to  his  duties.  Colville perhaps felt Cook hadn’t received full credit for his work on the St Lawrence chart that admiral Saunders had published which would be accepted as the Admiralty standard for the next 100 years (nor would Cook get a share of the profits). This may have prompted Colville to make him a bonus payment of £50 “in consideration of his Indefatigable Industry, making himself Master of the Pilotage of the River St. Lawrence”.

    The next summer when the seaway was free of ice, Northumberland was engaged in surveys, but the French were still smarting at the loss of Quebec and Montreal and losing control over the lucrative Grand Banks fishery. In France, the Duc de Choiseul, minister of War, Marine, and Colonies, plotted to drive the British fishing fleet from the Banks which would be followed up by landing an army as a precursor to establishing another colony from which to launch attacks at the British settlements. Newfoundland was chosen, and Captain Charles-Henri-Louis D’Arsac de Ternay was given command of a squadron of two ships-of-the-line, a frigate and two flutes, some 750 troops, the French hoping that 161 Irishmen in their ranks would be able to influence Irish fishermen who had already settled in Newfoundland to join the cause. On 23rd June 1762 they anchored in Bay Bulls, then the following day landed infantry who marched the 20 miles to St John’s where three days later they overwhelmed the small garrison. Ternay then began to fully carry out his orders, and it was estimated his men captured  or  sank 460 vessels  of  varying