DEATH OF GOVERNOR PICKMORE.

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the return of prosperity to the country, the Government of which had been such a sad and anxious burden to him. On his departure from England in the summer of 1817, his instructions commanded him to remain in the island during the winter, the future residence of the governors in the colony having been adopted as a rule by the ministry. Sir Francis Pickmore, the first to whom this rule was applied, was a man well advanced in years. The troublous scenes which he had been compelled to witness in the beginning of the winter had probably pressed too heavily on his mind and heart, and in consequence, there was marked in him a failure of his usual health. This for some time did not appear of a threatening or dangerous nature, but in the middle of February he declined rapidly, and on the 24th of that month he died.

His funeral was conducted in a manner appropriate to the rank of the deceased. All the military and naval force on the station were present; the civil authorities, the clergy of various denominations, the public societies of the town, and the inhabitants generally swelled the procession which bore his remains to the church. There, just overlooking the ruins which the late dreadful fires had made, and in the midst of people still enduring sharp sufferings, which he had done his best to mitigate, the old admiral was laid temporarily in a vault which Lad been prepared for him, the first governor who spent any part of the winter on the island, and the only

his post.

governor, who for a period of 130 years, has died at His body was afterwards conveyed to England, and some idea of the severity of the season at St. John's may be formed from the fact that it took three weeks to cut a channel for the vessel that conveyed him through the ice.

CHAPTER XII.

1818-1825.

AFTER the death of Admiral Pickmore, the duty of governing the colony devolved on Captain Bowker, the commander of the Admiral ship. The task which had thus unexpectedly fallen into his hands was not a light one. It had to be undertaken in the extremity of the winter, and among a people whose provisions stored for that season had nearly all been destroyed by fire. Notwithstanding all the efforts which had been made by the late governor immediately on the occurrence of the latter calamity, to provide against some of its effects-notwithstanding the liberal supplies forwarded from Halifax, supplemented by the generous gifts of the Americans-the scarcity was very great, and entailed a large measure of suffering.

But, as the weeks followed each other in slow succession, with the lengthening days came the revival of the people's hopes. The first stimulant to these hopes was the favourable seal fishery, the returns of which came in April. These were wel comed as the sign that Providence had not utterly forsaken the land; and so men were encouraged to prepare for making the most of the summer voyage,

Y

the general character of which has been mentioned, by anticipation, in the preceding chapter.

On July 20, 1818, Captain Bowker was relieved of the responsibilities which he had sustained for five months, by the arrival of Sir Charles Hamilton, Baronet, and Vice-Admiral of the Blue Squadron, whose commission as governor and commander-inchief was read the same day, 'in the presence of the chief justice, the justices of the peace, the colonel commanding, and officers of the garrison, and the principal inhabitants of St. John's.' A few days afterwards, His Excellency, in a letter announcing to the Earl of Bathurst his arrival and assumption of office, informed his lordship that so far as the season had advanced, there was reason to hope that the fisheries would be fairly productive.

One of the most urgent demands on the Governor's attention arose out of the conflagrations which had marked the close of the administration of his predecessor. The principal part of the town of St. John's had to be rebuilt, and in such a manner as to make it less liable to such dreadful visitations as the inhabitants had lately experienced, and from which they were still suffering. Notices were published prohibiting the commencement of any buildings on the site of the old ruins, until some plan was authoritatively adopted, by which the danger of fire might be removed, or, at least, its destructive effects be diminished.

During the delay consequent on the preparation of such a plan, fresh evidence was afforded of the

ADMINISTRATION OF SIR CHARLES HAMILTON. $23

necessity of the precautions it was intended to supply. Sir Charles Hamilton had been at the seat of government little more than a month, when he had to report to the Secretary of State that another fire had broken out, which, though speedily arrested, had in the brief space while it lasted burned twelve dwelling-houses, destroyed a portion of the Ordnance property, and imperilled the whole of it. In the following summer he had to transmit an account of a more serious conflagration, to the westward of the sites of the fires of November 1817, which, first discovered at one o'clock in the morning when people were asleep, had got to a speedy head, and, being aided by a strong wind, was not extinguished until it had destroyed 120 dwellings, stores, and wharves, consumed 150,000%. worth of property, and rendered 1,000 persons without a home. The frequent recurrence of these fires, so extensive and ruinous in their character, all comprised within the space of a few years, suggests the opinion that the enormous immigration, attracted by the high wages prevailing in the latter years of the war, had some part in producing these calamities. Previous to 1810 the town had been quite as well adapted for making a bonfire as it proved to be afterwards, and the inhabitants were duly apprehensive of its ominous fitness for such a catastrophe; yet a fire was of comparatively rare occurrence, and never proceeded to any great extent of damage. But in and after the year above-mentioned, Ireland sent out annually thousands of emigrants, a considerable portion of whom stayed in St. John's—