SAMUEL SPARROW ~ 
18TH-CENTURY CAPE BRETON ISLAND 

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TRANSCRIBED DESBARRES/RELATED DOCUMENTS

DESBARRES FROM HALIFAX TO WHITEHALL 

1784 - 1788

1784

DECLARATION of Thomas Ashfield, Esq. Clerk of the Crown of His Majesty's Supreme Court, & One of the Overseers of the Public Works in Cape Breton.

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In the Months of August and September 1784, I was occasionally at Lieutenant Governor DesBarres House in Soho Square, London, where I had an Opportunity of seeing a Number of Men employed in packing a large Quantity of Books, Drawings, Furniture, &c: which were afterwards sent in Carts, from thence, to the Waterside, and shipped on Board of the Ship Blenheim, then lying In the Thames, bound for the Island of Cape Breton, and which, alone, must have been attended with great Part of the Expence charged in this Article. I left the Governor in London, and sailed from the Downs on the 4th October 1784, and I was Sydney, when the Governor arrived (via Halifax) by way of St. Peter's Bay, over the Ice and through a deep Snow in January 1785, which last Part of his Voyage, I know, must have been very expensive, on account of the Number of Men, and Indians hired to get through the Danger sn Difficulties with the Baggage and People he brought with him.

A statement submitted by Lieutenant Colonel DesBarres, for consideration [microform] : respecting his services, from the year 1755, to the present time : in the capacity of an officer and engineer during the war of 1756 : the utility of his surveys and publications of the coasts and harbours of North America, intituled, The Atlantic neptune : and his proceedings and conduct as lieutenant governor and commander in chief of His Majesty's colony of Cape Breton (1796) - https://archive.org/details/cihm_94770 -Page 82

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1784 - 1788

The Case of Lieutenant Colonel DesBarres 

C-1457

http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c1457/240?r=0&s=1
http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c1457/246?r=0&s=1
http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c1457/266?r=0&s=1
http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c1457/269?r=0&s=1

http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_mikan_104684

[page 1561]

He set sail [i.e. not on the Blenheim] accordingly from Falmouth [Murdoch says Portsmouth], on the 16^th of October  1784, touched at Halifax in Nova Scotia (10) on the 14th of  November, and in the following month landed in Cape Breton ... 

(10) Here, he felt great happiness in the opportunity of reviewing the progress of a country which had essentially benefited by his public and private exertions, as will as in the renewals of friendships and universal declarations of personal attachment to him ...

[page 1599, footnote i]

[i] IT's an absolute fact: that during the whole period of DesBarres Administration of the Government of Cape Breton, no one person had been suspended from the Office of a Member of the Colonial Council: The Reason of the Changes which occasionally happened, were stated in the Minutes and Documents of that Board (regularly transmitted, in Duplicate, both to the Secretary of State's Office and to the Lords of the Committee of His Majesty's Privy Council of Trade and Plantations) and referred to in his Dispatches to Lord Sydney. The first Instance was in the Admission of Messrs Gibbons, Moncrieffe, and Matthews, to Seats at the said Board, upon their Arrival at the Infant Settlement in July 1785: Every subsequent instance happened in result of positive Resignations, and then Persons deemed most fit in the Colony for filling the Vacancies were accordingly appointed (Vide. Minutes of Council the 21st Feb. 25th July 10th and 11th. Des. 1785 and 5th March 1786: Also App. B. 32, 33, 34. C. 48, 49, 74, 75, 98 &c.)

(page 1605)

... On the 13th [October] DesBarres embarked for Europe (97) And, on the 7th of December following, put into the Isle of Jersey ...

(97) for that purpose, he was under the necessity of purchasing and fitting out a Brigantine (the Gaspy) there being no other means at that period to be found in the Colony for crossing the Atlantic (App C. 490, B. 154, 167)

... and reached Whitehall on the 16th of April 1788 ...

[Source: University of New Brunswick, FC LFR .D5J6P3, Series 4 - Reel Three - DesBarres Papers, MG 23 F1-5, Representation of DesBarres Case, 1788-1804, ff. 1554, 1561, 1591, 1605]

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