28 RRV. GEORGE PATTERSON 



The committee of the executive council took evidence and reported in the strongest 

 terms of condemnation of the treatment he had received, " left unvisited and uncared for 

 seventeen years, the drudge and hutt of the establishment, squalid and half clad, beaten and 

 taunted till every attribute of manhood was crushed." 



VI. Life on the Island — Supbrintendency of M. D. McKenna, 1848-1855. 



Capt. Darby was succeeded by Capt. Matthew J). McKenna, who arrived on the island 

 on the 8th November, 1848, and immediately entered upon the duties of his office, which he 

 continued to discharge till September, 1855. He was simply the man for the place. Any 

 disorder existing was soon removed, and the whole system brought to the highest state of 

 efficiency. 



As we have before us his journal during the whole of his incumbenc}', it enables us to 

 give a view of the working of the whole system, and of the life of those employed about it. 

 This will serve as a description of the state of things not only under his incumbency, Ijut 

 under that of his predecessors and his successors up to the present time. 



The main establishment was on the north side about live miles from the west end of the 

 island, now, however, covered by the sea. Here was a dwelling-house for the superintendent 

 and another for the men, a large building known as the " sailors' home," for receiving ship- 

 wrecked mariners or others, a warehouse for storing shipwrecked goods, a large barn and 

 stable, a forge and carpenter's shop, an oil-house, and a number of outbuildings. Here was 

 a ilagstaft' with an observatory on it, called the Crow's-nest, 120 feet high. During Mr. 

 McKenna's incumbency Capt. Marryat's code of signals was introduced. Nine miles to the 

 eastward, at the foot of the lake, was a dwelling-house, occupied by one family and some- 

 times by two, with a barn and flagstaff. Five miles east of this was the east station, where 

 were a house and barn occupied as the last, and also a flagstafi'. On the south side was a 

 hut, unoccupied, intended as a house of refuge for sailors who might be cast upon the island. 

 The door was simply latched. In it was a fireplace with wood. Alongside was apparatus 

 for producing fire, at this time tinder with flint and steel, now superseded by boxes of 

 friction matches. A bag of provisions was suspended from the wall beyond the reach of 

 rats. Written directions were posted up telling the way to the stations and how fresh water 

 might be obtained by digging in the sand. During Mr. McKenna's incumbency another 

 house of the same kind was erected at the east end of the island. 



The importance of this arrangement will appear from the following incident recorded 

 by him : 



"The ' ISTisibis ' of St. Johns, N. F., Hallahan master, struck on the IST. E. bar on the 

 night of the 18th January, during a most violent gale of wind, and almost instantly filled 

 with water. The crew clung to the wreck till eight o'clock the next morning, when they cut 

 away the foremast, and getting on the floating spars were miraculously thrown on shore. 



" The gale raged with such violence throughovit the whole of the 19th, that it was next 

 to impossible for our men to go the rounds ; and if these poor fellows had not had a fair 

 wind, and the house of refuge in their road (where they made a fire and warmed themselves 

 and got bread to eat), some of them at least would certainly have perished before they could 

 have got to the eastern station, the distance of it from the wreck being seven miles." 



And yet there were men, seafaring men too, capable of robbing such a refuge of its 

 contents. More than once the superintendent had to complain of the crews of fishing 



