INTRODUCTION 25 



sition of the DIVINITY, who had been graciously pleased 

 to hear our prayers, and grant our petitions; and I hope 

 I shall 'never be of a contrary way of thinking." He was 

 a man of strict honour; and when he failed in business, 

 he refused to go into bankruptcy, and preferred to carry 

 the burden of his debt in the hope of paying it off. 



He had several trading-posts at intervals along the 

 coast from Cape Charles to Sandwich Bay. Under him 

 he seems to have had at times as many as seventy-five 

 or eighty men, mostly Irishmen of the. lowest description. 

 He did not limit himself to sealing, and fishing for cod and 

 salmon, but he tried by all means possible to cultivate 

 trade with the Indians and Eskimos. His policy in 

 this regard is one of the most laudable things about him. 

 Three years before his arrival on the coast the Eskimos, 

 with whom murder was a pastime, killed three of Captain 

 Darby's men at Charles River. The relations between 

 the English and the Eskimos after this threatened to 

 degenerate into the guerilla warfare which ended in New- 

 foundland in the extinction of the Beothuks. Cartwright 

 saw that this policy was a wrong one, and by his firm and 

 kindly attitude toward the Eskimos he gradually gained 

 their confidence. Twice he took Eskimos back with him 

 to England, and tried to train them up as go-betweens, 

 but they almost all died from the smallpox. Their death 

 was to Cartwright one of his greatest disappointments. 

 Through ill luck his policy was not so successful as he 

 hoped it would be, but it must be said that he was work- 

 ing along the right lines. 



Cartwright was not a good business man, and his adven- 

 ture was not a success. He suffered from the hostility 



