ness of fishing masters leaving their servants behind them at the close of the season, in what is usually termed this desolate country, and also to the frequent exactions and fraud of planters on those whom they had hired for the voyage. On this latter point a short extract may be given, as exhibiting a rude sort of equity in the authorities when dealing with a scandalous offence:

By His Excellency Hugh Palliser, &c., &c.

John Goding having let his servant Robert Percel run out the whole of his wages, and now discarded him in this desolate country, the said John Goding is hereby ordered to pay his passage home, and till he does so (to prevent his being necessitated to rob other people) the said Percel is hereby authorized to enter the house or habitation of the said Goding, and there abide, and take necessaries for his subsistence (but nothing else), without being liable to any prosecution for a trespass or robbery for the same.

Given, &c., in Court 19th October, 1767.

HUGH PALLISER.

There is one other fact of some interest which deserves to be mentioned before bringing this chapter to a close. It relates to the connection between Newfoundland and Cook, the great navigator. In the earlier part of his career he had attracted the favourable attention of Captain Palliser, who procured his promotion in the service. Both the patron and his protégé were engaged in the expedition of Wolfe for the reduction of Quebec. In 1762, Cook took part in the recapture of St. John's from the French. He was soon afterwards appointed to make a survey of

the island, and when his old friend became Governor, he continued his task with every encouragement from the local authorities. It occupied him until 1767, by which time he had surveyed the whole coast of the island, as well as the neighbouring shores of Labrador. He had also explored the interior in several directions, laying down the position and extent of some of the larger lakes. In addition to these labours, he had taken observations of an eclipse of the sun at one of the Burgeo islets, the record of which was sent to the Royal Society, and published in a paper of the Philosophical Transactions. His charts of the coasts and seas of Newfoundland are still in use, being among the best, and in some cases, the only reliable ones. More than one house is at the present day pointed out as having served Captain Cook for a temporary abode, and several cairns of loose stones used by him as stations of observation are said to be standing in the western parts of the country.

CHAPTER VI.

1775-1788.

IT has been mentioned in the previous chapter that in the year 1775 Newfoundland was made to feel severely the effects of the revolt of the colonies on the North American continent — being deprived, by that event, of the supplies which she had been accustomed to receive from thence. Though the first sharp sufferings arising from this deprivation were in a short time ameliorated, yet, for long afterwards, the country was doomed to suffer from the same cause, partly in the same manner, and partly from the more direct effects consequent on the progress of hostilities. The confederated States, as they were termed, displayed more force and ability, as well as stubbornness, to sustain the conflict in which they had embarked, than was expected from them, while their chief mili tary affairs were under the direction of a man who, by his generalship, his civic capacities and virtues, and especially by his pure patriotism, was building up for himself a reputation which to this day commands the homage of the world.

But the contest in which Great Britain was involved with her refractory subjects was not the only,

NAVAL CONFLICTS OF THE PERIOD.

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perhaps not the greatest, difficulty with which she had to contend at this period, though the rebellion of her dependencies gave birth to the other demands on her energy and resources. The dispute between the mother-country and her distant children was seen to be a good opportunity for the old enemies of England to strike a blow at that empire which had so often humbled them. Both France and Spain looked with favour on the independent spirit and action of the plantations in the west, and were not long in lending themselves as auxiliaries in the strife. The former welcomed with open arms the representatives of the Congress, lavished praises on them and their country, and prepared to give substantial aid to the infant assertors of territorial independence and the rights of man. The consequence was, that in addition to the sore task of quenching a rebellious flame which raged from Florida to the shores of the St. Lawrence, Britain was involved at the same time in contests with the two principal naval and military powers in Europe. As the result of this complication of interests, ambitions and jealousies, hostilities were not confined to the western borders of the Atlantic, but were carried on in every sea where British ships could meet with vessels of Spain or France, and on every coast where the two latter powers on the one side, and Great Britain on the other, had possessions or interests inviting attack. These naval conflicts were maintained with varied success, the great preponderance of advantage and glory being with the English flag. Under that flag, a former governor of

Newfoundland, Sir George Bridges Rodney, made for his victories Lord Rodney, whose administration of the affairs of the colony thirty years before has been noticed in this work, performed the greatest services for his nation, and received at the nation's hands the meed of highest renown bestowed in that age.

It was not until the early part of the year 1778, that a treaty, offensive and defensive, between France and the United States, was concluded. But in anticipation of that measure, and to guard against a stroke of policy, of which the British Ministry had made use at the commencement of the former war, an order had been issued from Versailles, dated August 1777, recalling all the French fishing-ships with their crews from the banks and coast of Newfoundland; an order to which effect was given in the beginning of the month of October, by the sudden departure of all the French vessels and fishermen from these waters. This was a step which confirmed the apprehensions of the Government at home, in respect to the negotiations which the Court of France was carrying on with the mutinous colonies.

From this time for several seasons British fishermen in Newfoundland enjoyed that desideratum which has often been sighed for since; they had the fisheries to themselves, neither American nor Frenchman appearing to compete with them in gathering the harvest of the seas. But unhappily this advantage was attended with a drawback by which it was more than neutralised. The privateers of the enemy were