On the seventh of October, 1853, a sad catastrophe took place in the loss of the steamer _Fairy Queen_. The boat left Charlottetown on a Friday forenoon. Shortly after getting clear of Point Prim, the vessel shipped a sea which broke open the gangways. When near Pictou Island the tiller-rope broke, and another heavy sea was shipped. The rope was, with the assistance of some of the passengers, spliced; but the vessel moved very slowly. The captain and some of the crew got into a boat and drifted away, regardless of the fate of the female passengers. Among the passengers were Mr. Martin I. Wilkins, of Pictou, Mr. Lydiard, Mr. Pineo, Dr. McKenzie, and others. After having been subjected to a series of heavy seas, the upper deck, abaft the funnel, separated from the main body of the vessel, and providentially constituted an admirable raft, by which a number of the passengers were saved, among whom were Messrs. Wilkins, Lydiard, and Pineo, who landed on the north side of Merigomish Island, after eight hours of exposure to the storm and cold. Dr. McKenzie,—an excellent young man,—other two males, and four females perished. In opening the assembly of 1854, the governor referred in terms of congratulation to the prosperous state of the revenue. On the thirty-first of January, 1850, the balance of debt against the colony was twenty-eight thousand pounds. In four years it was reduced to three thousand pounds. The revenue had increased from twenty-two thousand pounds, in 1850, to thirty-five thousand in 1853, notwithstanding a reduction in the duty on tea, and two thousand eight hundred pounds assessment imposed for educational purposes.