[ Irving / A History of New-York ]
Washington Irving (1783 - 1859) is one of the more highly regarded American writers of the 19th Century, best known today for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Irving also wrote biographical and historical works, and wowrked as a diplomat in Spain.
This work's only mention of Newfoundlands (metaphorical) occurs in Chapter 9:
Now so it happened, that among his officers was a sturdy veteran named Keldermeester, who had cherished, through a long life, a mop of hair not a little resembling the shag of a Newfoundland dog, terminating in a queue like the handle of a frying-pan, and queued so tightly to his head that his eyes and mouth generally stood ajar, and his eyebrows were drawn up to the top of his forehead.