xxii INTRODUCTION 



regarded with feelings of the greatest affection 

 and respect. The French fleet under Admiral 

 Conflans were attacked in the great s^a fight of 

 November 20th of that year by the English Ad- 

 miral Sir Edward Hawke, and notwithstanding 

 their knowledge of the coast, which enabled them 

 to retire to the dangerous shallows amid rocks, 

 more than half of their vessels were either cap- 

 tured, disabled or driven ashore. Of the twenty- 

 six men under the command of John Cartwright 

 in this battle, thirteen were killed, while he es- 

 caped with but a slight scratch from a splinter. 



In 1766 John was appointed by Sir Hugh Pal- 

 lisser, the Governor of Newfoundland, to be his 

 deputy or surrogate within the district of Trin- 

 ity and Conception Bays, and the following year 

 he was made deputy commissary to the Vice- 

 Admiralty Court in Newfoundland. Here he 

 served with great efficiency for five years. During 

 this time he explored the River Exploits to its 

 head-waters, in a lake named by him Lieutenant's 

 Lake. Poor health, however, obliged him to re- 

 linquish the post and he returned to England in 

 1771. 



Such was the spirit of fairness of the man that 

 at the outbreak of the rebellion among the Amer- 

 ican Colonists, he refused to accept a tempting 

 appointment to fight against a cause which he 

 believed to be just. These views of his were first 

 expressed publicly to the world in 1774, when he 

 published a pamphlet entitled: " American Inde- 

 pendence the Glory and Interest of England." 



