56 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

At the close of this year a most melancholy occurrence took place in the loss of the brig ferric, together with her passengers and crew, twenty-six in number. She sailed from Georgetown on the 25th of December for Liverpool, England, but nothing further was heard from her till June following, when the wreck of a brig was reported laying on the southwest side of St. Paul’s Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which proved to be the unfortunate brig fesrie, commanded by Captain McAlphin. It was supposed that the vessel had gone on shore on the night of the 27th December, and that she had filled with water, thereby forcing the passengers and crew upon the desolate rock, where they became victims to the severity of the winter’s frost, as nothing was found on the Island that could in any way secure them from its effects, their sufferings therefore could not have been lingering. Of the passengers, Donald McKay, merchant and owner ;. Mr. John Love, Mrs. John Williams and two of her family, and some others were of Charlottetown, where the remains of Mr. McKay and Captain McAlphin were taken for interment during the ensuing summer of 1824, causing an unusual gloom,—flags were hoisted half-mast, and the countenances even of strangers were saddened by the mournful occurrence.

Intelligence of Captain Stewart’s mission to England, and the appointment of Colonel John Ready as Lieutenant Governor of the Island was received in a spirit of great satisfaction by all classes of the community, The new Governor, accompanied by Captain Stewart, arrived here on the ZISt October of this year, and landed at King’s Wharf, under a salute of seventeen guns from George’s Battery. A guard of honor composed of a detachment of the 8Ist Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Douglas, was in attendance, while the cheers from the great concourse of people bid him a hearty welcome. From the wharf His Excellency proceeded to the residence of the ex- Governor, where the oath of office was administered in the presence of the Honorable members of the Council. In the evening Charlottetown for the first time in its history was illuminated, and on the evening of the 27th His Excellency was entertained at dinner in the Wellington Hotel. On being ushered into the dining room, the band played “God save the King,” and when His Excellency’s health was being drank, a salute of seventeen guns was fired from two pieces of ordnance