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John Long's Voyages and Travels in the Years 1768-1788
John Long's Voyages and Travels in the Years 17681788 Author:John Long Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: REMOVAL TO AMERICA HAVING engaged myself at an early period of life to go to North America, in the quality of an articled clerk, I left Graves- end on the ten... more »th of April, 1768 on board the Canada, Captain Smith, bound to Quebec and Montreal. We had a pleasant voyage till we reached the coast of America, when the weather proving unfavorable, we were obliged to put into Newfoundland, where we stayed fourteen days. Nothing remarkable occurred here, except that a party went on shore to hunt, and one of them, Mr. Jordan, who was a passenger bound to Montreal, finding himself much fatigued, remained in the woods. The rest returned on board in the evening, anxiously expecting their companion; but after four days' painful solicitude, not being able to obtain any intelligence of him, we gave up all hopes of seeing him again; and as the snow was deep on the ground and the wild animals numerous, we supposed him to be either frozen to death or devoured by the beasts. Just as the Captain proposed setting sail an Indian came on board, to whom we endeavored to communicate our distress. On this occasion he seemed to understand us, and made signs of his intention to go in search of him; and being furnished with some rum by way of encouragement, he got into his canoe and paddled ashore. The Captain, with great humanity, deferred prosecuting the voyage for some time: but the Indian not returning, we left Newfoundland, and after a tedious passage of near eleven weeks, arrived at Quebec, the capital of Canada. When the Spaniards (who first discovered this northern clime) sailed past Cape Rosiers at the entrance of the River St. Lawrence, the mountains now called the Mountains of Notre Dame were covered with snow. Such a prospect, in the summer season, gave them a very unfavorable opinion of the ...« less