THE OLDEST ENGLISH COLONY.* Tam oldest English colony—the first American
land trodden by English discoverers or claimed by the English Sovereign—ought to have an interest for all English people. But every colonist, or sojourner in a colony, has most likely had to realise, with a shock of mingled pity and disgust, how extremely ignorant and indifferent the dwellers at home are as to the history, the value, and the capabilities of that Greater Britain that lies beyond the Atlantic. As for Newfoundland, a vague idea that it produces dogs and salt-fish, that it is curtained in perpetual fogs, and that it has something to do with the submarine telegraph, is quite as much as may be expected of the general public. But if the general public would take the trouble to read the interesting book written about that despised country by Mr. Hatton and Mr. Harvey, they would enlarge and clear up their hazy notions in a very surprising and agreeable manner.
The practice of literary collaboration has met such acceptance of late, that there must be a good deal to be said in its favour, but we cannot help thinking that the chief (if not the only) fault of this book has arisen from that collaboration. The work is divided into six parts, viz. :—Historical Record, Physical Geography and Topography, the Fisheries, Agricultural Resources, Mineral Resources, Population, &c., and informa- tion which has been given either fully or partially in one of these sections is often repeated in another. We should like to see all the repetitions struck out, and the very beginning of the book rewritten ; it would lose, perhaps, a hundred pages of its present contents, but the remainder would grow in value and attractiveness.
The history of Newfoundland is a very curious one. It was discovered by John Cabot and a crew of Bristol men in 1497, only five years after Columbus had made his first landing at San Salvador; but though from that time nominally an English possession, it was left to the adventurous fishermen of other nations until the summer of 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert arrived in the harbour of St. John's, furnished with the Queen's patent creating him Governor of a territory far larger than the whole of the British Isles. There must have been something fascinating in that power of giving away a whole empire with a stroke of the pen, and especially when that empire was wrapped in mystery, and believed to be in some way a stepping-stone to the golden regions of Cathay. But Sir Humphrey was not destined to reap either profit or glory from his new domains. He and his half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, had planned the colonisation of Newfoundland ; but Sir Walter's ship was driven back to England by sickness among the crew, and Sir Humphrey perished at sea in the following autumn. In 1610, Lord Bacon, the Earl of Southampton, and other famous persons were con- cerned in a second and equally abortive attempt to colonise ; a third was made in 1623, under Lord Baltimore, afterwards Governor of Maryland. Lord Baltimore remained some years on the island, but at last returned home, and in 1638 Sir David Kirke took his place. It is at about this time that the pecu- liarity in the treatment of Newfoundland which has, as it were, thrown back its history for a hundred years, begins to show itself. The earliest visitors to the island had described it as having pure air and splendid rivers, "fruitful and enticing hills, and delightful valleys," producing abundant food both for man and beast. And the first intention was to plant a settle- ment—a real colony—in the island. But already there was in the field an interest hostile to colonisation. The merchants who sent out ships and men each summer to the cod and herring fishery desired to be left in undisturbed possession of the coasts and adjacent forests, and so well did they succeed in their object, that till more than seventy years after Kirke's death Newfoundland presented the curious spectacle of a large country entirely sacrificed to the fishermen who yearly visited its shores. Emigrants had come, how or whence it is difficult to say, and in 1655 there were 350 families living on sufferance ; but after Kirke, there was not even a nominal Governor, there was not a single resident magistrate, nor any person whatever possessing legal authority. No one could own the smallest piece of land, and if any one built a house, or so much as a fence,. his neighbours were free to pull it down again. The master of whatever fishing-vessel happened to arrive first in any port became the admiral of that port for the season; and his authority extended over the few settlers (or rather Newfoundland : the Oldest English Colony. By Joseph Hatton and the Rev. M. Harvey. London : Chapman and Hall. squatters) in the neighbourhood, but when he left in autumn all authority went with him, and indeed it may easily be sup-
posed that during his stay he was nothing better than a King Stork. Even when at last, in 1728, a permanent Governor was appointed, he spent his winters in England, and was forbidden to make any grant or sale of land, or to permit a house, or even shed to be built, without express leave obtained. This state of things lasted till after 1798 ; yet in spite of it settlers would not be altogether frightened away, and in 1802 the population of St. John's amounted to 3,420. From about this date, a better system began to prevail ; in 1813, the Governor was authorised "to make grants of small portions of land to industrious persons;" and in 1825, the first road was made in the island.
This story would read like a clumsy invention, if there were any possibility of doubting its truth, and it does net become
more vraisemblable when we know that the country so treated
contains within the circuit of its rocky coasts close upon 5,000,000 acres of land well fitted for agricultural and grazing purposes, besides extensive savannas ; that since 1854, when the mines were first worked, it has exported copper and nickel to the value of more than £1,000,000, and that it possesses 1,000 square miles of pine forest, chiefly of the white pine, admirably adapted for shipbuilding.
After all we have been in the habit of hearing of perpetual rain and fog in Newfoundland, it is curious to find that during four months of the year 1874, there were 34 rainy days at St. George's Bay, 47 at Toronto, and 52 at Winnipeg ; and that in a whole year at St. John's (the place most subject to them), there were but 17; days of thick fog, and 19 of light fog. This is surely not much worse than London !
We have said nothing about the full account given by our authors of the various Newfoundland fisheries, because these fisheries are the best known features of the country. The descrip- tion is very clear and interesting, and the chapters on seal-hunt- ing are among the very best parts of the book. There is another kind of fishing, however, occasionally practised on the New- foundland waters, which we cannot altogether pass over, for it has to do with only recently known gigantic cuttle-fish, such sea-monsters as make Victor Hugo's famous devil-fish appear a mere baby. It was Mr. Harvey, one of our two authors, who first introduced these terrible creatures to English naturalists, and he thus describes his earliest acquaintance among them :-
"On the 26th of October, 1873, two fishermen of Portugal Cove were oat in a small boat off the eastern end of Belle Isle, in Conception Bay. Observing something floating in the water, they rowed up to it, and one of them struck it with his boat-hook. Instantly the mass showed that it was animated, by putting itself in motion. A huge beak reared itself from among the folds and struck the boat, and a pair of large eyes glared at them ferociously. The men were petri- fied by fear ; and before they had time to escape, two corpse-like arms shot out from around the head, and flung themselves across the boat. One of the men bad the presence of mind to seize a small hatchet that fortunately lay at the bottom of the boat, and with a couple of blows be severed the arms as they lay over the gunwale.
The creature moved off from the boat, and ejected an enormous quantity of inky fluid, which darkened the water for 200 or 300 yards The longer arm was brought to St. John's by the fishermen, and Mr. Harvey was fortunate enough to secure it. On measurement, the fragment was found to be 19 ft. in length, not more than 3i in. in circumference, of a palish-pink colour, exceedingly strong and tough."
Only a fortnight after he had obtained the arm thus cut off, Mr. Harvey was " fortunate enough " to come into possession of a whole devil-fish, which had b2en entangled in a herring-net, and killed by the fishermen :—
" The two long arms, or tentacles, were found to measure each 24 ft., and to be 3 in. in circumference; the eight shorter arms were each 6 ft. in length, and at the point of junction with the central mass were 10 in. in circumference. The longer arms broadened at the extremities, and were there covered with suckers. The shorter arms had their under-sides covered through the entire length with a doable row of suckers, and each tapered to a fine point. The ten arms radiated from a central mass two and a half feet in diameter, in the middle of which was a strong, horny beak, shaped precisely like that of a parrot, and in size larger than a man's clenched fiat. The eyes were destroyed, but the eye-sockets measured four inches in diameter. The body was between seven and eight feet in length and five feet in circumference. The tail was fin-shaped, and about two feet across."
We have a most vivid recollection of hearing from an eye- witness the account of the landing of one of these cuttle-fish- possibly the very one described above—and we thought its pro- portions sufficiently sensational; but Mr. Harvey says that a still larger one, which he did not himself see, was cast ashore in Notre Dame Bay, and the body of which was reported, on good authority, to have been 20 ft. in length, the tentacles 40 ft.
With these short extracts we will take leave of a most enter- taining and useful book, which we hope will find a great many readers both in England and in Newfoundland. Certainly any- body who is thinking of emigration ought to make himself acquainted with it, and so should those who care for shooting and fishing, and want a little novelty in the place and manner of their sport.
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