Thursday, July 14th. At Gold Cove.—Some of our congregation came on board before nine o'clock, but others, having to contend with a head wind, did not arrive till 10.30. Ten o'clock was the hour named for service; and after all were assembled on deck, it took some considerable time to arrange and prepare the sponsors, &c., and instruct them in the answers they would be required to make. On this occasion, a father of eleven children desired to be baptized, and was baptized conditionally with six of his children. He had never been able to learn that he had received baptism even by lay hands. Nevertheless, he bore the two honoured names of Basil and Osmond, and by that of Basil he was now baptized and received into the Church. Sixteen persons were received; the oldest sixty-five years of age, the youngest four months. One couple was married, and one woman received the Holy Communion. Most of the grown-up persons, all, I believe, except some invalids, came to our second service in the evening. Between the services we sailed in our boat to the head of this bay, where we found three small rivers or brooks meeting and running by one mouth into the sea. The water was very clear and sweet; and nothing of the kind could exceed the picturesque beauty of the lofty and precipitous hills, clothed and covered with trees from the base to the summit. I can hardly fancy a greater treat than to sail for three or four weeks through the reaches and tickles of this bay, which has the singular advantage of being free from rocks and shoals, with abundance of good and safe harbours, almost all surrounded by hills and headlands of picturesque outline, covered with trees, against which no feller has raised his axe. Our harbour this evening appeared alive with fish.
Friday, July 15th. Gold Cove, at sea, Purbeck Cove.—Went on deck at 4.35, and found a fine morning and fair wind, but no captain or crew: the mate in the boat fishing. Called the captain, and recalled the mate, not without some displeasure at both for neglecting to get under way. We got away at 5.30, and had a very pleasant sail to Purbeck Cove, which we reached at nine o'clock. It is a fine harbour, but like most in this bay with very deep water. We found here a Mr. C——, with a vessel and crew from Greenspond for the summer fishery. He reported favourably of his catch, and speaks of the bay as generally very prolific. Besides cod-fish, salmon, and trout in abundance, later in the fall he expects to catch mackerel; and this is the only bay in which, at present, they are found in Newfoundland. Deer also abound in the neighbourhood; some have been killed lately, and more might be found if the people cared to look after them; but they are not yet in season, and the fishing is not neglected for any thing or all things. This is the great harvest; the seals are the first, but more uncertain and less lucrative; late in the fall the deer are slaughtered; and in the winter other game, with foxes, martens, &c., afford sport and means of subsistence. Seeing several boats fishing outside, I despatched my friends to inform the men who and what we were, and to request them, if possible, to bring their families on board in the afternoon. Fortunately they were able to communicate with parties living above and below. All, though the fishery was at its height, accepted the invitation, and Mr. C—— came also with his crew, so that the cabin could not contain them, and several of the men stood round the skylight on the deck, from which they looked down upon us as from a gallery. The day was very fine and warm, and I suffered no inconvenience from open skylight or sky, except when a piece of tobacco descended on my head. Twenty-one children were received into the Church, and one couple married. Very few, if any, except some men of Mr. C——'s crew (who, thanks to their good pastor at Greenspond, had their Prayer-books, and were attentive and well behaved) could read, but most of the children could say the Lord's Prayer and Creed. One woman brought forward her daughter as "a terrible girl" to, say her Creed and Lord's Prayer, and some of the Commandments; and "that hymn you sung below (Evening Hymn), she knows he, but she lips (lisps), so she's ashamed before strangers." Another woman, after surveying with, much admiration a large alphabet-sheet (as I should Egyptian hieroglyphics), said, "I suppose, sir, that's the A B C." I gave little books to all who desired them. Though most of them had a considerable distance to return, they seemed unwilling to leave me and the vessel, and I was in no hurry to dismiss them. It was very sad indeed to think that the meeting and intercourse, after so long delay, and with so little prospect of being renewed, should be so short, when so many important things had to be done, and alas! so many left undone!
Saturday, July 16th. Purbeck Cove, at sea, and Seal Cove.—At five o'clock sent letters on board Mr. C——'s vessel, to be forwarded viâ Greenspond to St. John's. Sailed for Seal Cove (fourteen or fifteen miles); for three hours no wind, and then wind ahead, so that we did not reach our harbour till eight o'clock P.M., happy and thankful to reach it then, having in remembrance the difficulties and anxieties of last Saturday night. In this Cove, which, at this season, and all seasons when the wind is not strong from N.W., is a splendid harbour, are only two families; but one boat's load had preceded us from Purbeck Cove to profit by the Sunday services. We found the people on shore (a family of Osmonds), very thankful for our coming, though a Roman Catholic family had just arrived to spend the Sunday with them. How so many people are lodged and accommodated (there must be twenty-five now here) in one small hut is difficult to understand. I know not how to be thankful enough for the mercies and comforts of the past week. This is the eighth harbour I have been anchored in, this week, and in six I have held services; and except in entering Little Coney Arm, have encountered neither difficulty nor delay. The winds have been generally fair, the weather always fine; the people, without exception, grateful for our visits and services. Ninety-two persons of various ages have been formally received into the Church; eight couples married; one person admitted to the Lord's Supper; nearly one hundred and eighty of all ages have been present at the services. The bread has been cast upon the waters, may it be found.
Fourth Sunday after Trinity, July 17th. Seal Cove.—I was pleased to find that two families had followed in their boats, from a harbour we have already visited, to attend the services on board. The head of the family resident here (in Seal Cove) is Joseph Osmond, a younger brother of Basil; he had lost his wife last fall in giving birth to her twelfth child, and he could not speak of her without tears. He pointed out to me the spot, where he had himself committed her body to the ground (the first and only one buried in the place), which he had carefully fenced, and was anxious to have consecrated. The babe had been nursed and kept alive by her sisters, but appeared very sickly and not likely to continue. Nine of his twelve children he had carried to Twillingate to be christened (i.e. received into the church after private baptism), but three remained whom he desired now to be received. All of these had been baptized by lay hands; two of them, he said, "had been very well baptized," i.e. by a man who could read well, the third case did not satisfy him. This was told us before the service, and when, in the service, he was asked, as the Prayer-book directs, "By whom was this child baptized?" he answered, "By one Joseph Bird, and a fine reader he was." This Bird, who on account of his fine readings, had been employed to baptise many children in the bay, was a servant in a fisherman's family.
We had two services, as usual, on board; four children were received into the Church, and one couple married. This couple had followed us from Bear Cove; they had before been united by a fisherman, had six children, and were expecting shortly a seventh. The man was he who, at Bear Cove, as before mentioned, had himself married a couple; and his wife was the person who had baptized the children. Whether the couple for whom he had officiated were "very well married," as to the service, must be "very doubtful." Either he wished to be more perfect, or he was doubtful about his own case; whatever was his reason, he very cheerfully paid the fee, twenty shillings. He inquired also whether he ought to be christened, having been baptized only by a fisherman, though, as he said, with godfathers and a godmother. Here was confusion worse confounded; and shame covered my face, while I endeavoured to satisfy him and myself on these complicated points. The poor man was evidently in earnest, and I gladly did all in my power to relieve his mind, and place him and his in a more satisfactory state. But how sad that one who had baptized and married others, should himself apply to be baptized and married, being now the father of six children! The wife appeared to be the general chronicler of all events in the neighbourhood, and was looked up to as a kind of prophetess. After the Evening Service, I went on shore to visit the house which the man Osmond had built himself, and made comfortable for summer and winter: there being abundance of wood for ceiling, &c., and birch-rind to cover the seams. He showed his gardens, full of flourishing potatoes, where the disease had never yet reached. The vegetation is very luxuriant, and there is plenty of pasture for cows. He could at any time, he said, kill a deer, and had killed upwards of two hundred! and as his neighbours in the bay all supply themselves with the same food, the park must be supposed to be pretty large, and well stocked. In the winter he kills foxes and martens for their skins, wild fowls of various sorts for food. Fuel is superabundant. The water produces fish,—salmon, herring, and mackerel; the ice brings the seals. Osmond acknowledges that it was "very easy to get a living," and wanted only the minister to be more than contented. His nearest neighbours (at Lobster Harbour) are Roman Catholics, and with these he lives on very good terms. "There was never a thee, or a thou, passed between them." Such is Joseph Osmond, sole occupier of Seal Cove, in White Bay, and such his condition, physical, social, and religious. It should be added that not one person in the settlement can read. He complains much of the French cutting spars and other sticks, besides what they require for their use on shore; and yet more, of their leaving many fires in the woods, by which the whole neighbourhood is endangered. He has often gone to put out the fires thus carelessly left, by which thousands of acres of wood might be destroyed, and the inhabitants driven from their homes.
Monday, July 18th. At Seal Cove.—This was our first day of delay since coming into the Bay. A strong north-east wind with a heavy lop, made it useless to attempt to proceed. In the afternoon all the people on shore came to our service, and I explained "the articles of our Belief, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer." In the evening, Mr. Tucker went on shore to teach the younger ones to repeat the Lord's Prayer and the creed, more perfectly; and I, with the rest of my party, rowed up "the Southern Arm," an indraft of about three miles, winding among the most picturesque mountains I ever saw. They rise almost perpendicularly from the water, are clothed with wood from the base to the summit, and are of most varied shape and outline. They surpass in grandeur the banks of the Wye, and are more thickly clothed with wood, in which, the beech, and birch, and maple, have almost displaced the spruce, and no green could be more fresh and delicate. These mountains are on each side of the Arm, to its extremity, which is nearly closed by a round, or conical hill, similarly covered with trees; on either side of which you may enter into a valley, between lofty rocks, and through which probably a small river or brook conveys the surplus water of some lake or lakes lying farther up the country. The solemn effect of the scenery was heightened by the absence of all traces and signs of men or other animals; and the occasional scream of a gull looking down upon us, made the general silence and solitude more impressive. How prodigal is nature of her beauties and glories, thus repeated and renewed in places where there is no one to admire, and very few to see them!
Tuesday, July 19th. Seal Cove, and at sea.—The wind was not more favourable to day than yesterday, except that it was not so strong; but we thought it better to go out in the hope of some change, in the mean time beating to windward. After standing across the bay and back, a distance of nearly thirty miles (fourteen or fifteen each way), we found we had only gained a mile and a half, and the next tack only advanced us about as much more. The next time we stood across, the wind tailed us altogether. This was trying work, especially to my companions, who all felt the direful effect of the beating, and were recumbent nearly the whole day, and sometimes worse; I, happily, was able to read and write, and only grieved by the sad delay.
Wednesday, July 20th. At sea.—Dead calm nearly the whole day, with occasional interludes of head-wind, which enabled us to run across the bay, and make the unpleasant discovery that we had advanced, or gained, only about five miles since we left our anchorage yesterday! During the greater part of the day we were lying almost motionless. Eight o'clock P.M. found us just where eight o'clock A.M. had left us. A lesson in patience.
Thursday, July 21st. At sea, and Hooping Harbour.—After being becalmed all night, a light breeze sprung up in our favour at four o'clock A.M. (being then just off Little Cat Arm), which sufficed to carry us into Hooping Harbour (about thirty-five miles) by three o'clock P.M. Here are two families only, all the members of which, four in one, and eight in the other, were fortunately at home. One of the mothers is a Wesleyan, with all the scruples of her denomination. She had taught her children the Lord's Prayer, but could not teach them the Creed, because "it would be wrong for them to say, 'I believe in God,' when they did not believe in Him, which she perceived they did not." The truth, I imagine, was, she could not say it herself. She did not like to be godmother to her neighbour's children, because "she had sins enough of her own to answer for; and she could not make a promise she knew she should not perform." As she was the only grown-up woman in the place, except the one whose children, with her own, were to be baptized, it was necessary to overcome, if possible, these scruples, which was no easy matter. And here were fresh complications. Some of the children of both families had been baptized by a French priest, and no one could say "with what words." Some had been baptized by a woman, some by a fisherman. Painful it was to witness, or be certified of, such complications and irregularities, more so to be in any degree answerable for them, most of all to be expected to unravel and rectify them in one visit of a few hours' duration, knowing too that they must all be renewed and repeated. This is the only harbour in White Bay where there are any French, and these, it is worthy of notice, have come here within the last five years, since the two English families established themselves in the place. On their arrival this year, the French took up the Englishman's salmon nets, and prevented his fishing for three weeks, until they were informed by the officer sent from St. John's, that things were to remain this year as in the preceding, and until matters were settled by the authorities. The poor Englishman complains bitterly of being deprived of his three best weeks' fishery, which, if they had been only as good as the subsequent ones, must have been a serious loss. This day he took in his nets about a hundred salmon, and speaks of this as an ordinary catch—and his nets are not large or numerous. It would be very sad and shameful if this branch of the fishery, which clearly was not contemplated in the treaties, should be given up, either wholly or in part, to the French. This is the last harbour in White Bay.
Friday, July 22d. Hooping Harbour, at sea, and Englée.—We weighed anchor soon after four o'clock. The wind so light that our men were obliged to tow for nearly two hours; then it breezed up ahead, and gradually increased, till by the time we had beaten up to Canada Bay, some nine miles, it blew very hard. However, the harder it blows, the better the good Church-ship goes; and before one o'clock we had beaten-round Englée Island, in Canada Bay (our next place of call), to the mouth of the harbour. But as nobody was "acquainted," and the description in the book of directions was not satisfactory, and it was blowing half a gale, we fired a gun, which brought out a boat, with two hands, who showed us the course in, and where to anchor. On being informed who we were, and what was our object in visiting them, they expressed much pleasure; but said it would be difficult, if not impossible, to bring off the children in such heavy weather. We had service at five o'clock, but it was blowing so furiously that only six men and as many women could venture off, and they brought none of the little children. I determined, therefore (though the delay is very grievous), that I ought to remain here to-morrow, which will involve Sunday also. There are two other families in this bay, with whom it was impossible to communicate to-day, in this tempest. We had Evening Prayers, with an address by myself. After the service I conversed with the people, and found that some of the women (one of them a mother of three children) had never before seen a clergyman, and never been in any place of worship. It would be interesting to know what they thought and felt at the first sight of a bishop and two clergymen in their canonicals, and the Church-ship, and yet more at the first hearing of the Word of God read and preached to them, and the prayers of the Church.