SAMUEL SPARROW ~ 
18TH-CENTURY CAPE BRETON ISLAND 

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SECONDARY SOURCES

J F W DESBARRES

• G.N.D. Evans, Uncommon Obdurate: The several public careers of J. F. W. DesBarres, Boston/Toronto: Peabody Museum/University of Toronto Press, 1969 -

  • During his administration DesBarres incurred immense debts ultimately calculated in the tens of thousands of pounds. Some of these were with Halifax merchants, such as Samuel Sparrow, and these people, in touch with the local situation, endeavored to recoup at the expense of the estates.  .... Page 34

  • The governor spent the last months of the summer and the early fall of 1785 in a continued search for supplies. He sent Thomas Ven- ture as a personal emissary to Halifax, but he had no luck against bureaucratic obstinacy and the agent’s indifference. Venture moved on to the American states where he picked up a smal] amount of pro- visions and a large number of promises from intending immigrants.” Townsend, as late as October, could offer no better news than that he had been mistaken in thinking that the supplies sent there for troops and Loyalists included a portion for settlers on Cape Breton. Finally Samuel Sparrow, a Halifax merchant, was persuaded to place an agent at Sydney to whom DesBarres gave bills on the Treasury worth more than three thousand pounds. .... Page 50

  • Volume 6: Accounts, 1767-1794. This volume, covering pages 1061 to 1380, clearly shows the connection between DesBarres’ private estates and his administration in Cape Breton. There are also accounts with various merchants, including Samuel Sparrow, which reveal the connection between DesBarres’ mortgages of the Nepzune and his public accounts .... Page 103

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