Old Newfoundland, A History to 1843, by Patrick O'Flaherty.

The winter of 1816-17, one of the coldest remembered by inhabitants, was also one of the hungriest. Francis Pickmore (governor, 1816-18) had come to the island in September with £10,000 relief for the victims of the February fire. Before his departure in November, his departure in November, he earmarked some of the money to pay return passages of 1,000 of the numerous destitute poor in St. John's back to Ireland; but this was a small response to an approaching tide of misery. In the months that followed provisions had to be doled out with great caution by committees of inhabitants to about 2,000 paupers in the town, while measures were put in place to billet and feed nearly 1,000 more homeless men, mostly Irish, who had found no productive work in the summer fishery. (The population of St. John's was now about 12,000.) Although an "armed association" was formed in St. John's to protect  property, and unusual vigilance was maintained by civil authorities and the trade elsewhere on the island, sporadic looting of merchants' warehouses and vessels broke out in a number of communities. A brig sailing from Halifax to St. John's, carrying bread and flour, put in at Bay Bulls and was seized "by the almost starving inhabitants." At one point an "armed mob" was on a rampage in St. John's.  Organized Carbonear and Harbour Grace "rioters" demanded, and got, access to merchants' provisions, "on pain of plundering of the stores."