THE THIRD ANGLO-FRENCH DUEL 151 



different civil departments, and likewise sold by them as 

 private property.'* Colonel Pringle and Major Brady left 

 their names to bridges, paths, and the like ; Colonel Skinner, 

 Major Griffith Williams, Colonel Haly, and Captain Edgell, 

 R.N., turned their bayonets into pruning-hooks and initiated 

 farming; in 1773 military roads were begun between the 

 three forts which dominated St. John's, and these were the 

 first roads in Newfoundland; in 1775 the inhabitants of 

 St. John's petitioned against officers who ' lately enclosed 

 large spots of ground contiguous to their harbour for erecting 

 houses, planting gardens, farms, &c.', and non-fishers were 

 stigmatized as * a burden to the land '. As in New^ South 

 Wales and almost every colony since 1774, military men were 

 in the van as pathfinders, roadmakers, agriculturists, and 

 pastoralists ; and the history of our colonies would have to 

 be re-written if the peaceful exploits of warlike pioneers were 

 expunged from their records. 



Next to the Army came the Church. The Anglican Churches, 

 Church dates from 1699; the Rev. Laurence Coughlan 

 introduced Wesley anism in 1765 ; and land was given from 

 time to time for Anglican and Nonconformist places of 

 worship. Under Rev. James O'Donel, 1784, Roman Catho- 

 licism became a power in the land; and in 1790 complaints 

 were made by champions of the old order that Irish fisher- 

 men were no longer obliged to return to Ireland for abso- 

 lution as priests were on the spot. In 1796 O'Donel was 

 appointed the first Roman Catholic Bishop for Newfoundland, 

 and, in 1797, he obtained land on a ninety-nine years' lease 

 from the Governor for a Church or Cathedral. In 1799 the 

 first Grammar School was opened by the Rev. L. A. Anspach, 

 the well-known historian of Newfoundland ; so that spiritual 

 everlastings were once for all planted in the earth. 



Popular beliefs recognized the validity of titles to land before lafuied 



^enures f 

 1 Third Report on Newfoundland, 1793, p. 84. See House of^ 

 Commons' Reports, 1731-1800, vol. xlii, No. 107 of General Collection, ia 



