A HALF-CENTURY OF PROGRESS, 1713-63 II3 



convoy-captains had *of publishing orders in our own names winter, 

 to prevent disorders ' in the winter was universal. Their ^^''^ 

 annual absences forced them beyond the judicial into the 1728, aw^ 

 legislative sphere ; and this usurpation was legalized by an l^^f^"^^- ? 

 Order in Council passed in 1728, and constituting ih^moreorless, 

 convoy-captain Governor. From 1729 until 18 17 New-lp^^* 

 foundland had Governors who were sometimes quinquennial 

 (1764-68), quadrennial (1813-16), or biennial, but werel 

 usually triennial (1729-31, 1735-37. 1750-2, 1757-9,* 

 1769-71, et seq.), and were very seldom annual, as the 

 convoy-captains used to be before 1724, so that personal ties - 

 were formed between Governors and governed. But down 

 to 1 81 7, although for some purposes their office was con- 

 tinuous, they were also captains of ships who had to sail 

 backwards and forwards within the year; and, like the 

 arctic sun, they shone only during the brief summer season, 

 and in their absence the sky was moonless, and for a while 

 unillumined by a single star. 



Various efforts were made to redeem winter from its Local de- 

 darkness. In 171 7 the convoy-captain was ordered to repoijtV^^^^"^ ,^^'^ 

 the name of a suitable winter resident as deputy gowtxnotAfor winter, 

 but he replied that there was not a man in the island fit for thfer^^^' ^^^9* 

 post — no, not one. His successor in 17 19 favoured the idea^ 

 of appointing as Justices of the Peace several winter residents, 

 among whom W. Keen, a resident of fifteen years' standing, 

 who had recently served as a Commissioner in a special Court 

 convened at St. John's to try crime committed on the high seas, 

 was pre-eminent. But this idea was rejected for the nonce as j 

 illegal. In 1723, fifty-one leading men at St. John's, inspired] 

 by Locke's Treatise on Civil Government, signed a document A State 



which recited that men emerged from a state of nature into ^^^{^^/ ^'^ 



^ social con- 



a political society by contract, and in which the signatories tract was 

 bound themselves by bonds to elect three rulers every year ^^ ' ^^^3* 

 when the convoys were away, and to abide by the decision of 

 the majority of electors. The three first magistrates of this 



