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4f
A list of articles belonging to Sable Island establishment and destroyed by fire on the 18th April 1853.
viz Flour, Bread, Tea, Sugar, Molasses [as?] to the value of about £3. A set of gig harness, a riding saddle, 4 harness, bridles, 14 life belts. All the dishes, spoons, knives & forks, mugs and lamps. Some pots and kettles, two stoves, eight muskets, a coffee mill, a brass compass, and some harness leather. All the tables, benches to and several smaller articles to tedious to enumerate.
Also 12 barrels of potatoes, 10 bushels [illegible], 300 [Dogfish?] and some water corks that were in the cellar and cellar loft.
The Gig harness was in the house being repaired and was not finished when the Daring hove in sight on the 16th. The saddle was the one used by Knock and he was that careful of it that he always kept it in his own rooms when not in use. The harness bridles and life belts had to be kept in a dry place to keep them free from mildew. And the muskets were kept in the house so as to have them clear of rust and fit for use. They were furnished me from the Militia guns at Shelburne by order of His Excellency the late Sir John Harvey.
I had all the life belts overhauled as lately as the 15th Instant and had condemned the whole of them. From their construction I should say they might have been life destroyers but never life preservers and the most of them were leaky. Consequently they are no real loss.
M.D. McKenna