Reasons for colonizing the island of Newfoundland : in a letter addressed to the inhabitants

• Main Author: Carson, William, 1770-1843
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Printed by W. Scott and sold by Sir R. Phillips, London 1813
• Subjects: Newfoundland and Labrador > Politics and government > 1763-1855; Newfoundland and Labrador > History > 1763-1855; Newfoundland and Labrador > Colonization; Newfoundland; Newfoundland studies
• Online Access: http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/ref/collection/cns/id/34771

Carson, a Scottish doctor, immigrated to Newfoundland in 1808 and became one of the island's most famous political agitators. He wrote his first pamphlet in 1812, addressing it to British MPs and claiming that the colony was mismanaged and taken advantage of by government officials and merchants alike. This cost him his position as surgeon to the local volunteer corps, something Carson mentions early on in Reasons for Colonizing (1813), his second pamphlet, deriding the authorities as "the wily violators of [public] liberties, and the panders of arbitrary rule" (p. 3-4). As Carson saw it, "the only remedy against the evils flowing from the present system, will be found in giving to the people, what they most ardently wish, and what is unquestionably their right, a civil Government, consisting of a resident Governor, a Senate House, and House of Assembly" (p. 12-3). Displaying his classic Whig values, Carson's tracts were the first political protest literature in Newfoundland. (Patrick O'Flaherty, "Carson, William," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7.)