ON SABLE ISLAND. 33 



trouble, and perhaps liis worst trouble, in the conduct of men who might lie said to have 

 owed their lives to the existence of the establishment. On one occasion he had much 

 difficult}' with a captain who remained after his crew had been removed. Sometimes he 

 manifested unmistakable indications of insanity, at other times as unmistakable indications 

 of diabolical wickedness, exciting some of the men to mutiu}', and threatening even to shoot 

 the superintendent, who had no end of trouble watching him and keeping all guns out of 

 his reach, till a vessel arrived by which he had him shipped from the island. 



At another time the crew of a vessel which had been wrecked off the east point of the 

 island mutinied, not only refusing to work, but using the most abusive langtage to the 

 superintendent and the captain ; complaining of the provisions, demanding more grog, 

 though they received two glasses a day when working, and uttering dire threats, one of 

 them even lifting up an axe to the former. His firmness prevented their going to the 

 extremities they threatened. But as such a state of things could not continue, he boarded 

 a vessel which came to off the main station, and hired the captain to carry a letter to the 

 Board of Works at Halifax, informing them of the condition of matters. On the fifth day 

 after a vessel arrived with Lieut. Lyndsay and some blue-jackets, sent down by the admiral, 

 who soon bundled the whole sixteen on board and removed them from the island. We may 

 mention here that no li(pu)r is now allowed on the island. Persons addicted to drink, or 

 their friends for them, have therefore sometimes requested from government the privilege 

 of residing on it. 



Of saddest interest are those fragments found by men on their rounds, which too truly 

 tell of the total loss of gallant vessels, of their crews engulfed by the raging sea, from which 

 no tidings ever come to friends who, far off", wait for those who shall return no more. A 

 few memoranda of this kind may be o-f interest as showing part of their daily life : 



"18tli January, 1850. — Superintendent went to the northeast bar and returned. While 

 gone he examined some spars and rigging picked up by F. in December, and found them to 

 be the topmasts and foretopgallant mast of a brig, with foretopgallant mast rigging and 

 backstays and topgallant rigging attached. The spars and rigging are Ijoth (piite new. 



" 4th. — Found a pieee of wreck on the south lieach quite new, also chips from a large 

 spar painted black. 



"26th November, 1852. — The superintendent searched the nortlieast Ijar, and found 

 the quarterdeck of a small vessel, deck plank pine, about twelve inches wide and middle 

 seamed," etc. 



" 7th October, 1853. — At 1 p. m. discovered a sc|uare-rigged vessel off the south side, 

 apparently waterlogged, and standing toward the island under short sail, but whether a ship- 

 or ))arque-rigged vessel could not be distinctly made out through the rain and haze, and at 

 3 o'clock p. m. we lost sight of her, the weather having grown quite thick. 



" 8th. — Sent two men to search the south beach and one to search the north beach and 

 the n<jrthwest bar, who report having found a quantity of new spruce deals on the north- 

 west bar and on both sides of the island, but the greater quantity on the north side. In the 

 afternoon three of the men came home from the northeast bar, and reported the north beach, 

 at the eastern end of the island, to be strewed with spruce deals to the number of some 

 hundreds, fi'om which there is reason to fear that the vessel seen yesterday has been on the 

 northwest bar. 



Sec. IT., 1894. 5. 



