LOSS OF AN ENGLISH SLOOP. 143 
an English merchant, who received us with every kind of ci- 
vility, and who, being informed of my misfortunes, had the 
confidence to advance me two hundred pounds sterling for a 
bill of exchange Avhich I gave him on my father, though our 
name was utterly unknown to him. 
At St. Peter's I should have hired a fishing-boat to repair 
to Halifax, but for the apprehension of falling into the hands 
of the American privateers, with which those seas were then 
infested. The lake being in this place separated from the sea 
by a forest about a mile broad, we had only to drag our canoe 
that distance, in order to reach the coast and embark. After 
stopping the following days in different places of little conse- 
quence, we arrived on the 25th at Narrashoe, where we were 
received with the same hospitality as at St. Peter's. We left 
it on the 26th in our canoe, to repair to the Isle Madame, situa- 
ted about the middle of the streights of Canceau,* which se- 
parate Cape Breton from Nova Scotia: but at the point of 
that island we discovered such a prodigious quantity of float- 
ing ice, that it would have been the height of imprudence to 
venture our feeble bark among it. We therefore returned to 
Narrashoe, where I hired a vessel capable of resisting its 
violence. I ordered the canoes to be taken on board, and on 
the 27th, with the assistance of the most favorable wind, we 
crossed the streights in three hours and landed at Canceau, 
which gives name to them. At length, after a navigation of 
ten days along the coast, our canoe brought us in safety into 
the harbor of Plalifax. 
The Indians having received the sum we had agreed upon, 
and the presents with vchich I endeavored to satisfy my grati- 
tude toward those to whom I owed the preservation of my life, 
left us in a few days to return to their island. As I was obliged 
to wait a considerable time longer for a vessel, I had, during 
that interval, the satisfaction to be joined by my companions 
in misfortune, whom the other Indians had taken to conduct 
by Spanish River. At last, after waiting two months, I em- 
barked in the ship called the Royal Oak, and arrived at Noav- 
York, where I delivered my despatches to General Clinton 
in a very tattered condition. 
* The Gut of Canso. 
