CARTWRIGHT, George.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

A Journal of Transactions and Events during a Residence of Nearly Sixteen Years on the Coast of Labrador; First edition of Cartwright's firsthand account of his six journeys to Labrador and Newfoundland. Written from long periods spent at remote trading posts, the work records repeated encounters with Inuit communities and the practical realities of trade and survival in a northern environment.George Cartwright (1739-1819) was a former English army officer and the brother of the parliamentary reformer John Cartwright. He first reached Newfoundland in 1766 aboard HMS Guernsey with his brother, John, returned in 1768 on an expedition to the Exploits River, and between 1770 and 1786 operated a series of fishing and fur-trading posts along the Labrador coast in sustained contact with Inuit and Innu communities.The journal records the practical demands of maintaining trade in a region shaped by distance and climate, including hunting, fishing, provisioning, and seasonal movement. Cartwright describes repeated encounters with Inuit individuals, whom he names, alongside detailed observations of animals and environmental conditions. The narrative also records his return to England in 1772 with an Inuit family, most of whom died of smallpox before they could be returned to Labrador. Later in life, Cartwright returned to England and died in 1819, "characteristically occupied on his deathbed with proposals to the Hudson's Bay Company to establish trading-posts on the coast of Labrador,

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