ST JOHN’S. 193

is considered, we. need not be surprised that they do so, especially in a place where rum is as cheap as beer is in England?‘6

For many years the officers of government and the merchants returned before winter to England ; but since the appointment of a resident governor, there has been a more permanent state of society. It must be acknowledged, that some of the inhabitants who have made fortunes in the country were, and it is much to their credit, formerly fishermen; and these men are fully as polished in their manners, and equally as intelligent, as many of the principal mer- chants in London, or in any of the other great trading towns in the United Kingdom, who did not in early life receive a liberal education. A great majority of the merchants at St John’s, as well as the agents Who represent the principal houses, are men Who received a fair education, in the mother country, for all the purposes of utility and the gene- ral business of life, and are certainly as intelligent as any merchants in the world. This observation Will be found perfectly just, if applied to the mer- chants and principal inhabitants in all the British colonies. The amusements of St John’s are much the same as in the colonies hereafter described.

There are ‘three weekly newspapers published at

"" Mr Morris, of St John’s, has, with great correctness. in a letter to Lord Bexley on the state of society, religion, morals, and education at Newfoundland, described the character of the inhabitm .ants. Pp. ’76, London, 1827.

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