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