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ism, which is somewhat wonderful when it is considered that nine-tenths of its circulation is confined to St. John's and the neighbourhood, with a population not exceeding thirty thousand.

These papers are conducted with a variety of talent; they severally represent all interests and classes, all political opinions, and all the varieties of religious faith and feeling; and, whether for good or evil, they exert a considerable influence on the mind and action of society.

The

In the same year, 1806, there commenced an organisation, which was also to be continued to the present day, and to be followed by examples of a like character. This was the Irish Benevolent Society,' a copy of whose rules and regulations was submitted to the Governor for his approval. object which the society professed to have in view, was to make provision by which Irishmen should relieve the wants and distresses of their fellow Irishmen. The Governor, in according his permission for the establishment of the society, on the ground that he highly approved of every institution properly regulated, having for its object the relief of the poor in a place where no parochial laws were established for that purpose; yet took the oportunity to declare his opinion that it was better in the formation of such benevolent societies in the place, that all national and religious distinctions should be carefully avoided. The magistrates were enjoined, therefore, on any future application for a like object, to govern themselves by the opinion thus expressed.

BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATIONS.

245

The example of the Benevolent Irish Society has been deemed more worthy of being followed than the sentiment and counsel of His Excellency. It has been succeeded by three other societies, all formed on a restricted basis-the St. George's Society, composed of Englishmen, or the sons of Englishmen-the St. Andrew's Society, confined to Scotchmen and their descendants-and the British Society, a little more catholic in its spirit, as it embraces members whose origin may have been on either side the Tweed. And if the preservation of these lines of demarcation between the subjects of the same empire has tended to foster the feeling of a narrow nationality, which it were desirable should give place to a larger sense of a common unity, the evil is perhaps compensated by the greater earnestness with which each section applies itself to the charitable work, which it is the chief object of these societies to perform.

A subject of higher interest than post offices, newspapers, or benevolent societies, yet one which denoted an element having its part and influence in the developement of life in Newfoundland, finds a place in the Records of this period. The following entry is dated July 29, 1806:—

GENTLEMEN,-The four persons named in the margin, who are arrived here from Quebec, being Players, having requested I will allow them to exhibit their Theatrical Representations in St. John's, you are to permit them to do so, so long as they shall continue to conduct themselves in an orderly and decent manner.

The Magistrates of St. John's.

(Signed)

E. GOWER.

Sir Erasmus Gower took his final leave of the colony at the end of October 1806. Before his departure he received an address which bore the signatures of the merchants and other inhabitants of St. John's, conveying the expression of their feelings of admiration and gratitude, for the manner in which he had attended to the interests of the trade, and the welfare of the people in general. And though little of excitement characterized the three seasons of his administration of the affairs of the country, yet during that time he had obtained, or given his consent to the introduction of agencies which, though unpretending on their first appearance, were not to be the least influential among those affecting the future of Terra Nova.

Subjoined is the cost of the civil establishment of

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Allowance to the Sheriff at 10s. per day 182 10 0

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St. John's.

Pension to Rev. Dr. O'Donnel

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CHAPTER X.

1807-1812.

ON July 26, 1807, Admiral Holloway arrived in the harbour of St. John's, to exercise the functions of governor over the island, and commander of the fleet on the station. On the 28th he landed and was received with the customary ceremonies. The same day he took the oaths and made the necessary arrangements for carrying into execution the duties of the Government.

In a letter written shortly after his arrival to Viscount Castlereagh, he expressed his satisfaction in having to inform his lordship, that according to the reports he had received from all parts of the island, good order and regularity had prevailed among the inhabitants during the winter. He was also happy to report that the seal-fishery in the spring had been successful, and that the cod-fishery promised to be equally so.

6

One of the first acts of His Excellency was to give his sanction to the issue of the Royal Gazette,' and to cause to be recorded a memorandum of conditions on which the printer is suffered to publish his weekly paper,' viz. :

Giving security in the sum of 2007., that he will not suffer to be inserted in his paper any paragraph or extracts from other papers, which indicated anything inflammatory against the Government of Great Britain or its dependencies, or any paragraph which may tend to sow dissensions among the inhabitants of this island, and never to give or to suffer any opinion to be given upon the policy of other nations, but to confine his paper solely for the benefit of commerce, and the inhabitants of this Government and others trading with it.

No paper of any kind is to be printed without the printer's name at foot thereof, and he is to keep the original manuscript of everything printed, in order to have reference to the same if requisite.

(Signed) J. HOLLOWAY.

The first number of the Gazette appeared in August, and complied, as did the succeeding issues, with the above conditions. Indeed, so little is there of any editorial character, or even of intelligence, respecting local events, that in a file of papers, containing the publications of seven years, very scanty material is to be obtained for the purpose of this work. Yet it is interesting to look over these dim, soiled pages, not only for the memories they recall of a series of events among the most wonderful in the history of the world, but because the reader is led to imagine that he can realise the feelings which the tidings of these events, in their sudden, irregular announcement, produced among the good people of St. John's more than half a century ago. The facts which form the material of no small portion of Sir Archibald Alison's voluminous history, were jerked out, as it were, piecemeal by ships that came into the port. Napoleon's continental

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