confronted with a very difficult state of things. The high prices
which had ruled from 1812 to 1815 had attracted emigrants in large and
undesirable numbers. The commercial reaction and foreign competition,
aided by the bounties, hit the merchants hard, and in 1815 bankruptcy
trod fast on the heels of bankruptcy. In the following winter actual
starvation menaced the residents, and many owed their lives to the
generosity and energy of Captain David Buchan, commander of H.M.S.
_Pike_, who put his men on short rations for the relief of the
inhabitants. In an address of thanks, which was presented to him when
the crisis was past, his services were gratefully recorded:

"At this distressing crisis you afforded us from His Majesty's store a
supply in aid of our then alarming and terrible wants. You then, with
patriotic feeling, placed the company of the ship which you command
on reduced allowance, and yielded to the public distress every
alleviation which such means afforded."

The lean years were still further saddened by the terrible fire of
1817, which left more than a thousand persons houseless, in the full
severity of winter. The wooden houses and narrow streets of St. John's
made resistance hopeless, when the flames had once gained a hold. It
was estimated that the fire caused a loss of £125,000. The wealthier
inhabitants and the home Government gave what relief was possible, and
in 1818 the crisis yielded before brighter prospects.

Pickmore was the first Governor to reside continuously in the island
(where he also died), for his predecessors had sailed away with the
fishermen in October to reappear with the beginning of summer. In 1817
a Select Committee of the House of Commons was specially appointed to
consider the situation of Newfoundland. The merchants, full as ever of