



INTRODUCTION 27 



Cartwright computed his losses at about 14,000. 

 Fortunately, however, his brig, with all the salt and most 

 of the other goods which the Americans had carried away 

 in her, was retaken on her passage to Boston, and his 

 losses proved not so great as he had imagined they would 

 be. Others suffered more severely than he did. Noble 

 and Pinson at Temple Bay lost three vessels and all their 

 stores; and two merchants named Slade and Seydes lost 

 a vessel each at Charles Harbour. The next year a small 

 American privateer of four guns entered Battle Harbour, 

 and captured a sloop there with about twenty-two tuns 

 of seal oil on board. The stores on the shore, belonging 

 to Slade of Twillingate, were destroyed. The result was 

 that " everybody on this side of Trinity was in the utmost 

 distress for provisions from the depredations of the priva- 

 teers, as no vessels had arrived from England." Cart- 

 wright himself had to cut his men down to short rations 

 during the winter. 



In 1786 Cartwright returned to England, and his diary 

 closes. In the last entries are some interesting notes on 

 the Strait of Belle Isle. At both Forteau Bay and Blanc 

 Sablon Cartwright founded establishments of fishing com- 

 panies from Jersey. Behind the Isle de Bois he saw 

 several American whalers lying at anchor. "Not having 

 had any success with whales, they were catching codfish. 

 As they dare not carry their fish to the European markets, 

 for fear of the Barbary rovers, they are sent up to their 

 own back settlements, where they fetch good prices.' 7 

 The journal ends with a poetical epistle to Labrador. 



Ten years after Cartwright left the coast Labrador was 

 again the victim of a hostile visitation. In August, 1796, 



