The last of the West Country Merchants is a historical
narrative which focuses on one family, the Morry’s, who originated in Devon,
England and came to the Southern Shore of Newfoundland at the end of the 18th
Century. The immigrant ancestor of that family, Matthew Morry, was a self-made
man whose meteoric rise from ordinary Able-bodied Seaman, to Master Mariner, to
ship owner and small–scale fish merchants and trader, came at a time when the
larger West Country merchants, better known in the literature, had already made
their fortunes from the lucrative Newfoundland cod fishery and retired in
comfort to their provincial estates in England.
