Part 4

It is equally characteristic that this first of the Primrose Dames, Abigail Masham, quarrelled with her cousin Harley about the share which this lady of High Church principles was to receive out of the profits of the infamous trade.

Surely, the country that made so much profit out of the slave-trade is bound to compensate Newfoundland for the losses caused by its weakness in the French shore question rather than that France which in 1713 abandoned the infamous traffic to the British Tories.

The next treaty between France and England, that of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, made no alteration in the Newfoundland question; but the government of England, in returning Louisbourg to the French, gave another of those proofs of the selfish indifference of the home government to the rights of the colonies which was one of the most potent causes that led the New Englanders, with the aid of France, to achieve their independence.

At the south-eastern extremity of Cape Breton Island the strong fortress of Louisbourg, which it was once the fashion to call the Gibraltar of America, threatened the safety of the New England and Newfoundland fisheries alike. Governor Shirley of Massachusetts induced the legislature to undertake an expedition against this fortress, and intrusted its command to Colonel William Pepperell. The New England forces, raw troops, commanded by untrained officers, astonished the world by capturing a fortress which was deemed impregnable. This was the most brilliant and decisive achievement of nine years of otherwise useless bloodshed and treachery.

It is well that the people of the United States propose to celebrate its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary this year; for, more than any other event in their colonial history, it gave them confidence in the power of untrained men of spirit to overcome the hireling soldiers of the European governments.

But the action of the British government at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in restoring this fortress to the French, gave the colonists an equally necessary lesson. What did England get in exchange? The already mentioned Assiento, that famous compact which gave to England the right to ship slaves to the Spanish colonies, was confirmed for the four years it still had to run; and the fortress of Madras, which had been taken by the French in 1746, was restored to England in 1748 by the treaty. Even the most selfish and heartless of British politicians may doubt whether the true interests of his country were served by abandoning the American fortress for that of India; but the American statesman will not fail to see in the conduct of England towards her American colonists in this transaction a justification not alone for the Declaration of Independence, but also for that Monroe doctrine which, in its fullest application, will prevent the interference of any European power in the affairs of any part of America, not excluding Newfoundland. The Treaty of Paris, in 1763, which made Great Britain practically master of North America, produced no change in the position of the 13,000 settlers then in Newfoundland. For them the London government cared nothing. The provisions of the treaty, by which France gave up Canada to England, only served to emphasize more strongly the injustice done by England to her Catholic population, both in Ireland and in Newfoundland.

In 1719 the Irish Privy Council, all tools of England; actually proposed to the London government that every unregistered priest or friar remaining in Ireland after the 1st of May, 1720, should be castrated; and, although the English ministers did not accept this suggestion, they adopted one that such priests should have a large P branded with a red-hot iron on their cheeks. It can be hardly wondered at that the more honest Irishmen sought refuge from such infamies either in foreign service or in the colonies; and many of them came to Newfoundland, only to find that the Church of England spirit of persecution was rampant there also.

Every government official was obliged to abjure the special tenets of Catholicism. In 1755 Governor Darrell commanded all masters of vessels who brought out Irish passengers to carry them back at the close of the fishing season. A special tax was levied on Roman Catholics, and the celebration of mass was made a penal offence. At Harbor Main, Sept. 25, 1755, the magistrates were ordered to fine a certain man £50 because he had allowed a priest to celebrate mass in one of his fishing-rooms. The room was ordered to be demolished, and the owner to sell his possessions and quit the harbor. Another who was present at the same mass was fined £20, and his house and stage destroyed by fire. Other Catholics who had not been present, were fined £10 each, and ordered to leave the settlement. These infamies were not altered until the Tory government was humiliated by the victory of the United States and their allies. But even then the Newfoundland settlers were taught that England treats her loyal colonist more harshly than the possible rebel.

The Newfoundland settlers, Catholic or Protestant, had proved the most loyal men in the colony.

When the French, under D'Iberville, captured St. John's, and all Newfoundland lay at their feet, the solitary exception was the little Island of Carbonear in Conception Bay, where the persecuted settler John Pynn and his gallant band still held aloft the British flag. In 1704-5 St. John's was again laid waste by the French, under Subercase; and, although Colonel Moody successfully defended the fort, the town was burned, and all the settlements about Conception Bay were raided by the French and their Indian allies. But Pynn and Davis bravely and successfully defended their island Gibraltar in Conception Bay.

In 1708 Saint Ovide surprised and captured St. John's, but again old John Pynn held the fort at Carbonear.

In the American War one of Pynn's descendants, a clerk at Harbor Grace, raised a company of grenadiers from Conception Bay; and they fought with such success in Canada that he was knighted as Sir Henry Pynn, and raised to the rank of general. But the selfish government at home cared nothing for Newfoundland. The first Congress of the United States, Sept. 5, 1774, forbade all exports to the British possessions. This would not have hurt Newfoundland if the settlers had been allowed to carry on agricultural pursuits there. But these had always been discouraged by the English; and so they were dependent on the New England States for their supplies, and were threatened with absolute famine as soon as the war broke out. Had they been disloyal, they might have gained their rights from England; but their very loyalty to such a government was their worst misfortune.

Even in 1783 the Englishman had not learned the evil results of permitting royal interference in British politics. It is not merely in the reigns of the libertine kings that we see this. Queen Elizabeth injured England by interfering with the policy of its wisest statesmen. The ascendency of Harley and Saint John Bolingbroke, who deserted England's allies and threw away the fruits of Marlborough's victories, was due to the influence of a High Church waiting-woman over Queen Anne; and now, when even Lord North, to say nothing of the better class of Englishmen, disapproved of George III.'s obstinate resistance to the just claims of the American colonies, the support given to the king by the Tories led to the loss of a dominion far more valuable to England than all the trade of India or China.

He was obliged to call on a Liberal minister to undo, as far as possible, the evil done by himself and the Tories, just as in later days Mr. Gladstone had to settle with the United States the damage done by the Tories in the "Alabama" question.

The death of Rockingham left the direction of the negotiations with France and the United States in the hands of Lord Shelburne; and that he was extremely liberal in his arrangements with both countries was not to be wondered at. The wrong had been done by England; and the innocent English had to suffer, as well as the guilty ones. Unfortunately for Newfoundland, Shelburne did not cede this island to the United States; and so it had to bear more than its share in the misfortunes which the policy of King George had brought upon the British empire.

Mr. Spearman (page 411) writes that "Adams, the United States envoy, himself bred up among the New England fishermen, said 'he would fight the war all over again' rather than give up the ancestral right of the New Englanders to the Newfoundland fisheries"; but that Shelburne should be able, when France and America were victorious, to take away from the former power the concessions made to it by the Tories in 1713 and in 1763 was not to be expected.

There was a slight alteration in the shore line on which the French might fish. They abandoned that right between Cape Bonavista and Cape St. John, in consideration of being allowed to catch and dry their fish along the shore between Point Riche and Cape Ray. That was all; and that is precisely the reason why the Beaconsfield-Salisbury cabinet, in 1878, refused their sanction to the Bay St. George Railroad.

The only advantage that the poor Newfoundlanders gained from the war which caused them so much distress was the fact that the English government was whipped into conceding to their Roman Catholic population some of the rights which for many years afterwards it obstinately withheld from their brethren in Ireland.

In 1784 Vice-Admiral John Campbell, a man of liberal, enlightened spirit, was appointed governor, and issued an order that all persons inhabiting the island were to have full liberty of conscience, and the free exercise of all such modes of religious worship as were not prohibited by law.

In the same year the Rev. Dr. O'Donnell came out to Newfoundland as its prefect apostolic. But the liberal movement did not last long. Lord Shelburne retired, and from 1784 till the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832 the Tories mismanaged the affairs of Great Britain and her colonies.

One great advantage of American independence was that it gave the world a fair chance of judging between the results of republican and royal government in colonial affairs.

We have certainly much that is rotten in the United States; but, when we compare our republic at its worst with British colonial administration, we can find good reason to be thankful for the crowning mercy of 1781, when Washington, Lafayette, and De Grasse gained their decisive victory over the troops of King George.

I will not now refer to England's use of her immense power in India, China, and Japan. As I watched the course of the Congress of Religions at Chicago in 1893, I could not help thinking that the impressions taken from that Congress by our Oriental visitors would bear fruit that in due course may teach even his Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury, something about England's criminal neglect of Christian duty to these people. For us it is enough to compare our position with that of the two unfortunate islands nearer our own shores, Ireland and Newfoundland.

Suppose we had been cursed with the rule of British Tories since 1783, is it likely that our condition would have been better than that of these islands?

Even such small instalments of justice as Mr. Gladstone has been able to secure through his splendid fight for "justice to Ireland" are due far more to the pressure exercised on England by the Irish in America than to British sense of right. Poor Newfoundland has had no Ireland in America to help her. She has been among the most loyal of England's colonies, and because of her loyalty she has been the most shamefully treated.

It might be expected that Irish Catholics would emigrate in large numbers to Newfoundland to escape the infamous penal laws by which King George oppressed them in Ireland, and that sailors from all parts of Great Britain would seek there a shelter from the press-gangs at home. Dr. O'Donnell, the first regularly authorized Catholic priest on the island, applied in 1790 for leave to build a chapel in an outport; and, the Tories being in power, Governor Milbanke replied: "The Governor acquaints Mr. O'Donnell [omitting the title of Rev.] that, so far from being disposed to allow of an increase of places of religious worship for the Roman Catholics of the island, he very seriously intends next year to lay those established already under particular restrictions. Mr. O'Donnell must be aware that it is not the interest of Great Britain to encourage people to winter in Newfoundland; and he cannot be ignorant that many of the lower order who would now stay would, if it were not for the convenience with which they obtain absolution here, go home for it, at least once in two or three years. And the Governor has been misinformed, if Mr. O'Donnell, instead of advising his hearers to return to Ireland, does not rather encourage them to winter in this country. On board the 'Salisbury,' Nov. 2, 1790."

Do we need clearer proofs than that to show us who is responsible for the misery both of Newfoundland and of Ireland? This Catholic priest, to whom the Tory governor refuses both his religious rights and the titles given him by his church and university, knew how to return good for evil.

In 1800 a mutinous plot was concocted among the soldiers of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment to desert with their arms, and, being joined by their friends outside, to plunder St. John's, and afterwards escape to the United States. Fortunately, Dr. O'Donnell, who had meanwhile become bishop of St. John's, discovered the plot, and not only warned the commanding officer, but exerted all his own influence among the Catholics of the town to prevent outbreak.