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- BISHOP CRIDGE'S CHRISTMAS STORY 245
In this view, my memory carries me back to a very happy day, April 1, 1855, when the good sailing ship Margius of Bute, chartered by the Hudson's Bay Company to bring its freight and passengers, including my-self as chaplain and district minister of Victoria, my wife and servants, to this far-off island, calling at Honolulu by the way, cast anchor off Clover Point, so terminating a voyage of about six months' duration from London. The next day, having moved to the inner harbor, we made our first acquaintance with several Victorians, who came on board to give us and our corncornpagnons de voyage a cordial welcome. That same morning we received an invitation from His Excellency Governor Douglas to luncheon, who also sent a boat to take us ashore; the boatman was good John Spelde, concerning whom I curiously remember my wife telling me that her domestic, Mary Ann Herbert, referred to him later in the day as the " man with the fingers," he having lost three of those members in the firing of a salute on some ceremonial occasion.
After the luncheon, never to be forgotten for the cordial welcome of His Excellency and Mrs. Douglas and their interesting family, not to say the delicious salmon and other delicacies after shipboard fare, we were conducted to the Fort, which was to be our temporary abode till the Parsonage, which then began to be built, should be finished. I have no recollection of the impression produced on my mind as we entered by the south gate the large square fenced in by tall palisades and frowning bastions, only I am certain I had no fear of being imprisoned in this stronghold of the great Adventurers; on the contrary, I distinctly remember that as, proceeding past the central bell-tower to our rooms, on the north side, east of the main entrance, we
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