yo A. D. 1785. 



plained, that by this, and other hardihips infeparable from a new under- 

 taking, they had never yet been able to make any dividend, though 

 they had expended /^ioo,ooo; and they prayed, that they might at 

 •leaft be reUeved from paying duty upon the wafte glafs. 



April The following tranfadion, fo honourable to the gentlemen 



-concerned, ought not to be fupprefled in a hiftory of commerce. The 

 merchants of Cork, underllanding that the long continuance of eafterly 

 winds had reduced many veiTels, which were then near the coafl of Ire- 

 land, to great diflrefs for want of provifions, immediately fet on foot a 

 fubfcription, which was inftantly, and Hberally, fdled : and then they dif- 

 patched a confidential perfon in a fafl-failing cutter, loaded with beef, 

 pork, bread, water, and frefli provifions, with inftruftions to cruife off 

 .Cape Clear, and to give relief to all veflels in diflrefs, whatever nation 

 they might belong to. And he was particularly charged by no means to 

 accept any thing in return, the pleafure of doing good being the fole 

 gain his generous employers propoied to themfelves from this voyage of 

 philanthropy. 



This fpring the inhabitants of Nova Scotia were afliided w^lth a 

 fcarcity of provifions, approaching to a famine; and the m?.giftrates of 

 ^helburne repeatedly made urgent applications for relief. Such a 

 fcarcity, though only temporary, feems to prove, that there cannot, for 

 fome time at leafi:, be any dependence for a fupply to our Weft-India 

 iflands upon that colony. The diflrefs was, no doubt, augmented by 

 vthe rapid influxof inhabitants, who had in the courfe of a year increafed 

 from twenty-fix, to fixty-fix, thoufand ; an augmentation of confumers, 

 with which the increafe in the cultivated produce of the country could 

 not immediately keep pace. But it was not long before the tide of 

 :population began 4:o ebb. The agricultural people from the fouthern, 

 or middle, provinces were difcouraged by the protraded rigours of a 

 winter of feven months ; and the other clafie;s of inhabitants found the 

 trade and fiflieries lefs produdive than they had expeded ; whence it 

 followed, that people of all defcriptions gradually left the province in 

 onfiderable numbers. 



March — When the fettlers upon the ifland of Newfoundland were in 

 .great diflirefs for want of provifions in the beginning of the year 1784, 

 fome Britifli veflels brought them a fupply from the United flates of 

 America. Admiral Campbell, the governor of Newfoundland, there- 

 upon called a council to determine, whether provifions lb imported 

 might be admitted to entry in a Britifli colony ; and they decided that 

 the provifions might be imported. But in order to avoid fuch uncer- 

 tainty in future. 



An ad was pafled which allowed bread, flour, and live flock, and no 

 other articles upon any pretence whatfoever, to be imported into New- 

 foundland and the adjacent illands from the United flates of America 



