NE WFO UNDLAND. 43 



smaller firms. A captain asked Gosse how he liked New- 

 foundland ; safe, as he thought, with none but colonists, he 

 replied smartly, " I see little in it, except dogs and 

 Irishmen." The silence that followed, where he had ex- 

 pected approving laughter, told him that something was 

 wrong. At length his brother said, " Do you not know 

 that Mr. Moore is an Irishman ? " Philip Gosse was imme- 

 diately extremely abashed ; but Moore replied, with great 

 good humour, "There's no offence; I am an Ulsterman, 

 and love the Papist Irish no better than the rest of you." 

 The southern Irish were not slow, of course, to observe the 

 feeling of which this conversation was an example. They 

 immensely preponderated in numbers, and they already 

 formed an anti-English party in Newfoundland, the rancour 

 of which was an inconvenience, if not a danger to the 

 colony. My father says, in one of his manuscript notes — 

 "There existed in Newfoundland in 1827, among the 

 " Protestant population of the island, an habitual dread 

 " of the Irish as a class, which was more oppressively 

 " felt than openly expressed, and there was customary 

 "an habitual caution in conversation, to avoid any 

 " unguarded expression which might be laid hold of by 

 "their jealous enmity. It was very largely this dread 

 "which impelled me to forsake Newfoundland, as a 

 "residence, in 1835; and I recollect saying to my 

 "friends the Jaqueses, ' that when we got to Canada, we 

 " ' might climb to the top of the tallest tree in the forest, 

 " ' and shout " Irishman ! " at the top of our voice, without 

 "'fear.'" 



Gosse's first summer in Newfoundland was one of much 

 freedom. Mr. Elson, not having seen his English partners 

 for several years, took a holiday in the mother-country, 

 and Newall, the easy-going book-keeper, ruled at Carbonear 

 as his locum tenens. Besides this, the summer was always 



