but this not to affect the prior claims of seamen and other fishery employees: also, provided that menial or domestic servants shall be paid the balance of their wages out of the householder's furniture, goods and effects of every insolvent person. Land deeds, etc., to be registered. Conveyances not hereafter registered to be void. Finally, H.M. may grant charters for establishing corporations for the government of towns, including byelaws "for the prevention of accidents by fire" and grant to such bodies power to enforce reasonable rates. Act to last for 5 years and no longer. Amended 6 Geo. IV, c. 59, s. 9. Act variable by Newfoundland Legislature (2-3 Will. IV, c. 78). 5 Geo. IV, c. 68 (1824). Marriage Confirmation,

Newfoundland.

2 & 3 Will. IV, c. 78 (1831-2). Newfoundland. An act to continue certain acts and to provide for the appropriation of all duties which may hereafter be raised within the said Island. s. i. It shall be lawful for the Governor, in pursuance of instructions by H.M. with the advice and consent of any House or Houses of General Assembly, which H.M. may convoke from among the inhabitants of the said Colony, to repeal or amend the said recited acts, etc. s. 2. And whereas divers duties are now payable in Newfoundland: "when any House or Houses of Assembly have been convoked and have actually met for the despatch of the public business of the Island, the nett produce of all duties levied within the said Colony by any act of Parliament, now or hereafter, shall be appropriated in such manner as H.M. with the advice and consent of such House or Houses of Assembly shall direct, provided that out of such nett proceeds shall be deducted ^6,550 for the maintenance of the Governor and Judges and Attorney General and Colonial Secretary and applied in such proportions as H.M.'s treasury may direct: provided that the act shall not commence till April i, 1833, and also that H.M. may by Act, with advice and consent of Assembly, repeal so much of this Act as relates to the application of the said ^6,550, in case such assembly shall concur with H.M. in what shall appear to H.M. an adequate provision for the maintenance of the aforesaid, permanently secured on funds adequate for that purpose."

Q

APPENDIX II

TREATIES EXTRACTS FROM TREATIES. TREATY OF UTRECHT, 1713. Article 13. The Island called Newfoundland, with the adjacent islands, shall from this time forward belong of right wholly to Great Britain. . . . Moreover, it shall not be lawful for the subjects of France to fortify any place in the said Island of Newfoundland, or to erect any buildings there, besides stages made of boards, and huts necessary and usual for drying of fish, or to resort to the said island beyond the time necessary for fishing and drying of fish. But it shall be allowed to the subjects of France to catch fish, and to dry them on land, in that part only, and in no other besides that, of the said island of Newfoundland, which stretches from the place called Cape Bonavista to the northern point of the said island, and from thence, running down the western side, reaches as far as the place called Point Riche. TREATY OF PARIS, 1763. Article 6. The King of Great Britain cedes the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in full right to his most Christian Majesty, to serve as a shelter to the French fishermen; and his said most Christian Majesty engages not to fortify the said islands, to erect no buildings upon them, but merely for the convenience of the fishery; and to keep upon them a guard of fifty men only for the police. TREATY OF VERSAILLES, 1783. Article 5. His Majesty the most Christian King, in order to prevent the quarrels which have hitherto arisen between the two nations of England and France consents to renounce the right of fishing, which belongs to him in virtue of the aforesaid article of the treaty of Utrecht, from Cape Bonavista to Cape St. John, situated on the eastern coast of Newfoundland, in fifty degrees north latitude; and his Majesty the King of Great Britain consents, on his part, that the fishery assigned to the subjects of his most Christian Majesty, beginning at the said Cape St. John, passing to the north, and descending by the western coast of the island of Newfoundland, shall extend to the place called Cape Ray, situated in forty-seven degrees fifty minutes latitude. DECLARATION OF His BRITANNIC MAJESTY. . . . "in order that the fishermen of the two nations may not give cause for daily quarrels, his Britannic Majesty will take most positive measures for preventing his subjects from interrupting in any manner, by their competition, the fishery of the French, during the temporary exercise of it which is granted to them upon the coasts of the island of Newfoundland ; but he will, for this purpose, cause the fixed settlements which shall 246

APPENDIX II

247

be formed there to be removed. His Britannic Majesty will give orders that the French fishermen be not incommoded in cutting the wood necessary for the repair of their scaffolds, huts and fishing vessels. . . . the French fishermen building only their scaffolds, confining themselves to the repair of their fishing vessels, and not wintering there; the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, on their part, not molesting in any manner the French fishermen during their fishing, nor injuring their scaffolds during their absence. COUNTER DECLARATION OF His MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY. In regard to the fishery between the island of Newfoundland and those of St. Pierre and Miquelon, it is not to be carried on by either party but to the middle of the channel; and his Majesty will give the most positive orders that the French fishermen shall not go beyond this line. . . . TREATY OF PARIS, 1814. Article 8. His Britannic Majesty, stipulating for himself and his allies, engages to restore to his most Christian Majesty, within the term which shall be hereafter fixed, the colonies, fisheries, factories and establishments of every kind which were possessed by France on the ist January, 1792. . . . Article 13. The French right of fishery upon the Great Bank of Newfoundland, upon the coasts of the island of that name, and of the adjacent islands in the gulph of St. Lawrence, shall be replaced upon the footing in which it stood in 1792. EXTRACT. From the Convention between Great Britain and the United States, dated 2oth October, 1818. Article i. . . . The inhabitants of the said United States shall have forever in common with the subjects of his Britannic Majesty, the liberty to take fish of every kind on that part of the southern coast of Newfoundland which extends from Cape Ray to the Rameo islands on the western and northern coast of Newfoundland, from the said Cape Ray to the Quirpon islands, on the shores of the Magdalen islands, and also on the coasts, bays, harbours and creeks from Mount Joli, on the southern coast of Labrador, to and through the Straits of Belle Isle, and thence northwardly, indefinitely along the coast, without prejudice, however, to any of the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company; and that the American fishermen shall also have liberty for ever to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbours and creeks of the southern part of the coast of Newfoundland hereabove described, and of the coast of Labrador; but so soon as the same or any portion thereof shall become settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such portion so settled, without previous agreement for such purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors or possessors of the said ground; and the United States hereby renounce forever any liberty heretofore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof to take, dry or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays.

248

LIFE AND LABOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND

creeks, or harbours of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America, within the above-mentioned limits: Provided, however, that the American fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbours for the purpose of shelter, and of repairing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no other purpose whatever. But they shall be under such restrictions as may be necessary to prevent their taking, drying or curing fish therein, or in any other manner whatever abusing the privileges hereby reserved to them. ANGLO-FRENCH CONVENTION OF 1904. In return for territorial concessions in Central Africa and a small money payment, the French surrendered the right of landing or drying fish on the French Shore, retaining only a concurrent right of fishery along the French Shore for the summer period. "With this exception Newfoundland had acquired complete territorial jurisdiction over the land and territorial waters along the French shore. Self-government in half a century had been broadened to include virtually complete jurisdiction over the vital natural resources of the fishery." (R. A. MacKay, Newfoundland, p. 332.)

INDEX c = Chapter Abraham, Bishop, 77 Acts, see Statutes Admirals (R.N.), 145 Agriculture, 1-7, 14011 Aguathuna, c. 12: 2, 218-20 Airports, (Gander and Goose), 6, 53, 225, 230 A.N.D. (Anglo Newfoundland Development Co.), 192 et seq. Andrews, C. W., Prof. 67, 231 Anspach, O., 119 Arklie, J., 218 Armstrong Whitworth, 202-3 Asarco, 195 Asparagus, 3 Atkinson, 7 Atwood, J. H., 153 Auk, Great (penguin), 63, 80, 104 Austen, J., 3 Australia, 71, 79, 93, 143, 190, 206 Avalon, 2, 129, 163, 214 Average clause in insurance, 171 Ayre & Sons, 36 Babbitry, 145 Bacalhau, 17 Baccalieu I., 62 Badger (area), 193, 197 Badger's Quay, 63 Baine, Johnston, 28, 65 Bake apples, 228 Bankers (vessels), 134 Banks (commercial), 29-30, 192 Banks (fishing), 38, 52, 60 Banks (Sir Joseph) Journal, 79, 82, 227 Barbour, Capt. G., 66 Baring, 14 Barrett, J., of Curling, 213 Bartlett, Capt. Robert, 67n Bathurst, Lord, 99, 115, 121, 125, 139, 152

Bay Despair (Bay d'Espoir), 71, 92, 94, 208

Bay of Islands, i, 201, 205 Beaverbrook, Ld, 203 Beccles, Wilson, 72 Bedlamer, 61 Beeton, Sir M., 195, 198 Bell Island, 197, 214-18 Belle Isle (St. Lawrence), 59, 68, 76, 120, 227 Benevolent Irish Society, 122, I48n, 189

Beothucs, c. 6 passim Rowley's History of, 84 Beothuc Institution, 93, 100

Bermudans, I34n. Bideford and Barnstaple, 8, 71 Billies, 1 1 6, 118 Bilodeau, C., 233 Birmingham, 116, 125 Bishop's Falls, 200 Black Prince, 25 Blackler, S., 85 Blackmore, 3 Blackwood, Capt. J., 69 Blanchard, J., 7 Bland, J., 82 Blandford, Capt. S., 64, 65 Board of Trade: the two meanings, 146 Bonaparte, 18-19 Bonavista, 9, 24n, 67, 80, 120, 220 Bonnycastle, R. H., 58 Bordeaux, 14 Botwood, 201 Bowater's, 201-4, 211 Bowring, Sir John, 78 Bowring's, i : c. 3 and clocks, 35n and sealers, 62, 66 advt., 161 and fire, 178 Bow-wow Parliament, 124 Bridport, 9 Bristol, 8, 9, 227 British Columbia, 71, 93 British Empire Steel Products, 216 Brooking, T. H., 150, 152, 159 Broomfield, J. J., 165 and c. 10 passim Bruton, F. A., 101 Buchan, D., c. 6 Report of 1811, 88-91 Buchans, 7, 195-7, 2I3 Budgell, Max, 235n Bulley, see Job Butler, J., 217 Butler, Samuel, 54 Burke, E., I2n, 144 Buffs, The, 8 1 By-boat, 43n, 54 Caird, Sir James, 65 Calne, 11 Calvert (Ld. Baltimore), 128-9 Canada Packers, 210 Canning, G., 153 Cappahayden, 9 Carbonear, 45, 71-2,179 Caribou, 218 Carroll, Skipper, 62 Carson, Sir E., 113

249

250

INDEX

Carson, W., c. 7, 33 Tomb of, 127 Cartwright, George, c. 6 his Journal, 78, 227 Cartwright brothers, 78-80 Cauvery, 191 Caxton, S. S., 200 Chafe's Sealing Book, 57, 65 his diary, 65 Chafe, W. C., 65 Chamber of Commerce (Board of Trade), St. John's, c, 9 Chamberlain, J., 191 Channel Is., I, 9, 24n, 229 Chatham (Pitt), 128 Chesterfield, 129 Churchill, W., 197, 2i3n C.N.R., 55, 191, 205, 233 Coal, 14, 214-5 Cochrane, Govr., 123-4, M2- J44> 152> 161 Cod, 3, 14, 52-3, 56, 61 of Labrador, 230 invention of cod-trap, 65 Codroy, 5-7 Colclough, C-J., 120 Colliers, 9 Collingwood, W. and T., 226 Colonisation, 145, 149 Commons Committee on Nfld Trade (1793), 82, 107: (1817), 150, 153 Conception Bay, 45, 67, 215, 218 Conservation (Labrador), 225 Cook, James, c. 6 maps of, 6, 73 Cook family, 76—7 Co-operative Stores, 194, 199, 210 Coote, J., 96, 175 Cork, 9 Cormack, W. E., 6: c. 6 his map, 95n narrative, 91-5 Cormack settlement, 8 Corner Brook, 4, c. n urban development of, 210-11 Cornwall, i, 9 C.P.R., 55, 191, 233 Crabbe, G., 12 Cranberries, 228 "Crash," The, (of 1894), 29, 33, 35, 65, 192 Credit trading, 20, 48 Cross, J., 153 Cupid's Cove, 128 Curling, J. J., 77 Currency, 29-30, 96, 155, 158 Custom House, St. John's, 39, 49 Customs, Nfld, 40 Customs Records, West Country, 13 London, 40

"D" day, 14 Daily Mail, 194-5 Dartmouth, I, 13-14, 147 Naval College, 14 Davis, J., 14 Deer Lake (Power), 8 (209) Devon, c. 2 D'Ewes Coke, 109 Devon, South, 14-15 Dock (town of), 13 Dogs, turnspit, n Donald Ross Survey, 4, 209 Dorset, 9-10 Dosco, 214 Douglas, Bishop, 76 Doyle, J., 124 Drake, Sir B., 13 Duckworth, Govr., 86-8, 96, 119, 136-7, 174 Dundas, H., 105 Durrell, W. H., 220, 233 Duties, 48-9 Earle, L., 7 East India, 13 Eclipse, 73 Edinburgh, 91, 92, 119 Eliot, Hugh, 9 Elizabethan age, 70 Ellesmere Port, 203 Elliot, Govr., 39, I34n, 146 Empress of Britain, 36 Erewhon, 54 Eskimos, 61, 67, 81, 229, 235-8 Euclids, 233 Exeter, 13-14 Exploits Island, 201, 208 River, 82, 91, 99 Valley, 86 Bay of (Botwood), 201 Ferry service, 6n Ferryland, 129-30 Finland, 7 Fire Ordeal by, c. 10: (1816-9) 175, (1846) 180, (1892) 27, 188 Fire engine, 22, 29 gift of, 173-4 Fisher, C., 201 Fisheries Department, 61 Fishery Trade and, c. 4 From—to Colony, c. 8 technique, 20 and Innis, 52-5 bounties, 48, 148, 241 "breaking the price," 152 Spanish and Portuguese duties on, !53

INDEX Nfid Development Cee., 52 merchants' regard for fishermen, I59n Fishing Admirals, 15, 121, 132 Fishing ships, 8, 43n Floaters, 230 Florizel, 35, 92 Fluorspar, 213 F °g°. 75, 80, 84, 85, 218 Forbes, C-J., 105, 114 Forest control, 207 Fort Pepperrell, 52 Fox Talbot, n Franklin, B., 119 Franks, Sir O., 8 Free Port, 46-8, 151 French settlers West Coast, 7, 205 French shore, 5, 7, 73, 75, 159—60 Funk, I., 63, 80, 83 Gander (see airports), 92 Gaskell, Mrs., 41 Gilbert, Sir H., 38, 128 Gilbert, J., 73 Glasgow, 41, 91 Glenelg, Ld., 104 Gloster, n Glover, T. R., 8 Glynmill Inn, 211 Goderich, Ld., 15-7 Goose Bay (see airports), 228 Gosling, W. G., 38, 226 Gosse, Philip, 44-6 Goulburn, H., 120 Governors royal and resident, 117 Gower, Sir Erasmus, Govr., 133 Graham, A., 192 Grand Banks, 60 Grand Falls Nfld, c. ii Labrador, 209, 228, 235 Grand Narrows Bridge, 191 Grandfather Clocks, 12, 35n Graves, Adm., 74, 130 Green Bay, 62 Greenland, 57, 59, 97, 231 Greenland (sealer), 57 Greenwich Maritime Museum, 73 Grenfell, Sir W., 64, 227, 230 Grenville, G., 74, 129 Guernsey, 39, 41, 71 Gutsell, B. V., 3, 209, 214 Guy, J., 128 Haliburton, T. C., 50 Halifax (N.S.), 72, 92n, 161-2, 166 Hall's Bay, ig2n Hamilton, Govr., 98-9, 113, 122, 138-41 Hamilton River, 228

251

Hammond Farm, 209 Harbour Grace, 72, 157-8, 179 Hardy, T., 3, 40 Harrington, M., 94, Harris Bros., n Harvey, Govr., 126 Hawley, J., 13 Hayes, E., 128 Hearn, Fr., 92 Hill, C. P., 9 Hill, Capt., S. J., 69 Hodge, 62 Holdsworth Punch Bowl, 15 Holloway, Govr., 86, 136 Hopedale Sunday Service, 237 Horton, Wilmot, 153 House, A., 219—20 Howick, Ld., 123 Howley, J.P., 84 Hudson's Bay Co., 104 Humber Valley, 4, 7, 92, 201 Hume, Deacon, 105 Hunt, H., 10 Huskisson, W. anti-smuggling, 41 free ports, 46 duties, 48-9 fiscal and colonial reforms, 105, 139, 158

currency, 156, 158 passenger act, 157-8 tribute to, 178 timber preference, 195 Sept. 15, 232 Iceland fishery, 9, 38 "Imperfect competition," 152 International Paper Co., 202, 204 Ireland, Mr., 218 Irish settlers, 81, 119, 132, 157-8, 177, 213 provision trade, n, 15, 155 Benevolent Irish Society, 148-gn ,189 Iron Ore Co. of Canada, 221—4 "Iron ore by fifty-four," 232 Irving, X., 39, 107 Jackman, Capt. A., 62, 65 Jackman, Capt. W., 65 Jamaica, 46 Jarman, N., 164 Jenkin Jones, 163-172, 177 Jenner, 81 Jersey, 24, 26, 68, 134, 227n Job's and Job family i : c. 3 and sealers, 66, 68 and Carson's tomb, 127 and St. John's Chamber Commerce, 161 and fire insurance (1846), 186 Johnson, Dr. 79

of

252

INDEX

Kavanagh, P. F., 188 Kean, Capt., 66 Keats, Govr., 96, 119, 137, 175 Kemsley, 202-3 King, Govr., 147 Kipling, 60 Knob Lake, c. 12: 231 Knox, 107 Labouchene, 25 Labrador Potential, £.13 charting, 73 and Cartwright, 78 fishery, 44, 154-5 forest, 211 boundary 225—6, 226n. Labrador, Dept. of Northern, 237 Labradorite, 236 Land question, 142-4 Landergan case, 99, 113-6, 151 Lay, S., 202 Laycock, Mr. 198 Ledger and Gosse, 44 Ledingham, A., 92 Ledingham, J., 66 Leigh, Rev. J., 114 Lesters of Poole, 79, 159 Lewin, H.M.S., 77, 204 Liverpool (town), 30-7, 50, 102, 178 Liverpool, Earl of, 86, 139 "Liveyeres," 229 Lloyd, E., 202-3 Lloyd's, 77, 164 Logging, 2, 197 London, 9, n, 15, 81 Long Range, 3, 6, 93 Louisbourg, 129 Lounsbury, R. G., 43 Lundberg, H., 196 Lyme Regis, 3 McBraire, J., 148-9, 150, 170 McCrea, R. B., 2, 16 MacKay, R. A., 248 McManus, C. E., 254 McNamara of Toronto, 6 Macpherson, Dr. Cluny, 35n, 212 Macpherson, Hon. Harold, 33n, 101 "Mae West," 6 Mahan, Adm., 130 Marconi, 163 Markland, I28n Mary March, 85, 98, 102, 104 Mattie Mitchel, 196 Mayflower, 13 Melville Lake, 228 Melville, Ld., 138 Merchant Capitalism, 14, 55 Merchant Taylors' School Crosby, 31 Mermaid, 69

Mesabi Range, 223, 234 Methuen, 12 Micmacs, 27, 94, too Milbanke, M., Govr., 84, 105, 133, 146 Millertown, 218 Moisey Gorge, 235 Mont Joli, 232, 234 Montreal, 50, 93, 129, 166, 193, 221, 225 Moore, T., 12 Moravian Mission, 229, 235—8 Records, 97, 229, 236 Morris, P., 178 Mount Pearl, 2 Muir, Adm., 7211 "Multiplier," the, 204 Munn, W. A., 24, 57 Murray, Sir Geo., 159 Muskrat Falls, 209 Mysore, 196 Nascopie, 66 Natives, 82 and c. 6 passim Naval Officer, 38-9, 97, 156 Navigation Laws, 46, 105, 239 Navy, Royal, 13, 2on, 38, 51, 70, 77-8, 116-7, I3°. 2I 9 Necessaries, 12, 48 Newcomen, T., 14 Newfoundland Discovery of, 9, 128 Fisheries Development, 52 Hospital, 121 Railway, C. n R.C. (1933), 188, 192 Newman, i, i5n, 94, 215 Records, c. 2 Family, 15-16 R. W. (M.P.), 177 New York, 50, 164, 166, 208 New Zealand, 71, 93 Noble and Pinson, 79, 80 North Pole, 66, 67, 97 Northcliffe, 193-5 Notre Dame Bay, isgn, 208 O'Brien, L., 173 Oldmixon, iya. Olds, Dr., 65, 230 Oporto, 18, 156 Palliser, H., 72, 75-6, 131 Palmerston, 33 Paper, c. 11 Paper Machinery, 206 Parry, Capt., 101 Passenger Act, 157-8 Paton, J. L., 95 Peary, 67 Peile, J., History of Christ's College, 77 Pepys, 65, 167 Peyton family, 83-5, 97-9, 100

INDEX Phipps, C. (Ld. Mulgrave), 79 Phoenix Fire Co., 164 et seq. Physicians, College of, iO3n Pickmore, Govr., 96, 120, 177 Pitt, W., 107 Pitts, J., 35n Placentia, 4, 71, 73, 75, 2i3n Planters, 22, 43, 45, 160, 230 Plymouth, 9, 13 Poldhu, 163 Poole, i, 9-12, 42, 44, 50, 56-7, 71, no, 123 Population, 56, in, 135 in Grand Falls and Corner Brook, 199 in Goose Bay and Labrador, 228-30 Port aux Basques, i, 6, 19, 73, 191-2 Port Hope Simpson, 211 Port Vindex, 206 Port wine, 16-17 Portland, 2, 10 Portsmouth, 13 Portugal, 15, 49, 52, 128 Portugal Cove, 216 Pownall, J., 236n Povey, C., 163 Pratt, E. J., 3, 62, 193, 216 Prescott, Govr., 143 Press gang, 41-2 Priestly, n Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.). 2, 24, 91-2, 131 Prince Regent, 121, 150 Provisions, 50 Prowse, Judge, no, I75n, i8on, 189 Public houses, in Purdy, J., 97, 101 Pushthrough, 2, 73 Quebec Fall of, 129 as fire risk, 166 and Labrador, c. 13 Quit-rents, 138, 143 Railway, 7, 191-3 repair centre, 201 "streak of rust," 193 Ramea Is., 94 Random Sound, 94 Reed, A. E., 200 Reeves, C-J., c, ^ Reid, Angus, 192 Reid, R. G., 191 Rendell & Co., 172 Renews, 71, 92n Renouf, H. T., 162 Ricardo, 12 Richard I, 13 Richter, T., 165 and c. 10 Robinson, G. R., M.P., 123, 159 Rodney, George, Ld. Admiral, 77, I75n

253

Roman Catholic Church, 141 Roosevelt, F. D., 2i3n Roosevelt, T., 194 Rothermere ist Lord, 195, 203 2nd Lord, 193, 196 Rule, Rev. Mr. 77 Rum, 43, 49, 146 Russell, P., 13 Ruth Lake Deposits, 233 Rutherford, Dr. H. V., 79 Sack ships, 43n St. John's Chamber of Commerce, c. g military, 129 real estate, 132 a city, I39n as fire risk, c. 10 St. Lawrence, 72-3 St. Pierre, 2, 42, 63 St. Thomas, 164 Salmon, 60, 82, 93, 97, 200 Salt, 14, 38, 49-50, 54 San Francisco, 165 Sandwich Bay, 78 Scarcity value, 237 School Society, 161 Scott (Capt.), 66 Scott, Sir Walter, 3 Scottish sealers, 67 Sea power, 77 Seal finger, 65 Seal fishery, c. 5, 24, 137 Second Empire, 77 Settlement, West Coast, 7 Setubal, 50 Seven Isles, 234 S.F.G., 236 Shackleton, 66 Shanawdithit (Nancy), 84, 91, 93, 103 Sheep, 2, 8 Ship rooms, 131, 136-7, 243 Sidmouth, Ld., 118 Signal Hill, 113, 179 Simms, J., 101, n6, 144-5, 227 Sittingbourne, 202, 209 Smallpox, 8 1 Smallwood, J. R., 66 Smith, Adam, 54, 82 Smith, E., 202 Smith, F. E. (Ld. Birkenhead), 191 Smuggling, 30, 40-2 Soil, 3-5 Somerset, 10-11 Southampton, 10 Spirits, 43, 49, 146 Spitzbergen, 97 Spotting plane 61, 68 Spring Rice, 124, 126 Stationers, 230

INDEX

254

Statutes Chronological series, 239-45 Particular: 14 (1698): 38 (1663): 40 (Palliser's) : 44, 46 (Free Ports) : 48, 51 (tea): no, 115 (Justice): 118, 132 (anti-colonisation, shiprooms) : 144, 150, 157 (Passenger) : 177, 194 (A.N.D. colonial): 226n (Labrador boundary) Stephen, J., 115 Stephenville, 2, 7, 220 Stewart, J. & W., 26 Sugar pans, 164 Sulphur, 206 Sun Fire, 163 Surrogates, 99—100, 113, 115 Sursham, Mr. 198 Sweden, 207, 211, 235 Switzerland, 3 Tahiti, 73 Tanner, V., 228, 229 Taverner, Capt., 70 Tawney, R. H., 237 Taxation, local, 123 Tea, 51 Teignmouth, 32 Thorne, R., 9 "Tie-in," 55, 226 Tiller, W., 63 Tolerance, religious, 145 Tolpuddle Martyrs, 11 Tourism, 3 Townsend, C. W., 78 Townshend, Fort, 130, 175, 179 Trade friction, G.B. and U.S.A., 161 Trans-Canada Highway, 2, 6, 128, 201, 211

Transportation Royal Commission, 55 Trappers, 228-9 Treaties, 5, 7, 12, 246-8 Convention, proposed, of 1857, 25 Tremlett, C-J., 148 Trepassey, 129, 144

Trevorgay, 117 Triangle of commerce, 14, 53 Trinity Bay, 81, 94, 198 Tucker, C-J., 144-5, 158-9, 178 Twillingate, 75, 85, 98, 101, 212, 218, 230 Ulster, 132 Ulsterman, 45 Utrecht, 7, 129 Vancouver, 71, 193 Vaughan, Sir William, 69 Wabana, c. 12, 212 Wadham, T., 63 Wages of fishermen, 24, 148, 159 Waldegrave, Govr., 82 Wardle, A. C., 34, zygn Warner, Dr., 125 Waterford, 9, 19, 81 Watkins, Gino, 227, 229 Wessex, c. i, 8-12 West Coast Nfld, c. i., 1-8, 73 West Country, 8-12, 107 West Indies, 49, 166, 171 "Westward" in Nfld, 15, 21, 23 in England, i8u Weymouth, 9, ion Whitbourne, Sir R., 69, I28n Whiteley, G., 64-5 Whiteway, M., 163 Wild life, Son Wilts, ii Winstanley, G., 145 Wix, 5, 42 Wolfe, 72 Wool, 8, 41 Woollen industry, 14, 80 Wordsworth, 3

Yeo, Mr. and Mrs., 233 Youngsters, 19, 2on