Excerpts taken from an introduction of "A History of Newfoundland" (1895) by D. W. Prowse Q.C...... quote: ".....because an old family tie with Newfoundland compels me to a pious interest in the colony. I write these few words because I am sure that, were he alive, my dear father would rejoice to do so. .......One Sunday, sixty-eight years ago, as the bells were ringing people to church in Poole, he was carried away, with a sinking heart, to a counting-house in Carbonear.......In 1835 my father left Newfoundland, and soon afterwards the other members of my family also returned. We went no more a-roving on these cold western seas. But down to my own childhood the mystery of Newfoundland was preserved in the English home. Kegs of cranberries and of delicious capelin arrived from Harbour Grace as punctual as the seasons........It had been my father's wish and hope to revisit his old haunts, but his crossings of the Atlantic were not to be repeated. ......At a fortunate moment, I think, Judge Prowse has brought out his chronicle of the most ancient and most unfortunate of our colonies. He has found his material in records which are many of them entirely unpublished, and his book is an original and valuable contribution to early American history. The sorrows of Newfoundland have at last awakened the sympathy of the mother country.........She has suffered much, and her geographical position requires that she should always stand prepared for suffering. But her spirit, we love to think, is indomitable, and if her natural resources are liable to collapse, they are not less liable to sudden and brilliant revival. It may be that before these words see the light, her fortunes will once more be in the rapid ascendant. The perusal of Judge Prowse's book can but increase the number of those who cordially desire that it may be so." EDMUND GOSSE, London, March 1895 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree