(CANADA) An Act to Incourage the Trade to Newfoundland

Sale 2444 - Lot 83

Price Realized: $ 488

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750

KING WILLIAM'S ACT OF 1699 (CANADA.) An Act to Incourage the Trade to Newfoundland. Pages [405]-422. Folio, disbound; minimal wear. London, 1699

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The official printing of the first British act of Parliament regarding Newfoundland. Prowse's History of Newfoundland discusses the act at length: "We cannot understand how any intelligent Minister could have propounded such a Bill; but William's Government was notoriously corrupt. . . . The absurdity and monstrosity of the scheme which was arranged for the interest of the West Countrymen lay in the surrender of the entire control of the Colony, including the administration of justice, into the rude hands of a set of ignorant skippers, who were so illiterate, that out of the whole body of these marine justiciaries, only four could be found able to sign their names" (page 225). No other copies known at auction.