half a pint each per day, while with the other eight men the same
allowance lasted three days. Tea, the great modern beverage, was
rather a luxury and appears to have been used sparingly and rum, which
retailed at 8 pence a pint, was used almost universally. Human nature
was much the same in the eighteenth as in the twentieth century. The
men often drank to excess, and some of them would have been utterly
unreliable but for the fact that Simonds and White were masters of the
situation and could cut off the supply. They generally doled out the
liquor by half pints and gills to their laborers. On one occasion we
find Mr. Simonds writing, "The men are in low spirts, have nothing to
eat but pork and bread, and nothing but water to drink. Knowing this
much I trust you will lose no time in sending to our relief."

At various times the privations were exceedingly great and even after
the little colony had been for some years established at Portland
Point they suffered for lack of the necessaries of life. Mr. Simonds
thus describes their experience in the early part of 1770:

"Most difficult to remedy and most distressing was the want of
provisions and hay. Such a scene of misery of man and beast we
never saw before. There was not anything of bread kind equal to a
bushel of meal for every person when the schooner sailed for
Newbury the 6th of February (three months ago) and less of meat
and vegetables in proportion--the Indians and hogs had part of
that little."

He goes on to say that the flour that had just arrived in the schooner
was wet and much damaged; no Indian corn was to be had; for three
months they had been without molasses or coffee, nor had they any tea
except of the spruce variety.

In one of his letters, written a few months after the commencement of
operations at St. John, Simonds urges the careful attention of Blodget
and Hazen to their part of the business, observing: "I hope if I
sacrifice my interest, ease, pleasure of Good Company, and run the
risque even of life itself for the benefit of the Company, those who
live where the circumstances are every way the reverse will in return
be so good as to take every pains to dispose of all effects remitted
to them to the best advantage."

The first year of the Company's operations was in some respects
phenomenal. On the 30th September, 1764, a very severe shock of an
earthquake occurred at St. John about 12 o'clock, noon. The winter
that follow