yer put up for our safe return from
snowy bosoms and from aching hearts. I dispensed my usual quantum of
vows of eternal love and fidelity before I left them, and my departure
was marked in the calendar of Halifax as a black day, by at least
seven or eight pairs of blue eyes.

We had not been long at sea before we spoke an Irish Guineaman from
Belfast, loaded with emigrants for the United States: I think about
seventeen families. These were contraband. Our captain had some twenty
thousand acres on the island of St John's, or Prince Edward's, as
it is now called, a grant to some of his ancestors, which had been
bequeathed to him, and from which he had never received one shilling
of rent, for the very best reason in the world, because there were no
tenants to cultivate the soil. It occurred to our noble captain, that
this was the very sort of cargo he wanted, and that these Irish people
would make good clearers of his land, and improve his estate. He made
the proposal to them, and as they saw no chance of getting to the
United States, and provided they could procure nourishment for
their families, it was a matter of indifference to them where they
colonised, the proposal was accepted, and the captain obtained
permission of the admiral to accompany them to the island, to see them
housed and settled. Indeed, nothing could have been more advantageous
for all parties; they increased the scanty population of our own
colony, instead of adding to the number of our enemies. We sailed
again from Halifax a few hours after we had obtained the sanction of
the admiral, and, passing through the beautiful passage between Nova
Scotia and the island of Cape Breton, known by the name of the Gut of
Canso, we soon reached Prince Edward's Island.

We anchored in a small harbour near the estate, on which we found a
man residing with his wife and family; this fellow called himself the
steward, and from all I could see of him during our three weeks' stay,
he appeared to me to be rascal enough for the stewardship of any
nobleman's estate in England. The captain landed, and took me as his
aide-de-camp. A bed was prepared for his lordship in the steward's
house, but he preferred sleeping on clean hay in the barn. This noble
lord was a man whose thoughts seldom gave much labour to his tongue;
he always preferred hearing others to talking himself; and whoever was
his companion, he must always be at the expense of the conversation.
Nor was it by the