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Title: Canada and its Provinces Vol 13 of 23

Date of first publication: 1914

Author: Adam Shortt (1859-1931) and Arthur G. Doughty (1860-1936) (editors)

Date first posted: Dec. 5, 2022

Date last updated: Dec. 5, 2022

Faded Page eBook #20221209

This eBook was produced by: Iona Vaughan, Howard Ross & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

To one who desires to inform himself upon the history of the Maritime Provinces of Canada this section will supply abundant material. No aspect of the case is neglected. The events associated with the earliest discovery; with the first settlement whether by French or by English, and the murders, massacres and wars which attended them; with the long struggle after some form of government which might be adequate to meet the needs of men in an entirely new situation; with the development of resources and the progress and reward of industry—all these are passed in review by writers who are competent to make a large survey. The business of the editors has been to collate the parts and present an exact and comprehensive view rather than a series of detached observations, since the history of the Maritime Provinces is one history, as indeed, prior to 1784 at least, the provinces themselves were formally one under the general designation of Acadia.

For the selection of writers the editors need assign no reasons. They are obvious in the result which is here presented. And there is something more than a bare recitation of historical facts. There is comment and criticism whose value depends upon authority; and that in turn lies in the knowledge, sincerity, candour and detachment of the various commentators and critics who have brought those qualities to bear upon the task. Within the past few years large stores of fresh information have been opened. These have been examined and the value of them has been rigorously appraised. If the history of the Maritime Provinces is now set in a new light, it is because the writers were less concerned with confirming old hypotheses and justifying new surmise than with arriving at the essential truth of the case, even at the risk of detracting from that eulogy which has always been considered as the one thing needful in Canadian history.

Up to the time of the Cession in 1763 events in Acadie were inextricably bound up with events in Canada. The policy which governed at Quebec governed also at Louisbourg, Port la Joye and Port Royal. Opposition to that policy, which originated in London, soon showed itself along the Atlantic seaboard, in harried settlements, in fugitive colonists, and in the sombre figure of the Indian on the forest background. Again, a conversation between two ambassadors in Paris might lead to an interlude of peace, when the innocent and ignorant settlers might pasture their herds on the marais, or plant their little clearings in Ile St Jean. Once more, when the Thirteen Colonies found themselves in rebellion, the Maritime Provinces discovered that they were in the world again. Warships, singly and in fleets, appeared off the coasts. Towns were sacked, ransom was exacted, trade was destroyed; and, on the other hand, settlers turned aside from the peaceful arts of agriculture and fishing to man the privateers and adventure upon the high seas in search of more daring employments.

All those years the record is vitalized by the spirit of war; but for nearly a century following it becomes mainly a dull account of the operations of rival politicians. The people were no longer of the world and they seized the occasion to work out the problems which lay immediately at hand. This was the period during which responsible government was achieved, when the people came to be governed by politicians who resided in Halifax, Fredericton, or Charlottetown, rather than by those who had their habitation in London. The struggle was the same in all three provinces, and there is a singular uniformity in the accounts of the procedure. They are not entirely devoid of humour, but it is difficult to elevate parochial records to the dignity of history, or to develop much enthusiasm over the personal quarrels of obscure men. And yet one may discover the working of a principle in the contest, and observe, on one side, the alignment of those who were content with things as they were, and, on the other, of those who were desirous of change. Small as the arena was it contained all the elements of every political strife.

The governors were in most cases men who had been soldiers, and in nearly all they fell into the category of those who are technically known as ‘gentlemen.’ They found opposed to them men who might be neither, to whom obedience was a crime and courtesy the stigma of an ignoble nature. Instead of commanding they were obliged to explain and persuade. This new rôle was unfamiliar, and we must not blame them too severely if they became irascible and developed new faults of temper. One governor, for example, in his address assured the house that he would have convened it sooner had he thought that the public good would be served by its deliberations, and he dismissed it on the grounds that the members were only wasting time. At another session he held up his watch to the speaker and allowed him three minutes to adjourn the house under penalty of dissolution. On the other hand, an address was forwarded to the king charging amongst various misdemeanours that this governor had appointed a tavern-keeper to his council, and another member whose sole qualification was that he had married the governor’s daughter. Again, there was Thomas Carleton, first governor of New Brunswick, who made ‘a pleasant excursion’ on snow-shoes from St John to Quebec to see his brother, Lord Dorchester, who was ill, and on the journey camped eight nights in the woods. Of him it was said that he possessed ‘a generous contempt of his own private wealth, and an exact frugality in the management of that which belonged to the public.’ And yet he was not ‘easy to approach.’ When he was asked to rescind a certain appointment on political grounds, he declined ‘so long as the person is capable and not immoral.’ This ‘costive and guarded answer,’ it may well be imagined, caused some offence. As the duties of the governors became restricted they lost interest in their work, and occupied their minds with more trivial tasks. As Edward Winslow wrote: ‘Our gentlemen have all become potato planters, and our shoemakers are preparing to legislate.’ That is a danger to which all democracies are subject.

In that early society there was much fineness of feeling, as all the writers are careful to observe, in private and public life. It was not considered an offence that a man should be more learned, religious, or polite than his neighbour, and as early as 1788 that notable ancestor, Chipman, divided the house twenty-three times on the question of payment of members. He argued that the payment of members ‘was contrary to the ancient and established usage of parliament, and to the spirit of patriotism and magnanimity that should characterize the house, and would introduce a precedent derogatory to its honour and dignity.’ Unfortunately he was only able to rally four members to his support.

After a century of bickering the three provinces had achieved a system of government which was entirely satisfactory to them. The crown was represented by a governor whose duties were clearly prescribed and his prerogatives well defined. To him was accorded the respect which was due to his position, admiration for his past services, and sympathy in his new endeavours. He lived in an atmosphere of goodwill and he might easily become the recipient of affection. Indeed, there is much pleasant testimony to these happy relations. The position was one of dignity, and the governor usually had persons of dignity about him, so that the grace of the government house did something to alleviate the rawness of colonial life. The people were furnished with certain standards. A society created itself in which some amenity and graciousness was preserved. There was a legislative council in which the more considerable persons in the community were specifically represented, and a house of assembly elected practically by a manhood suffrage. The model was familiar. It was a miniature of the system which prevailed in the country from which most of the inhabitants derived their parentage.

Besides being happy the provinces were prosperous. With the lowest tariffs in the world the revenues had doubled in the ten years before Confederation. Two hundred miles of railway had been built in Nova Scotia without resorting to special taxation. In New Brunswick a line had been laid across the province, with several branches, which in 1871 was connected with the system of the United States. The work had been begun as early as 1853, and the event was celebrated by a procession in which eleven hundred shipwrights, representing seventeen shipyards, formed a part. At the time St John ranked fourth in the British Empire as a ship-owning port, having eight hundred and eight vessels with a capacity of 263,140 tons. Prince Edward Island had the largest population in its experience before or since. During the war between the American states, Halifax was the base of the contraband trade with the south. Water carriage was cheap, and Nova Scotian enterprise and hardihood made blockade-running easy. The cargoes were paid for in gold, and the ships brought back cotton costing sixpence a pound, which was afterwards sold in England at three shillings and sixpence.

The provinces were still alert politically and were at work upon a plan of Maritime union. There was nothing new in this. It was merely an undoing of the work of 1784 when Acadie was divided into three parts, and the failure of Cape Breton as a separate province was a further warrant. A convention was called in Charlottetown in 1864. A delegation from Canada asked to be received to present the wider proposal of a confederation of all the colonies. This task was not an easy one, but those who had the business at heart were so impressed by its importance that they did not scruple to employ every means at their command. The attitude of the people was one of open hostility. At the outset of the negotiations they were not interested in the terms which might be offered. They were unwilling to consider any terms at all. They had other designs entirely, and it was their aim to effect a union amongst themselves, to revert to the ancient status in which all three had been united, New Brunswick undivided from Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island also an integral part. Between them there was a community of sentiment and a community of interest which had developed a local patriotism.

Canada was far away, further away than England, from a people which was accustomed to measure distances in terms of a sea-voyage; and Lower Canada, it was commonly reported, was inhabited by a race which spoke an alien tongue and practised the rites of a religion which was strange to the majority of those dwellers by the sea. It was remembered that not many years before a hostile mob had burned the parliament buildings in Montreal, and had assaulted the representative of Her Majesty in the public streets. More perplexing still, a document was known to be in existence, signed by many prominent citizens of ‘Canada,’ urging annexation to the United States. With such Confederation did not present many attractions. The fear was that the old and pleasant relations with the mother country would be altered. London they knew, with its thousand years of vivid and varied memories. Ottawa had but recently emerged from the wilderness. Its very name of Bytown denoted its obscurity. It was the cry of ancient loyalty against a transfer of allegiance.

The delegation separated. The proposal was laid before the people of New Brunswick in March 1865, and in the new assembly Confederation had only six supporters in a house of forty-one. Only one member of the previous government escaped defeat. In Nova Scotia the question was carried in the legislature without an appeal to the people. At the next election only two Confederates were returned. Of these one was unseated, and an opponent took his place. In Prince Edward Island the hostility was even more determined. A resolution that the terms should be adopted was submitted to the assembly in March 1865, and was defeated by a vote of twenty-three in a house of twenty-eight. In the following year a resolution was passed by twenty-one votes to seven ‘that any federal union that would embrace the Island would be as hostile to the feelings and wishes, as it would be opposed to the best and most vital interest of its people.’ In 1870 a resolution was adopted by nineteen to four votes ‘that the people were almost unanimously opposed to any change in the constitution of the colony.’ In 1873 a resolution was offered that a union should be effected ‘upon terms just and reasonable.’ The question was put and the government was defeated by sixteen votes to ten.

How it came about that a confederation which was so bitterly opposed afterwards came into effect is recounted in this section as clearly as could be done, since history deals only with what can be known. The means by which the leading opponents were won over—by which, for example, Howe was willing to assume a place in the Dominion cabinet—must always remain a secret, since men do not usually commit such matters to writing for posterity to read. It is a matter of record, however, that the twelve Canadian senators assigned to New Brunswick were selected from the legislative council; and of the forty-one members of the assembly sixteen of the most prominent resigned their seats to become members of the Dominion house or to accept office.

The book of the history of Canada was not closed with the accomplishment of Confederation any more than the book of the history of the United States was closed in 1787. The book of the history of the United States was opened again in 1861, and remained open for four bloody years. The incident is a warning that in any confederacy it requires the slow effluxion of time to neutralize contending forces, and not to put too great a strain upon the binding tie until all parts are knit into an indissoluble whole. Nova Scotia gave open warning as late as 1886. From his place in the house the provincial secretary offered a series of resolutions contrasting the state of the province before and after Confederation, and assigning the reason for its ‘unsatisfactory and depressed condition,’ and affirming that ‘the objections which were urged against the union at first apply with still greater force than in the first year.’ The government ‘deemed it absolutely necessary to ask permission from the imperial parliament to withdraw from the union with Canada and return to the status of a province of Great Britain.’ The resolutions were carried by fifteen votes to seven. The house was dissolved, and the government was returned by an increased majority.

After a trial of nineteen years those in charge of provincial affairs deliberately declared in their official capacity as representatives of the people that the experiment of Confederation had failed. They may have been wrong, but the people affirmed specifically that they were right, and the party which opposed Confederation has been in power for forty-two out of the forty-six years since the event. It is altogether possible that ‘the unsatisfactory and depressed condition of the province’ can be explained by reasons with which Confederation had little, or nothing, to do. The expiration of the treaty with the United States under which Nova Scotia had free entry into that great market synchronized with Confederation. The building and sailing of wooden ships began to decline because iron and steam took the place of timber and sails. The Intercolonial Railway brought merchants and goods into Nova Scotia by a new route, and Halifax found in Montreal an unsuspected competitor. A new pest appeared in the wheat-fields which an exhausted soil was unable to resist, and the newer methods of agriculture had not yet begun to be practised. Just because people reason that an event happens in consequence because it happens in sequence, politicians need to be scrupulously careful to refrain from cajolery and force.

Especially must they take into account the temper and training of the people with whom they have to deal. The people of the Maritime Provinces had enjoyed their own system of government for over a century, and they were drawn from races which were ever tenacious of their institutions. The various contributors to this section have not failed to lay emphasis upon the origin of the inhabitants and the comparative antiquity of their settlements, and they have drawn the inevitable inferences from those facts. No part of Canada is occupied by so carefully blended a race. The present strain is drawn from the shy and sensitive Highlanders of Scotland, from the self-reliant and stubborn English, from the French, who have at last found an answer to the plaintive inquiry of a memorable ancestor: ‘Can it be that the good God has no place on earth for the Acadians?’ And last, there are the ‘loyalists’ who were ‘precipitated on the shore,’ as one of their own has said. Of their trials and of their virtues the record will be found especially full; and of their attitude towards ‘the bow and arrow breed’ amongst which they were come, there is also something said. Our sympathy for them will be less acutely poignant when we read that the government gave them lavish grants of land and the sum of seventeen million dollars in amelioration of their sufferings.

That reader is insensible to examples of heroism and loyalty who will remain unmoved as he contemplates over these pages the conduct of those early settlers, French as well as English, who found themselves in a new world, with no guides but good hearts to lead them through a strange environment. He will forget the irritation of their moments of despondency, when they felt themselves forgotten and forsaken. He will think rather of that resolution which kept them true to their allegiance and to their institutions. In spite of their passion for autonomy they kept alive the imperial idea, that idea which was formulated as long ago as 1763 by the Earl of Egmont in his proposal for the settlement of Prince Edward Island, ‘that the subjects of the island are to be considered and treated not as provincial or dependent but as Englishmen to all intents and purposes whatever, without any jealousy or invidious distinction, as fully as though the country was a member of the Island of Great Britain and a part and parcel thereof.’ Dreams are the truest prophecy.

The record of industrial development is not lost in the maze of political life. The account of agriculture, mining and fishing is done by sure and experienced hands, and the result will be equally valuable to the student of past events and to those who would estimate the commercial situation at the moment. It will be read with astonishment by those who have listened only to the clamour of the West, and have been oblivious of the silent progress which has enabled the Maritime Provinces to arrive at their present secure station. The steady loss of population which has proceeded for the last forty years has been stayed. The tide has turned, and if the contributors to this section do not fall into a condition of ecstasy over the future, it is because they are dealing with history and not with prophecy.

Too much Canadian history has been written as a species of ‘immigration literature,’ as an expression of self-complacency, and is an unconscious exhibition of that self-righteousness which blinds one equally from reading the past correctly or forecasting the future aright. The present writers have approached their task in the scientific spirit, which is a spirit of truth and soberness. If they have not pronounced a eulogy or produced a piece of panegyric, the explanation is offered on their behalf that that was not the task which they set out to perform. In this introduction I have, with design, refrained from offering them praise beyond that which is implied in the adoption of their opinions and by making free use of their words.

The First Explorers

The Atlantic provinces of Canada are nearly coextensive with the tract of country that under the French régime was known as Acadia. This part of the continent of North America, reaching out as it does far into the Atlantic, naturally attracted the attention of those hardy explorers and adventurers who, in the closing years of the fifteenth century, sailed from Europe in quest of lands beyond the sea.

There are traditions of Norse voyagers to North America which carry us back to a realm of mist and shadow. It is not impossible that Biarne Heriulfsson, son of one of the Icelandic settlers of Greenland, sighted these shores during his voyage in the year 986, when, in an attempt to join his father, he lost his course and was tossed by adverse winds into unknown waters, where he saw land that from the sea appeared flat and covered with trees. Leif Ericsson—son of Eric the Red, the colonizer of Greenland—made a voyage in the year 1000 to find, if he could, the lands seen by Biarne. The voyagers called the first land they encountered Helluland (probably Labrador) on account of the ‘flat stones which they saw in that country of no advantages.’ They came next to Mark-land, or forest-clad land, a comparatively level country, covered with trees and having white sandy beaches, a description that applies to many parts of the coast of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

But it is needless to discuss the Icelandic sagas further than to say that they are admitted by many to establish a fairly strong claim on the part of the hardy Norsemen to the honour of having been the first to visit the shores of the Atlantic provinces. It is not, however, until John Cabot’s voyage in 1497 and his discovery of the Island of Cape Breton that we feel that we have left the sea of speculation and are at length on solid ground.^[1]

The place-names around the shores of Cape Breton are worthy of note. Basques, Bretons, Normans, Portuguese and Spaniards all combined in making on the geography of the island an impress which a century and a half of British occupation has failed to remove.

The Basque, Breton and Norman fishermen are believed to have made their voyages as early at least as the year 1504, a century before any attempt was made to colonize Acadia. But these early adventurers were too intent upon their own immediate gain to think of much besides; they gave to the world no intelligent account of the coasts they visited; they were not accurate observers, and in their tales of adventure fact and fiction were blended in equal proportion. Nevertheless, through their enterprise and resolution the shores of the Atlantic provinces were fairly well known long before Acadia contained a single white inhabitant.

As time went on, adventurers of Portugal, Italy and Spain vied with those of England and France in the exploration of these coasts. They scanned the shores with curious eyes and pushed their way into every bay and harbour. And thus slowly but surely the Acadian land, which had lain hid in the mists of antiquity, began to disclose its outlines as the keen searchlight of discovery was turned upon it from a dozen different sources.

The Indians at first viewed the pale-faces with wonder, and their white-winged barks and cannon filled them with superstitious awe. But the keen-eyed savages quickly learned the value of the white man’s wares and readily exchanged the products of their forests and streams for such articles as they needed. Trade with the savages of Acadia had assumed considerable proportions even before the days of Champlain.

For over a century after the momentous achievement of Cabot, voyages were for the purpose of trade and discovery. No colonial settlement was made in Eastern Canada previous to the arrival of de Monts and Champlain in 1604. Cartier’s attempt on the St Lawrence in 1541 ended in failure, and the ill-advised plan of the Marquis de la Roche, in 1598, to establish a penal colony somewhat farther south ended in disaster.

It might naturally have been expected that England would make some attempt to colonize the country on whose shores Cabot had first planted the English flag; but unfortunately English statesmen regarded the region with indifference, an indifference begotten of prejudice.

Misconceptions as to the climate and resources of Acadia lingered for centuries in the minds of the English people, and were perpetuated for generations by their own historians. In the public schools of the Maritime Provinces the text-book in use less than forty years ago, written in Oliver Goldsmith’s felicitous English, gravely declared that ‘Nova Scotia was a colony where men might be imprisoned but not maintained.’ The author deemed the settlement of a colony at Halifax, which included many disbanded officers and soldiers of the army, to be a mistake, and mournfully observes: ‘Thus did the nation ungratefully send off her hardy veterans to perish on inhospitable shores, and this they were taught to believe would extend their dominions.’

On the other hand, it cannot be said that the French made the most of their opportunity in Acadia. At a few isolated points they raised some rudely constructed forts, around which in the course of time a number of settlers built their huts and cultivated small farms. But at no time was the French government particularly enamoured of a country that seemed to them to promise but a scanty harvest to its proprietors, and the history of Acadia shows that the kings of France and their ministers left its destinies for years in the hands of adventurers and traders. In the course of time, it is true, they began to have some conception of its importance as a base of operations against the New Englanders, and were forced at last, in self-defence, to build Louisbourg on the eastern coast of Cape Breton.

The Ill-fated Settlement at St Croix

The first real attempt at colonization in Acadia was made under the patent to the Sieur de Monts issued by Henry IV of France on November 8, 1603. The Sieur de Monts was a Huguenot who had done good service for the king in the late wars. Previous to his voyage to Acadia he had been associated with Pont-Gravé, an experienced fur trader of St Malo, in a voyage to the St Lawrence. While engaged in trading with the Indians of Gaspe they learned of the existence of certain mines near the head of the Bay of Fundy, and on their return to France they brought with them a man from the coast of Acadia.

The Sieur de Monts now brought forward his scheme for the establishment of a colony under the patronage of a company of merchants of Rouen and La Rochelle. The winter was spent in collecting a suitable band of colonists and making the necessary preparations for the voyage, and early in April 1604 a party of one hundred and twenty emigrants, including artisans of all trades, labourers and soldiers, embarked in two ships, one of which was in charge of Pont-Gravé. The Sieur de Monts embarked in the other ship with Champlain and other leading men. The best and the meanest of France were crowded together in the two ships, for a clause in the commission of de Monts enabled him to impress idlers and vagabonds as colonists. Champlain’s narrative of the voyage and of their subsequent adventures is replete with interest, remarkable both for terseness of description and for accuracy of detail.

Under the terms of his patent de Monts was appointed the king’s lieutenant in Acadia, the bounds of which were laid down upon so magnificent a scale as to include not only the Atlantic provinces of Canada, but also the greater part of New England and a large part of the Province of Quebec. The sites of the present cities of Montreal and Philadelphia were within the confines of the patent. The foundation of the enterprise was a monopoly of the fur trade. It needed at that time but the exhibition of a few knives, beads and trinkets, to attract the Indians laden with the spoils of their winter hunting and eager to trade.

CHAMPLAIN’S MAP OF ST CROIX ISLAND AND SURROUNDINGS

A	A plan of the settlement.
B	Gardens.
C	Little islet serving as a platform for cannon. (This islet is now washed away.)
D	Platform where cannon were placed.
E	The Cemetery. (Now washed away.)
F	The Chapel (on the present Chapel Nubble or nearly).
G	Rocky shoals about St Croix Island.
H	A little islet (Little Dochet).
I	Place where Sieur de Monts had a water-mill commenced (on Lows Brook).
L	Place where we made our charcoal (beside Beaver Lake Brook).
M	Gardens on the western shore (in a charming situation, easily recognizable, east of Red Beach).
N	Other gardens on the eastern shore (beside the small stream emptying south-east of Sandy Point).
O	Very large and high mountain on the mainland (M^cLauchlans Mountain).
P	River of the Etebemins flowing about the Island of St Croix.

De Monts and Champlain sailed from Havre de Grâce on April 7, 1604. As the shores of Old France receded they noted the high, rocky bluff north of Havre de Grâce known as Cap de la Hève. A month later, when making their landfall on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, a similar headland loomed up before them, and they gave to it the name of La Hève (now Lahave), which it still retains.

Proceeding westward de Monts entered Liverpool harbour. Here he found one Rossignol of Havre de Grâce trading with the Indians. The luckless adventurer was arrested as a trespasser and his vessel was confiscated. His memory is preserved in the name of Lake Rossignol. Several Basque vessels were at the same time seized and confiscated by Pont-Gravé at Canso and their masters sent as prisoners to the Sieur de Monts. The unfortunate traders had in all probability never even heard of de Monts’ charter rights. On their return to France they made such forcible remonstrances to the king that the limits of the patent and the arbitrary powers of the Sieur de Monts were curtailed.

Exploration of the coast now began in earnest, Champlain taking the leading part. He coasted to the west in a little bark of eight tons, touching at various points until he rounded the south-western point of the peninsula at Cape Sable and entered the Bay of Fundy. The names of places assigned by the explorers are given in Champlain’s charts. Many of them remain unchanged at the present day.

De Monts seems to have had a vein of humour. In one of the smaller harbours of the southern coast of Nova Scotia a sheep jumped overboard; and as sheep were rare and precious just then in Acadia he commemorated the event by calling the place Port Mouton. In much the same spirit he had already named Port Rossignol. His taste in names differed from that of Champlain, whose nomenclature was closely bound up with his religion.

Champlain not only carefully sketched the coast as he proceeded, but made notes of all points of interest. He described the birds, animals and fish, and noted the minerals, the quality of the soil and the varieties of trees and plants.

The explorers at length entered Annapolis Basin, which they called Port Royal. Champlain speaks of it as ‘one of the finest harbours I had seen along all these coasts, in which two thousand vessels might lie in security.’ Lescarbot, who lived there a few years later, is even more enthusiastic in its praise. ‘It is,’ he says, ‘the most beautiful habitation God ever made ... a port that can securely harbour twenty thousand ships.’

The advantages of Port Royal, however, did not at this time sufficiently appeal to de Monts to lead him to establish his colony there. He continued his course up the Bay of Fundy, seeking at Minas the fabled copper-mine, which had in some measure determined the voyage to the shores of Acadia, but he failed to find it. He then crossed over to the north side of the bay and sailed westward along the southern coast of New Brunswick.

On June 24 the explorers came to a fine bay running up into the land, into which there flowed the largest and deepest river which they had yet seen. This they named the River St John in honour of the saint upon whose natal day it was discovered. Passing on still to the westward they entered Passamaquoddy Bay. Here the abundance of fish and the beauty of the islands attracted their attention.

As the season was advancing de Monts became anxious to find a place where he might settle his people, now grown weary of the ships and anxious for a change of occupation. He finally fixed upon an island in the River St Croix, a few miles from its mouth. Dwellings and storehouse were erected, a barrack built and guns planted for defence: gardens were laid out, and the little colony settled down for its first winter in Acadia. It proved a calamitous one. A strange and fatal disease, evidently scurvy, broke out among them, and out of their small colony of seventy-nine persons twenty-five died, and many others were brought to the verge of death and were only saved by the timely arrival of spring. This sorrowful experience led de Monts to remove the survivors to Port Royal.

The Founding of Port Royal

The buildings at Ile St Croix, with the exception of the storehouse, were taken down and transported to the new place of settlement. Thus suddenly ended the occupation of Ile St Croix. The little island has never since been inhabited by any permanent resident except the keeper of the lighthouse, whose beacon warns the voyager to avoid its rocky shores. It was destined, however, again to be brought to notice by the proceedings of the international boundary arbitration of the year 1797, when the discovery of the remains of de Monts’ settlement in the exact situation laid down in Champlain’s plan served to prove the river in which the island lies to be ‘the true and ancient River St Croix,’ and consequently to be the boundary between the United States and the British possessions as established by the treaty of 1783.

The return of de Monts and Champlain to Port Royal and the establishment of their colony there in 1605 marks an epoch in Canadian history. There was not at this time a single European settlement from the Far North to the ancient Spanish town of Saint Augustine on the coast of Florida. The first permanent settlement made by the whites within what is now the Dominion of Canada was that on the shores of Port Royal. Three years later Champlain founded Quebec.

The beginnings in a very small way of commerce and manufacture in Canada are found in Port Royal. Here was constructed and launched the first vessel known to have been built in America; and on a stream that empties into the basin was built the first mill in Canada. The shores of Port Royal witnessed the first conquest made by Christianity, in the conversion of the brave and friendly old Indian sagamore, Membertou. Here, too, the waters were reddened by the first blood shed in Canada in the long and bitter struggle between England and France for supremacy in America. Perhaps also Port Royal has a claim to be regarded as the place whence emanated the beginnings of Canadian literature. Certainly, in Champlain the geographer, Lescarbot the poet historian, and Biard the Jesuit chronicler, we have a trio whose literary gifts would do no discredit to any age or country. Lescarbot, in particular, seems to have found inspiration in this environment and wrote both in prose and verse in honour of New France.

For the next one hundred years Port Royal was the usual residence of the governors of Acadia and the centre of authority for all the region round about. During this period it remained for the greater part of the time in the possession of the French. Nevertheless, it was repeatedly taken by the English, only to be restored to its former owners by conquest or by treaty. For more than a century Port Royal was the shuttlecock of fortune. Samuel Argall, Sir William Alexander, Sir David Kirke, Colonel Robert Sedgwick and Sir William Phips in turn held possession for England, but only for very short periods. The Treaty of St Germain-en-Laye, the Treaty of Breda and the Treaty of Ryswick each restored to France her lost possession; at other times the intrepidity of Villebon and other French commanders served to regain the coveted post. It was not until 1710 that Port Royal was taken by Colonel Nicholson, after a brave defence, and finally held as a British possession. Even then for half a century the English held Acadia by a very feeble tenure, and had it not been for the efforts of the people of New England, in various emergencies, the country would undoubtedly again have passed under French control.

The Indians of Acadia

The first explorers of the shores of Acadia received a very friendly welcome from the native races, and the good understanding established in the early days of the colony by the efforts of the French missionaries and military leaders remained unbroken throughout the conflict with the English for sovereignty in America. When de Monts and Champlain came to Port Royal with their little colony they found awaiting them the representatives of an aboriginal race, of unknown antiquity and of interesting language, traditions and customs, who welcomed them with outward manifestations of delight.

There were two tribes of Indians in Acadia, the Souriquois (or Micmacs), who inhabited the peninsula of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island and Eastern New Brunswick, and the Etchemins (or Malecites), whose territory extended from the valley of the St John River westward to the Kennebec.

It is not necessary to discuss at any length the question of the origin of these Indians. It is probable that the two tribes had an independent origin, the Micmacs being the earlier inhabitants. The Malecites were an offshoot of the Abnaki nation and appear to have spread eastward from the Kennebec to the Penobscot and thence to the St John. The Indians scattered over this region to-day speak practically the same language, while the speech of the Micmacs is unintelligible to them. It is thought by many that the Micmacs at one time possessed the valley of the River St John and were gradually supplanted by the Malecites as the latter advanced from the westward. The Micmacs permitted the Malecites to occupy the river without opposition, their own preference inclining them to live near the coast. The opinion long prevailed in Acadia that the Malecites were a more powerful and warlike tribe than the Micmacs; nevertheless, there is no record or tradition of any conflict between them. They were nearly always allies in time of war, and not infrequently intermarried.

Both tribes, however, entertained a superstitious dread of the Mohawks, and many legends have been handed down of their encounters with these implacable foes. One of these legends will suffice for illustration: many others will be found in Dr Silas T. Rand’s Legends of the Micmacs. The incident selected is that of the destruction of the Mohawk war-party at the Grand Falls of the St John River.

The season of the fall hunting was ended and the Malecites had returned with their furs and peltry to their village at Medoctec. They were celebrating the event after their fashion, and sounds of revelry filled the air as they danced around the huge fires they had lighted in honour of the occasion. All at once there came the wailing cry of a woman from the river. They listened, and the dread word ‘Mohawk! Mohawk!’ was heard. Consternation now took the place of revelry. One or two of the bravest of the tribe rushed to the river bank and found there an Indian woman, the wife of one of the tribe who had not yet returned to the village. ‘Mohawk!’ was the only word she had strength to utter. Strong arms carried her within the palisaded fort. The gates were closed and barricaded for fear the enemy were at hand, and then the woman told her story. It was that five hundred Mohawk warriors had crossed from the St Lawrence waters to Temiscouata Lake, and launching their canoes had descended the Madawaska to destroy the village of Medoctec on the St John River below. On the Madawaska their advance party at early dawn surprised, in their small encampment, a Malecite hunter and his family. The hunter and children were killed, but the woman was spared upon her promising to be their guide. She was placed in the chief’s canoe and the war-party proceeded on its way. As they approached the Little Falls at the mouth of the Madawaska the woman said that a portage must be made, as the rapids were not passable by canoe. They found her story to be true. Again embarking they proceeded on their way and reached the waters of the St John, which are very tranquil for some miles above the Grand Falls.

Upon being assured by their guide that there were no more falls in the vicinity, the flotilla of canoes was lashed together in raft-like fashion and drifted with the tide. In a little while nearly all the wearied Mohawks were sleeping, but the woman well knew that they were nearing the great cataract where the river falls more than seventy feet into the abyss below. Hearing at length the noise of falling water some of the watchers inquired the cause, and were told it was only the noise of a waterfall at the mouth of a river that here unites with the St John. As the fleet swept on and quickened for the plunge the woman slipped from the canoe and swam to the shore. Meanwhile, as the full roar of the cataract thundered in their ears, the sleepers awoke and sprang in desperate horror to their paddles. Their cry of despair, as they were swept to their destruction, mingled with the exultant cry of the woman as she saw the enemies of her tribe descend into the awful gulf. One canoe alone remained to carry her to her village. She had saved her nation, but was a maniac from that day.

There is another version of this legend, in which the woman shares the fate of the Mohawks. This version is adopted by Hannay in his ballads of Acadia. The Indian name of the Grand Falls, Chikunikabik, means ‘the destroyer place’ and is probably connected with the legend.

That the Malecites have for centuries inhabited the region from the St John River westward is indicated by the fact that the Indian names of rivers, lakes, islands and mountains (many of which names are still retained by the whites) are nearly all of Malecite origin, while, on the other hand, the place-names of Eastern New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are of Micmac origin.

The manners and habits of both tribes have been described with much fidelity by Champlain, Lescarbot, Denys, Biard and other early historians. There is no reason to doubt that at the time the country became known to Europeans the Indians lived as their ancestors had lived from time immemorial. Much information has been obtained on this head from the archæological remains found at prehistoric camp-sites in various places in the Atlantic provinces.

When Champlain first visited these shores the savages had nothing better than stone axes to use in clearing their lands. It is to their credit that with their rude implements they contrived to hack down trees and, after burning the branches and trunks, planted their corn among the stumps and in the course of time took out the roots. In cultivating the soil they used an implement of very hard wood, shaped like a spade. The corn-fields at the old Indian town of Medoctec, on the banks of the St John, were undoubtedly tilled by the Indians long before the coming of the whites. But although the Indians in certain parts of Acadia paid some attention to the cultivation of the soil, hunting and fishing were always their chief means of livelihood. Wild game was abundant. In the forest the moose, caribou, red deer and other animals roamed in savage freedom. The beaver was very common on the streams and lakes. Waterfowl ranged the coasts and marshes; and the rivers—undisturbed by steamboats and unpolluted by saw-mills—swarmed with fish.

It is a common belief that the Indians were formerly much more numerous than they are now. Exactly the same opinion seems to have prevailed when the country was first discovered, but it is questionable whether there were ever many more Indians in Acadia than there are at the present day. Biard in 1611 described them as so few in number that they might be said to roam over rather than to possess the country. He estimated the Etchemins at less than one thousand persons, scattered widely, as was natural for those who were obliged to live by hunting and fishing. To-day the Indians living within the same area as the Etchemins number considerably more than a thousand souls.

All the early French writers comment on the skill and ingenuity of the savages in adapting their mode of life to their environment, and the first colonists of Acadia learned not a little from their Indian friends. Nicolas Denys, who came to the country in 1632, gives a particularly entertaining and detailed account of their manner of life and describes their skilful handicraft. The snow-shoe and bark canoe aroused his special admiration. All early writers speak of their nomadic habits. At one time they were attracted to the seaside, where clams, fish and sea-fowl abounded, at another they preferred the charm of the inland waters. Sometimes the mere love of change led them to forsake their camping place and remove to some other favourite spot. When game was scarce they were compelled by sheer necessity to seek new hunting grounds. At the proper season they made temporary encampments for salmon fishing with torch and spear. Again they tilled their corn-fields on intervale and island. Occasionally an outbreak of pestilence broke up their encampments and scattered them in all directions.

The Jesuit missionary, Ennemond Massé, spent his first winter in Acadia with Louis Membertou on the River St John in order to increase his knowledge of the Indian language. He describes his experience among the savages as ‘a life without order and without daily fare, without bread, without salt, often without anything: always moving on and changing.... for roof a wretched cabin, for couch the earth, for rest and quiet odious cries and songs, for medicine hunger and hard work.’

The missionary Biard, who came with Massé to Acadia in 1611, characterizes the Indians as a very improvident race only urged to work by necessity. In this they were not dissimilar to many other tribes of North American Indians. ‘As long as they have anything,’ writes Biard, ‘they are always celebrating feasts and having songs, dances and speeches. If there is a crowd of them you need not certainly expect anything else. Nevertheless if they are by themselves, and where they may safely listen to their wives, for women are everywhere the best managers, they will sometimes make storehouses for the winter, where they will keep smoked meat, roots, shelled acorns, peas, beans, etc.’

The Indians naturally play a leading part in the early history of Acadia, and the element of barbarity, inherent in nearly all savage races, was by no means lacking in them. They united with their French allies in the war period, and participated in the forays that devastated the frontiers of Maine and New Hampshire. The annals of New England tell many a sad story of innocent lives sacrificed, of women and children carried into captivity and homes made desolate by savage hands. And yet impartial history tells us that the Indian was not in all cases the aggressor. Contact with the white man has undoubtedly ameliorated the hardships of savage life, but it has also imparted the vices of civilization.

About the year 1800 commissioners were sent by the New Brunswick government to the village of Medoctec on the St John, where the Indians had from time immemorial built their wigwams and tilled their corn-fields, and where their dead for many generations had been laid to rest in the little graveyard by the riverside. The object of the commissioners was to arrange for the location of white settlers on the Indian lands. The government claimed the right to dispossess the Indians, on the ground that the lands they occupied were in the gift of the crown. The Indians, not unnaturally, were not at all willing to part with their inheritance.

On their arrival the commissioners were confronted by the chief and several of his captains, arrayed in their war-paint and feathers. After mutual salutations the commissioners asked: ‘By what right or title do you hold these lands?’

The tall, powerful chief stood erect and, with the air of a plumed knight, pointed to the little enclosure beside the river and replied: ‘There are the graves of our grandfathers! There are the graves of our fathers! There are the graves of our children!’

To this simple native eloquence the commissioners felt they had no fitting reply, and the Malecites remained in possession, but only to be ousted some forty years later, when the white man’s fire-water had done its deadly work.

While they were undoubtedly cruel to their enemies, and even at times cruel to their women, the Indians of Acadia were by no means without their redeeming features. They were not a licentious race and they were loyal to their friends. No instance is recorded where any injury was done to the person of a female captive, and this should be remembered to their credit by those who most abhor their bloodthirstiness and cruelty in war.

The First Years at Port Royal

The place selected by the Sieur de Monts for his settlement on the banks of Port Royal Basin was on the Granville shore, nearly opposite Goat Island, a few miles below the site of the present town of Annapolis. As seen in the month of August, when the party arrived, the panorama must have appeared very beautiful. Those who have ever visited the Annapolis Basin can readily picture the scene as the little craft that bore the first Acadian colony sailed up the basin in the glory of an Acadian midsummer day. They were filled with admiration. On their left a range of hills, rising rather abruptly to a height of from four to six hundred feet, shielded them from the fogs and chilly airs of the Bay of Fundy. On their right they saw another range of hills extending in a generally parallel direction, but less abrupt in appearance, with here and there a depression through which streams flowed northerly into the waters over which they were sailing. Before them lay the lovely and far-famed valley of the Annapolis River. The hills were densely clad with the trees of the primeval forest, the beech and the birch—two varieties of the former and three of the latter—six species of maple, two of elm, two of ash, with a great variety of evergreen—pines, spruces, firs and larches, the whole forming a vast unbroken woodland as far as the eye could reach.

That the explorers were not indifferent to the charm of the place we learn from the words of their own historian: ‘It was a thing unto us marvellous to see the fair distance and the largeness of it, and the mountains and hills that environed it, and we wondered how so fair a place did remain a wilderness.’

Nothing, it would seem, was wanting to make Port Royal a flourishing settlement but active work on the part of a band of resolute pioneers and cordial support on the part of its promoters. The work of erecting buildings made rapid progress, and the colony was soon fairly housed. A small palisaded fort was constructed for defence.

But the Sieur de Monts had enemies at court, and to thwart their intrigues he was obliged to hasten back to France with Poutrincourt, leaving Pont-Gravé and Champlain in charge of the colony. On his arrival de Monts had to face opposition. His account of Acadia was coldly received. The expenses of the venture had been heavy and the returns small. Many of the merchants who belonged to the company were dissatisfied and unwilling either to send out relief ships or to induce people to embark in them. In the emergency Poutrincourt came to the rescue, and by his efforts a vessel named the Jonas was fitted out at La Rochelle. She set sail for Acadia on May 11, 1606, and arrived just as the colony was reduced to despair and about to return to France. De Monts, finding his enemies in the ascendant, had deemed it wise to remain at home, but his absence was felt the less in that Poutrincourt had succeeded in getting Marc Lescarbot to accompany him. Lescarbot proved to be the life of the settlement and also its best historian.

The winter that followed was the memorable one in which Champlain’s ‘Order of the Good Time’ held its beneficent sway. The story of this period, as told by Lescarbot, is exceedingly picturesque. His lively description of the trials and successes of the pioneers displays the versatility and vivacity characteristic of his race.

Champlain’s sketch of Port Royal shows the general plan of the settlement, which was that of a quadrangle of rudely constructed buildings surrounding a courtyard. These included a storehouse, bakehouse, forge and dwellings, unpretentious buildings all, but they sheltered Champlain, de Monts and Poutrincourt, the founders of New France. The defences were only wooden palisades with a few small cannon mounted on platforms. Practically they were useless, for they were not sufficient to repel an invader, and the Indians were always their firm friends and allies.

Champlain’s ‘Order of the Good Time’ (l’ordre de bon temps) included the fifteen leading men of the colony; their meeting place was Poutrincourt’s dining-hall; the rule of the order was good-fellowship and mirth. Each member in turn was adorned with the elaborate collar of Grand Master, which he wore for one day, and on that day provided the festal board with venison, fish or fowl and all that could minister to the good cheer of his guests. The bounteous feast having been enjoyed, there followed many witty jokes, songs and stories, for the order included men of courtly bearing and culture who were well able to contribute to the edification and amusement of the assembled company. As a guest of honour at the table there sat always the old Micmac chieftain, Membertou. Sometimes other chiefs and captains were seated at the board, while those of humbler degree, warriors, wives and children, sat on the floor or crouched together in the corners of the hall awaiting the distribution of the viands that remained after the feast was done. As the Indians saw this performance repeated day after day they nodded their approval, for as yet they did not understand the language of their friends.

CHAMPLAIN’S VIEW OF THE SETTLEMENT AT PORT ROYAL

A	Dwelling of the Workmen.
B	Platform where the cannon were placed.
C	The Storehouse.
D	Dwelling of Sieur de Pont-Gravé and Champlain.
E	The Blacksmith Shop.
F	Palisade of Pickets.
G	The Bakery.
H	The Kitchen.
(I	The Gardens.)
(M	Moat.)
(N	Dwellings of the Gentlemen of the Party?)
O	Small House where the equipment of our Barques was stored. This Sieur de Poutrincourt afterwards had rebuilt, and Sieur Boulay dwelt there when Sieur de Pont-Gravé returned to France.
P	Gate to our Habitation.
Q(K)	The Cemetery.
R (L)	The River.

The winter proved to be fair and mild and only four of the company died, and these are described as having been sluggish and fretful. The Micmacs were constant visitors, making their white friends presents of venison and selling them supplies of game at a fair price.

About this time there occurred the most terrible feud between the savages of Acadia and those of New England of which we have any record. It was occasioned by the killing of Penoniac, one of the chiefs of Acadia, by the Armouchiquois near Saco. Penoniac had acted as guide to Champlain in 1605 when he explored the Atlantic coast as far as Cape Cod. The body of the slain chief was brought home for burial and there was general lamentation. Membertou summoned a meeting of representatives of all the tribes, and it was decided that the death of Penoniac must be avenged. Four hundred warriors were assembled at Port Royal. Their embarkation was conducted with great regularity and the flotilla of war-canoes was arranged in divisions, each under its leader, the whole commanded by Membertou in person. As the morning sun reflected in the still waters the noiseless procession of gaily decorated war-canoes, crowned by tawny faces and bodies smeared with vari-coloured pigments, the sight filled the onlookers with astonishment and admiration. Uniting with their allies the Malecites, at the River St John, the great war-party sped westward to the land of the Armouchiquois, where they met and defeated the enemy in a fierce battle in which Bessabez, their greatest sachem, and many minor chiefs were slain. The Acadian Indians returned home singing their songs of victory.

Membertou was a remarkable chief and was greatly admired by the French missionaries. He was esteemed to be the grand sagamore of the entire Micmac nation from Gaspe to Cape Sable. He claimed to have seen Cartier when he visited Chaleur Bay in 1534. He was now a very old man, yet, like Moses, his eye was not dim or his natural force abated. Biard speaks of him as ‘the greatest, most renowned and most formidable savage within the memory of man.’

The outlook for the colony at Port Royal at this time was hopeful, but suddenly came disaster like a bolt from a clear sky. A ship arrived from St Malo with word that de Monts’ enemies had triumphed and his patent had been revoked by the king. The patent being revoked, the company was dissolved, and there was nothing for the colonists to do but to abandon Port Royal. They accordingly sailed for France, leaving the buildings in the care of Membertou and his people. Poutrincourt assured the savages that he would return at a later day to continue the enterprise.

On his arrival at Paris Poutrincourt applied to Henry iv for a confirmation of the grant of the seigniory of Port Royal which de Monts had given him in 1605. The request was complied with. The king was greatly pleased with the specimens of the natural products of the country—animal, vegetable and mineral—exhibited by Poutrincourt. These included wheat, barley and oats grown at Port Royal on the site of the present town of Annapolis. It was not, however, until 1610 that Poutrincourt was able to return to Acadia. He found that the Indians had been faithful to their trust and that the buildings at Port Royal remained undisturbed.

Another misfortune now occurred, which threatened to paralyse all colonial expansion. Henry iv died by the knife of the assassin Ravaillac, and the government passed into the weak hands of Marie de Médicis.

The French and English in Armed Conflict

But when patriotism flagged it remained for religious zeal to continue the work. Poutrincourt’s son, Biencourt, visited France in 1611 and announced that Membertou and many other Indians had embraced Christianity and had been baptized at Port Royal. The news excited great interest at home, and the queen and many ladies of the court opened their purses to help on the pious work. But the chief patron was Madame de Guercheville, a lady-in-waiting, famed both for her virtue and her beauty. In order that the missionaries should have full control, she bought out all the interests in the colony held by the Huguenots of St Malo and transferred them to the Jesuits.

The missionaries sent out with Biencourt were Pierre Biard and Ennemond Massé. Both were filled with splendid enthusiasm for their task. They shrank from no toil or privation in their labour among the Indians, but found not a little difficulty in acquiring their language.

Poutrincourt now returned to France, leaving his son in command in Acadia. The young man displayed enterprise and courage, enforcing his authority as vice-admiral in New France, and taking tribute from the ships that traded on his coast. In company with the missionary Biard he visited a small trading post that had probably been in existence for some little time on the River St John. The enterprising people of St Malo had established this post on an island in the ‘Long Reach’ about twenty miles from the mouth of the river. The island was then called Ile Emenenic, but is now known as Caton’s Island. The post established here by the fishers and traders of St Malo is the first known European settlement within the confines of New Brunswick, and a monument has lately been placed upon the island to mark the site. That the people of St Malo were early in the field as traders on the River St John is clear from the fact that Lescarbot states that when the Sieur de Monts first visited the river he found there a ship of St Malo trading with the Indians. He seized, but afterwards released, the ship.

This same year (1611) Biencourt and Biard visited Chignecto and other places up the Bay of Fundy to learn more of the country and to develop the Indian trade.

Madame de Guercheville advanced a thousand pounds for the encouragement of the colony and sent another ship with supplies to Port Royal. This very energetic lady obtained from the boy king, Louis xiii, a patent conceding to her, on paper, nothing less than the whole Atlantic coast of North America from Florida to the St Lawrence, with the exception of Biencourt’s seigniory of Port Royal. She determined to settle a new colony on the coast of Maine and to remove the missionaries thither, that they might be free from the restrictions they had encountered at the hands of Biencourt and his father. But this colony was not destined to take root.

The patent to Madame de Guercheville raised a question of an international nature. The right of the king to issue such a patent was based on Verrazano’s discoveries in the reign of Francis i, on the strength of which France claimed all America north of Florida. England claimed the same territory by virtue of the prior discoveries of the Cabots, and a colony had been founded on the James River in Virginia in 1607 by a company of London merchants. This colony, in 1613, sent a number of fishing vessels to the coast of Acadia, under the convoy of an armed vessel commanded by Samuel Argall. At Mount Desert, off the coast of Maine, Captain Argall learned of the arrival of the French in that vicinity, and he at once proceeded to attack them on the ground that they were trespassers on the rights of the colony of Virginia. He seized their vessel, took possession of their stores and carried many of the people—the missionaries Biard and Massé included—to Virginia.

The governor of Jamestown resolved to send Argall to destroy all the French settlements in Acadia. Argall very willingly set forth on the expedition. He burned the buildings that were yet standing on the site of de Monts’ settlement at Ile St Croix and then proceeded to Port Royal, which he found in a defenceless condition. Biencourt and his men were either away among the Indians or at work in the fields up the river. The buildings were pillaged and burned and the standing crop destroyed. Argall even effaced the arms of France, and the names of the Sieur de Monts and other leaders, which had been graven on a stone within the fort. The unhappy French colonists were forced to depend on wild roots and the hospitality of the Indians for their subsistence during the ensuing winter.

While Argall’s expedition was accompanied by much of the lawlessness of a freebooter, it was nevertheless an event of some importance, because it marked the beginning of the struggle with France for supremacy in America. Strange to say, Argall’s action produced no remonstrance from France, and this shows how little attention was paid to colonial expansion at the court of Versailles.

CHAMPLAIN’S MAP OF PORT ROYAL

A	The place of the settlement (at Lower Granville).
B	Garden of the Sieur de Champlain.
C	Road through the woods made by Sieur de Poutrincourt.
D	Island at the entrance of Equille River (Goat Island).
E	Entrance to Port Royal.
F	Flats dry at low water.
G	River St Anthony (Bear River).
H	Place under cultivation where wheat is sown (Annapolis).
I	Mill built by Sieur de Poutrincourt.
L	Meadows which are overflowed at the highest tides.
M	Equille River (Annapolis River).
N	Sea-coast of Port Royal.
O	Ranges of mountains (North Mountains).
P	Island near River St Anthony (Bear Island).
Q	(q) Rocky Brook (Moose River or Deep Brook).
R	Another brook (Morris River).
S	Mill River (Allen River).
T	Little Lake.
V	Place where the Indians catch herring in the season.
X	Brook of the Troutery (Shaefer’s Brook).
Y	Road made by Sieur de Champlain.

Poutrincourt not long afterwards died a soldier’s death in the assault on Méry, a small town in France. His indomitable son, Biencourt, clung to his post, where he hunted, fished, traded and eventually in part rebuilt Port Royal.

For several years after the destruction of the French settlements by Argall there is a blank in the annals of Acadia, and one which it is now impossible to fill. Biencourt still remained in the country and occasionally resided at Port Royal, and it does not appear that many of his people abandoned the country. After the founding of Quebec, Canada became the favourite colony, and the colony in Acadia languished through neglect.

The Indians, however, were not forgotten; the Jesuits had failed, but in 1619 a party of the Récollet order from Aquitaine began a mission on the River St John. These humble missionaries had no historian to record their trials and privations, and unlike the Jesuits they did not become their own annalists. We know that one of their number, Father Barnardin, while returning from Miscou to the River St John in 1623, died of hunger and fatigue in the forest, a martyr to his charity and zeal.

The continental part of Acadia now began to receive a little attention. A company of fur traders established a post on the River St John, and another company entered upon the fishery quite extensively at Miscou on the Gulf of St Lawrence. The French, with young Biencourt at their head, still kept a feeble hold upon Acadia. Biencourt had as his companion Charles de la Tour. These two worthies, such was their poverty, lived in the Indian fashion, roving from place to place and gradually acquiring a knowledge of the country and its resources.

Sir William Alexander’s Feudal Colony

An attempt was now made by James i of England to colonize Acadia, but it proved as futile as that of de Monts, although it introduced into Acadia the name of Nova Scotia. The promoter of the scheme was Sir William Alexander,^[1] a man of letters and a courtier, and, it may be added, a very patriotic Scotsman. He obtained from James i, in 1621, a grant of the peninsula of Acadia, together with Cape Breton and all the country north of the Bay of Fundy to the River St Lawrence.

America had at this time a New England, a New France and a New Spain, and Sir William Alexander thought there was room for a New Scotland. In the map of his extensive domain the St John River became the Clyde, and the St Croix, which divided New England and New Scotland, he not inaptly called the Tweed. To that part of his territory north of Argall’s Bay (for so he termed the Bay of Fundy) he gave the name of the Province of Alexandria. The peninsular part of Acadia he called the Province of Caledonia.

Under the powers conferred on him Sir William offered to grant a tract of land three miles long upon the sea-coast and ten miles up into the country ‘to all such principal knights and esquires as will be generously pleased to be undertakers of the said plantation and who will promise to set forth six sufficient men, artificers or labourers, sufficiently armed, apparelled and victualled for two years.’ Those so engaging were to pay a certain sum to Sir William towards the promotion of his colony.

The colonial policy of James i has not been taken very seriously by the majority of Canadian writers. It must, however, be borne in mind that it was the first attempt at colonization on the part of Great Britain, and viewed from the standpoint of the age in which it was undertaken the attempt was not as puerile as it may at first sight appear.

To persuade men to quit their homes, however poor and rough, was in the beginning of the seventeenth century a very different thing from what it is now. The emigrant to a soil unsettled, uncivilized and without law could not go out as a lonely pioneer, but must be one of a band of colonists. Inducement of no ordinary kind was needed to secure a good stamp of emigrants. In the case of New Scotland it took the form of titular honours. The scheme was probably conceived by the king himself. At any rate on October 18, 1624, he announced to his privy council his intention of instituting an order of baronets for the purpose of advancing the plantation of Nova Scotia. He added that he proposed to make the undertaking a work of his own, and was confident that the whole nation would have honour and profit from so noble an enterprise. Even on his death-bed the king alluded to his cherished design as a good work, a royal work, and one for the kingdom in general as well as for the particular interest of every baronet.

The number of baronets was fixed at one hundred and fifty, and in the course of ten years one hundred and seven were created. Thirty-four of these had their baronies in what is now New Brunswick, fifteen in Nova Scotia, twenty-four in Cape Breton and thirty-four in Anticosti. Each baronet was expected to pay a considerable fee, and to make every effort to promote the settlement of his lands. The scheme has usually been viewed as visionary and unpractical, but at least one writer speaks of it as ‘eminently shrewd, far-seeing and commercial.’ It was, at least, quite in accordance with the spirit of the age, and it might in the end have brought a good many colonists to Acadia had not Charles i handed the country back to France in his desire to curry favour with the French king.

At the inception of his undertaking Sir William Alexander found it difficult to secure desirable colonists. The idea of a landed gentry and a tenantry did not appeal to the artisans and farmers of the better class. Had he offered lands in fee he would undoubtedly have been more successful. But his plan was to establish in Acadia a state of society similar to that of mediæval Europe, with the soil in possession of lords paramount under whom the colonists should hold their lands as tenants. Such a plan as this was not likely at the outset to draw settlers other than labourers of the lowest class.

A small party was sent out in 1622, but the voyage was fruitless, for when the colonists neared the coast of Cape Breton a storm drove them back to Newfoundland, where they were obliged to pass the winter. The next year a party set out in another vessel, explored the Atlantic coast of Acadia and returned with an interesting report of the country. Not until 1628 was any actual settlement made. In May of that year four vessels sailed from Scotland to Nova Scotia with upwards of seventy colonists under Sir William Alexander’s son of the same name. They arrived in safety at Port Royal and immediately occupied the site of the old French fort on the Granville shore. They built a new fort, known in later years as the Scots’ Fort. Very friendly relations were established with the Indians, and to awaken interest in the colony one of the principal chiefs, with his wife and young son, was induced to visit England the next year. On their arrival they were introduced to the public as the king, queen and young prince of New Scotland. They were received with marked attention, ‘especially my lady of the savage queen.’

The new colonists of Port Royal suffered very severely during their first winter, and when young Alexander returned to them the next year he learned that thirty of them had died. The few notices we have of the colony during its short existence show that some progress was made and that the outlook was hopeful. But the extraordinary action of Charles i a few years later brought everything to a stand. The king, to obtain the favour of the French monarch, gave orders to Sir William Alexander on July 10, 1631, to demolish the fort built by his son and to remove all the people, goods, ordnance, munitions and cattle and other things belonging to the colony, leaving the bounds ‘altogidder waist and unpeopled as it was at the tyme your sone landed first to plant there by vertew of our commission.’

An abortive attempt had been made in 1629 to plant a colony in the Island of Cape Breton. The promoter of this colony was one of the baronets of Nova Scotia, James Stewart, fifth Lord Ochiltree. This seems to have been the first attempt at settlement on the island. Lord Ochiltree sailed in June with three ships and a band of emigrants. They arrived safely at the harbour of Belaine, six miles east of Louisbourg, and established themselves in the fishery. But their stay was of short duration. Captain Daniel of Dieppe swooped down upon them, claiming the country in the name of the Company of New France. He destroyed the post and carried off the entire colony, Lord Ochiltree included. Forty of those captured were allowed to land at Falmouth, but Ochiltree and seventeen others were taken to France and only released through the interposition of the English ambassador. The unfortunate baronet reckoned his losses at £20,000, for which he never received any compensation.

Captain Daniel, having dispossessed the English, himself began a settlement at St Ann’s, or Great Cibou, as it was then called, but his attempt to plant a colony on the shores of Cape Breton also proved unsuccessful after a few years’ struggle.

The British may therefore claim priority as regards the first attempt to form a settlement on the Island of Cape Breton; but the French afterwards vastly improved on the example of Lord Ochiltree, and it was here that they were destined to make their last stand for the preservation of their power in Acadia.

The La Tours

We must now turn back and speak of some of the French leaders in Acadia during this period. The La Tours, father and son, are picturesque and important figures in the early history of the country. Their family name was St Étienne. Claude de St Étienne was a Huguenot, who had lost the greater part of his estates in the religious wars. He came to Acadia about the year 1609 with his son Charles to seek in the New World some part of the fortune he had lost in the Old. Biencourt seems to have retired to France about the year 1620, leaving Charles de la Tour in charge of affairs in Acadia. La Tour for some reason left Port Royal and removed to Port la Tour near Cape Sable.

War broke out between France and England in 1627, and it was decided to strengthen Quebec and Port Royal. A fleet set out from France with cannon, ammunition and stores, only to be captured by an English squadron under Sir David Kirke. Claude de la Tour is said to have been one of those captured and to have been taken to England. Here his natural address stood him in such good stead that he won the favour of the king, married one of the queen’s maids of honour, was created a baronet of Nova Scotia, and received from Sir William Alexander for himself and his son Charles a tract of land including the south-western coast of Nova Scotia, from Yarmouth to Lunenburg. In return he undertook to strengthen the Scottish colony in Acadia and to induce his son to aid him in promoting the interests of Sir William Alexander’s colony by the surrender of his fort near Cape Sable and submission to the king of England. This the younger La Tour positively declined to do. The father’s threats and entreaties were alike vain, and he was obliged to withdraw to Port Royal. Two years later Acadia was restored to France by the Treaty of St Germain-en-Laye, and Claude de la Tour, not knowing where to turn, sought refuge with his son, who received him kindly.

In recognition of his fidelity Charles de la Tour was now commissioned lieutenant-general in Acadia, and stores, men and munitions of war were sent to him. He also became the accredited agent of the Company of New France. About 1630 La Tour decided to erect a strong fort at the mouth of the River St John, as a protection against any adventurers who might be disposed to settle there and also to enable him to control the fur trade of the river. The Company of New France on January 15, 1635, made him a grant of a large tract of land at the mouth of the St John, including ‘the fort and habitation of La Tour.’ The date of his arrival at his new post is a little uncertain, but it was probably about the time he received his grant.

Up to this period the story of Acadia has its picturesque incidents, but the fact remains that little had been accomplished either by France or England in the settlement and development of the country. We now enter upon a new stage in the history of its affairs.

The Coming of the Acadians

The task of dispossessing the Scots and making Acadia again a French colony was committed to Isaac de Razilly, a relative of Cardinal Richelieu and a captain in the navy. He came to Acadia in the spring of 1632 as the active agent of the Company of New France. The company was strong in wealth and numbers and strong also in the royal favour. De Razilly brought out with him a number of peasants and artisans, and was accompanied by d’Aulnay Charnisay and Nicolas Denys, two men whose names are inseparably linked with Acadian history. Port Royal was immediately surrendered to de Razilly by the English. The Scottish colony was in a feeble state and the majority were glad of the opportunity to return to their native land. A few who had intermarried with the French chose to remain.

In the course of the next five years de Razilly and his lieutenant, Charnisay, brought out at least sixty families. Most of them remained permanently in Acadia. These people were chiefly farmers and fishermen, with a few artisans—blacksmiths, carpenters and coopers—who were necessary for the work of the colony. These immigrants were from La Rochelle, Saintonge and Poitou, on the west coast of France, a tract of country that has some features in common with Acadia, a country of marshes from which the sea was kept out by artificial dikes. This circumstance had not a little to do with the future of Acadia, for the French dealt with the marsh-lands at Port Royal and on the shores of the Basin of Minas in the same way that they had treated similar marshes in France. These marsh-lands, with others at the head of the Bay of Fundy, were so extensive that they sufficed to maintain the Acadians down to the time of the expulsion, and no attempt was made to clear and cultivate the upland until after the New England immigration of 1760.

The sixty families of French who came out under de Razilly were the true founders of the Acadian people. Other persons came from time to time, but there was no general immigration. Only four women are known to have come after the original immigration. New names occasionally appear in the colony, but they are names of discharged soldiers or others, whose wives were of the original Acadian stock. This has given a unity to the Acadian people such as is hardly to be found in any other community, and has caused them to differ materially from the French Canadians of the Province of Quebec.

After taking possession of Port Royal, de Razilly went to La Hève and there planted his colony. The place had long been known to the French fisher-folk, and the fishery was one of the main objects of the Company of New France. It was found to be more immediately profitable than the cultivation of the soil. Both de Razilly and Denys engaged in the fishery, the latter at Port Rossignol to the westward of La Hève.

In 1635 Charnisay ousted the Plymouth people from their little fishing settlement at Penobscot, and La Tour dispossessed another party from New England which had fixed itself at Machias. The communities of New England were too weak and too disunited to retaliate.

Feudal Strife

Signs of progress in Acadia were now evident. Port Royal was re-established as a French colony and de Razilly, Denys and La Tour had each a settlement on the Atlantic coast. Charnisay was holding back the New Englanders at Penobscot. La Tour had a strong post at the mouth of the St John. In Northern Acadia the missionaries had resumed their work among the Indians and there was a fishing post at Miscou.

But in 1636 Isaac de Razilly suddenly died, leaving the young colony without its leader and head. The peaceful development of the country was interrupted, while rival seigneurs strove for the mastery. Meanwhile the English colonies to the south were growing daily in strength and importance.

Charles de Menou, Seigneur d’Aulnay Charnisay, came of a distinguished family of Touraine. His wife, Jeanne Motin, was a daughter of the Seigneur de Courcelles. When Isaac de Razilly died he left his authority to Charnisay, who was his relative. Charnisay repaired to Port Royal, where he ruled as a feudal lord and nobody disputed his authority except La Tour, who claimed to be independent of him by virtue of his commission from the king and his grant from the Company of New France.

Charles de la Tour was of less conspicuous lineage than his rival, although in legal documents he is called ‘a gentleman of distinguished birth.’ He married Françoise Marie Jacquelins, who, according to the questionable testimony of his enemies, was the daughter of a barber of Le Mans. She was a Huguenot, and whatever may have been her origin, her qualities of mind and heart have won for her the title of the ‘heroine of Acadia.’ Never had man more faithful ally than Marie Jacquelins proved to Charles de la Tour.

The French ministry attempted to establish a good understanding between Charnisay and La Tour, but blundered at the outset. Charnisay was commissioned lieutenant-general over a territory extending from the head of the Bay of Fundy to his old post at Penobscot, and La Tour was given like authority over the peninsular part of Acadia. Thus La Tour’s post at St John was within the limits of Charnisay’s government, and Charnisay’s post at Port Royal was within the government of La Tour, an arrangement scarcely calculated to promote harmony between the rivals.

It is rather difficult to get at the facts of the quarrel that now rapidly developed between La Tour and Charnisay. The statements of their respective friends are diverse and contradictory. Denys, the historian of the period, had reason to dislike Charnisay, and his statements concerning Charnisay’s barbarity should be received with caution. On the other hand, Charnisay’s biographers have cast aspersions on Madame de la Tour that seem entirely unwarranted. The fact remains that Acadia, large as it was, was not large enough for two such ambitious men as Charles de la Tour and d’Aulnay Charnisay.

To strengthen his position Charnisay removed the majority of the La Hève colonists to Port Royal, and brought out from France twenty families, whom he settled on the banks of the Annapolis River. He also erected a new fort at the site of the present town of Annapolis Royal about the year 1643.

La Tour had been trained in the school of adversity and was a man of parts. He too lived like a feudal lord at his fort at the mouth of the St John. He had a considerable number of soldiers and retainers, who were employed chiefly in the Indian trade. The yearly ship from France brought out the supplies and goods that he required in his business, and for a time he lived undisturbed by the politics of the world and little crossed by its cares. Within the fort Madame de la Tour led a lonely life with no companions but her children and her domestics. La Tour himself was of the Catholic faith, while his wife was a Huguenot, but the difference in religion seems never to have marred the harmony of their relations.

In the struggle between the rival feudal chiefs Charnisay had the advantage of more powerful friends at court, chief among them the famous Cardinal Richelieu. After several years of persistent intrigue Charnisay obtained from Louis xiii an order summoning La Tour to France to answer certain charges. In the event of his refusal Charnisay was directed to seize his person and property.

The contest now entered upon an acute stage. La Tour insisted that the king’s order had been obtained through misrepresentation, and he set Charnisay at defiance. The latter, not daring to attack La Tour in his stronghold, repaired to France, where he succeeded in fitting out five ships and obtaining the services of five hundred soldiers to compel his rival to submission. He also procured another and more definite order from the king to seize La Tour’s fort and person and to send him to France as a rebel and a traitor.

Meanwhile La Tour was not idle. His friends at La Rochelle sent out to him a large armed vessel, the Clement, loaded with ammunition and supplies and having on board a reinforcement of one hundred and fifty men. When the vessel reached St John it was found that Charnisay, having been repulsed in his first attack, had established a blockade at the mouth of the harbour, and that entrance was impracticable. Eluding the vigilance of the blockaders La Tour succeeded in boarding the relief ship, resolved to seek further aid from the people of New England, whose trade and friendship he had begun to cultivate. Boston was then but a straggling village in its thirteenth year, with houses principally of boards or logs, and in so defenceless a condition that Governor Winthrop observes: ‘If La Tour had been ill-minded towards us, he had such an opportunity as we hope neither he nor any other shall ever have the like again.’

But La Tour had come with no ill intent, and, using all his diplomacy, he so far prevailed with the Boston merchants as to obtain from them four vessels with thirty-eight guns and one hundred and forty men. With these he hastened back to the St John. Charnisay was compelled to raise the blockade and retire to Port Royal, whither he was pursued and defeated with loss, and had it not been for the forbearance of the New Englanders he would have been made a prisoner and his fort destroyed.

Charnisay was a man of determination, and now set resolutely to work to effect his rival’s destruction. La Tour’s resources were nearly exhausted. He dared not leave his fort, and yet he could not hold out unaided much longer. His wife was equal to the emergency. She decided herself to go to France for assistance. Charnisay went there too on the same errand. He tried to have Madame de la Tour arrested for treason, and so far prevailed that she was threatened with death if she should venture to leave France. But she outwitted her enemies and made good her escape to England. After a year’s absence, and after encountering all sorts of perils and adventures, she got back to her husband. Her mission had been partly successful; she brought succour, and Charnisay was once more foiled. But his opportunity came a little later.

In February 1645, having learned that La Tour was cruising on the coast and that only fifty men remained at the fort, he again invested it. Madame de la Tour inspired the garrison to a heroic defence, and the assailants were beaten off with severe loss and compelled once more to retire. Two months afterwards the implacable Charnisay made yet another attack with a stronger force, landing some of his guns to batter the fort from the land side. On April 17, having brought his largest ship to within pistol-shot of the water rampart, he summoned the garrison to surrender, but was answered with shouts of defiance.

The story of the capture of the fort, as told by Nicolas Denys, is well known. For three days Madame de la Tour repelled the besiegers and obliged them to retire. On the fourth day, whilst she, hoping for some respite, was making her soldiers rest, a Swiss sentinel betrayed the garrison and the enemy were soon within the walls. Even in this dire emergency the brave woman succeeded in rallying the defenders, and only surrendered on condition that the lives of all should be spared.

This condition Charnisay is declared to have shamefully violated. All the garrison, according to Denys, were hanged with the exception of one, whom he spared on condition that he would act the part of executioner, while the lady commander had to be present at the scaffold with a rope around her neck as though she were the vilest criminal.

It is but fair to state that the accuracy of Denys’ account has been questioned by Parkman and others. Nevertheless, the accounts that have come to us from sources undoubtedly friendly to Charnisay admit that he hanged the greater number of his prisoners, ‘to serve as an example to posterity,’ and that Madame de la Tour was put into confinement, where, Charnisay’s biographer rather brutally observes, ‘she fell ill with spite and rage.’ The lady La Tour did not long survive her misfortunes. Scarcely three weeks after the capture of the fort she had so gallantly defended she was laid to rest near the spot consecrated by her devotion.

The loss of his post and the death of his faithful wife involved La Tour in what seemed to be irreparable ruin. It is claimed that the booty taken by Charnisay amounted in value to £10,000. As it had been accumulated almost entirely in traffic with the Indians, we may form some little idea of the value of the trade. The profits were such that even the royal governors of Acadia were tempted to take a hand in it.

Charnisay’s authority was now extended—on paper—from the St Lawrence to Virginia. He could build forts, command by land and sea, appoint officers of justice, keep such lands as he pleased, and grant the rest to his vassals. He had establishments at Port Royal, at the mouth of the St John and at Penobscot, and controlled the trade of a territory half as large as France. At Port Royal, where he established his headquarters, he built mills for grinding corn and sawing timber, and began the system of dikes by which the marshes were reclaimed and made productive. He engaged in shipbuilding, and in the course of a few years built two vessels and a number of pinnaces and shallops. He also erected a church and established a school for the instruction of children. On his visiting France in 1645 the king not only conferred on him marked tokens of his royal favour, but ordered a vessel to be equipped to convey him to Acadia. Everything seemed to promise success. But once again the hand of destiny intervenes. Charnisay, in the prime of life and in the very zenith of his fortunes, was drowned on May 24, 1650, in the Annapolis River near Port Royal.

When de Razilly died in 1636, Nicolas Denys, Sieur de Fronsac, became governor of the eastern coast of Acadia from Canso to the St Lawrence. It was a vast domain without any white inhabitants, except a few fishermen and the Jesuit missionaries. Denys built two small forts, one at Chedabucto (Guysboro) and the other at St Peters on the Island of Cape Breton.

After Charnisay had destroyed La Tour’s fort at St John he turned his attention to Denys, whom he deemed a trespasser on his rights under his enlarged charter from the king. Denys, meanwhile, considered himself quite secure under his agreement with the Company of New France, and was very indignant when Charnisay took forcible possession of his forts, seized his goods, broke up his fisheries and ruined his settlers. The happy-go-lucky way in which the rulers of France were accustomed to deal with the affairs of Acadia at this period was a cause of never-ending embarrassment to Denys and other traders and colonizers. Patents, granted in the first place without due consideration, were sometimes unceremoniously revoked. Vast monopolies were created under the king’s patent, only to be set aside in favour of persons of greater influence at court. A man might be busily engaged in Acadia in the promotion of his plans, but he never knew what influence might be at work to his disadvantage at the court of Versailles.

After Charnisay’s death Denys was able to resume his shore fishery at La Hève and to begin anew his settlement in Cape Breton. But misfortune still attended him. One Emmanuel le Borgne, to whom Charnisay had been indebted for a large sum, came to Acadia to claim his property. He raided the rising settlement of St Peters, made Denys and all his people prisoners, seized his vessel and goods and returned with them to Port Royal. As they passed La Hève with their booty and prisoners, Le Borgne’s men burned the settlement which Denys had there, not even sparing the chapel. The unhappy Denys made so vigorous a remonstrance that he was put in irons and confined in a dungeon at Port Royal. He was liberated before the end of the year and went to France to seek redress for his injuries. He obtained a confirmation of his grant and was named the king’s lieutenant-general of ‘all the country, territory, coasts and confines of the Great Bay of St Lawrence from Cape Cançeau to Cape Rosiers.’ His jurisdiction included Cape Breton and the Island of St John (now Prince Edward Island). On his return to Cape Breton in the spring of 1654 he found his fort at St Peters in charge of an officer placed there by Le Borgne. This officer surrendered the post to Denys, however, on the grant of the company and the king’s commission being produced.

Misfortune still pursued the Sieur de Fronsac, for the fort at St Peters soon afterwards caught fire and everything in it was destroyed. He determined to abandon his settlements at Chedabucto and Cape Breton and to retire to Chaleur Bay. On his removal to this remote location he took up his residence at Nipisiguit on the shores of Bathurst harbour. He had also a small establishment at Miscou and another at the mouth of the River Miramichi.

As the English had control of all the southern coast of Acadia, including the peninsula, from 1654 to 1667, the determination of Nicolas Denys to fix himself at Chaleur Bay was a prudent one. He escaped molestation and lived in peace and comfort during a very troubled period. His trade with the Indians must have been very large. His knowledge of the eastern coast of New Brunswick was extensive and the sites of his trading posts at the mouths of the Nipisiguit, Miramichi and Richibucto rivers were well chosen.

The English have usurped all the coast from Canseau as far as New England. They have left the French the coast on the north, the principal places of which are Miscou, Rigibouctou and Cape Breton. The district of Miscou is the most populous, the best disposed, and where there are the most Christians. It comprehends the savages of Gaspe, those of Miramichi and those of Nepisiguit. Rigibouctou is a fine river, important for the trade it has with the savages of the River St John. Cape Breton is one of the first islands one meets in coming from France. It is well enough peopled with savages for its size. Monsieur Denys commands the principal settlement which the French have in these quarters.

A glance at the map will show how easy it was to communicate by canoe with the River St John by means of the rivers that empty into Chaleur Bay and the Gulf of St Lawrence. From the head-waters of the Richibucto a very short carrying-place leads to Salmon River, which flows westward into Grand Lake and thence into the St John. From the head-waters of the Miramichi there are routes by several tributaries to the St John. From the head-waters of the Nipisiguit the St John is reached via the Tobique. From the head-waters of the Restigouche there is only a short portage to Grand River, which empties into the St John. All these routes of travel, and many others, were well known to the Indians and Acadians of former generations. Perhaps in no country in North America has nature provided such admirable natural highways for the aboriginal races as are to be found in New Brunswick.

Among the place-names given by Nicolas Denys that of ‘Cocagne,’ in Kent County, remains to this day. Its origin is explained in his narrative, in which he says: ‘I named this river the River Cocagne because I found there everything with which to make good cheer during the eight days the bad weather compelled me to tarry there.’ The word Cocagne, it need hardly be said, as used in the old French romances, signifies a land of imaginary luxury and delight.

Denys returned to France in 1670, where he published, two years afterwards, his well-known book, Description Géographique et Historique des costes de l’Amérique Septentrionale. He was then seventy-four years of age. His son, Richard Denys de Fronsac, remained in the country and lived at Miramichi. The father’s authority continued to be recognized, for in 1685 the younger Denys, as lieutenant for his father, made grants of lands on the Restigouche, the Miramichi and at Cape Breton to the ecclesiastics of the episcopal seminary of Foreign Missions in Quebec, in order to enable them to establish missions to the Indians. Denys in each instance reserved to himself the right to build storehouses and engage in the Indian trade.

While Denys was in Cape Breton he tilled the land around his post at St Peters, and had also a fine settlement at St Ann’s, where he cultivated fruit successfully. His departure was a serious blow to the island, and it remained for years neglected by his countrymen. Only when the rest of Acadia had been ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 was any attention paid to Cape Breton.

After the death of Charnisay some unlooked-for things happened in Acadia. Nicolas Denys had a surprise when he was carried off a prisoner and lodged in the dungeon of Port Royal by Emmanuel le Borgne. All Acadia was surprised when Charles de la Tour reappeared on the scene. His former defiant attitude forgotten at court, and recognized by his sovereign as the most capable man of affairs in New France, we find him in September 1651 once more in possession of his fort at the River St John. The king gave him a fresh commission as lieutenant-general in Acadia with ample territorial rights. Disputes arose respecting the claims of the widow of d’Aulnay Charnisay in which the Duke de Vendôme and others became interested. La Tour solved the problem by marrying the widow. There is no reason to think that La Tour’s second marriage proved unhappy, though to some it may seem an unromantic ending to an otherwise very romantic story. Descendants of La Tour by his second marriage are to be found in several prominent Acadian families at the present day.

Emmanuel le Borgne was not at all pleased to see Charles de la Tour again in possession of his fort at St John. He was plotting to dispossess both La Tour and Denys when another unlooked-for event occurred. It came about in a curious way. Four ships of war had been placed at the disposal of Massachusetts by Oliver Cromwell for the purpose of an expedition against the Dutch colony at Manhattan (New York). Five hundred Massachusetts soldiers were raised for the expedition, but on the eve of their departure it was learned that peace had been proclaimed with Holland. It was then agreed that the expedition should proceed to dispossess the French of their strongholds in Acadia. This was a bold measure in view of the fact that England and France were at peace. The command of the expedition was given to Major Robert Sedgwick. Neither Port Royal nor Fort la Tour was in any condition to repel such a force. Both places passed into the possession of the English and were not restored to France until the Treaty of Breda in 1667.

La Tour’s address did not desert him. He went to England and laid before Cromwell his well-nigh forgotten claim as a grantee under the charter of Sir William Alexander. He proved as skilful a diplomat as ever, and succeeded in obtaining, conjointly with Thomas Temple and William Crowne, a grant that included nearly all Acadia.

La Tour had now attained an age when men usually enjoy tranquillity more than action. He was also sagacious enough to see that affairs in Acadia were likely to remain in an unsettled state for years to come. He accordingly sold his rights to his co-partner Temple and retired to private life. He died in 1663 and his ashes repose within the confines of his beloved Acadia.

Temple maintained garrisons at Penobscot, on the St John, and at Port Royal. The trading post on the St John was removed fifty miles up the river and established at its confluence with the Jemseg. This situation was more secure from marauders than that at the mouth of the river. The site of the fort built here in 1659 is known; a fragment of the earthwork is still visible and numerous relics have been dug up in the vicinity. The fort was a frail defence, but sufficient for the Indian trade. Temple had, however, not much opportunity to engage in trade on the River St John, for he was compelled by the Treaty of Breda to surrender his post to the Sieur de Marson and to retire from Penobscot and Port Royal.

The Growth of Acadia

The Chevalier Grand-fontaine was now appointed to command in Acadia with de Marson as his lieutenant. Grand-fontaine had a census of the colony taken in 1671. This showed how detrimental to all progress the late unsettled state of affairs had proved. In all Acadia there were only 441 souls, of whom 363 lived at Port Royal. Very few were to be found north of the Bay of Fundy. The king of France, nevertheless, was anxious that the country should improve, and he sent out sixty settlers this year. About this time a small colony was established at Chignecto, at the head of the Bay of Fundy, by Jacob Bourgeois and Pierre Arsenault of Port Royal. The extensive marsh-lands of Chignecto had been known for almost three-quarters of a century, but it was not until the year 1672 that they attracted colonists. The colony planted grew rapidly, and in the course of time quite overshadowed the mother colony of Port Royal. Shortly after, Pierre Theriot, Claude Landry, Antoine Landry and René le Blanc were associated in forming a colony at Minas. This settlement became a favourite resort, and soon grew to be the richest and most populous district in Acadia.

The control of affairs in New France was henceforth exercised at Quebec, where a governor and intendant resided. Seigniories were granted by Count Frontenac and his successors in various parts of Acadia. Many of them were of very generous proportions. From the year 1672 to the close of the century sixteen seigniories were granted on the St John River, extending, with some ungranted spaces, from the mouth of the river to the Grand Falls more than two hundred miles above. Five seigniories were granted in the neighbourhood of Passamaquoddy Bay, two or three along the southern coast of Chaleur Bay and nine or ten in Eastern New Brunswick. Seigniories were also granted at Cobequid, Musquodoboit and other places in the Nova Scotia peninsula. In May 1686 Gabriel Gautier received a grant of the Island of Cape Breton, the Island of St John and the Magdalen Islands. With the exception of a few of the earlier ones these seigniories were granted by the king’s representatives at Quebec, the governor and intendant, and were later confirmed by the king himself. The seigniories were not only large, but they included locations that were desirable on account of the goodness of the soil, the fur trade and the fishery. In the vast majority of cases little or no attempt was made to comply with the conditions in the grants, and to-day not a foot of land in the Atlantic provinces is held by descent from a seigneurial title. Even the names of the seigniories have become extinct. Two or three grantees made a feeble attempt at settlement in the Passamaquoddy district. Some improvements were made by the brothers d’Amours and others on the River St John, also by Denys and Enault on the Gulf of St Lawrence and by La Vallière at Chignecto. But the attempts at settlement were altogether insignificant in comparison with the number and extent of the seigneurial grants. The seigneurs and seigniories alike fade away into obscurity and leave scarcely a trace. After the fall of Port Royal in 1710 most of the seigneurs left Acadia. Possibly the seigniory of La Vallière at the Isthmus of Chignecto might have escaped forfeiture, as there was here a successful attempt to introduce settlers and cultivate the lands; but the confusion consequent on the Acadian Expulsion deranged everything, and the Nova Scotia legislature afterwards passed a law providing that any action to recover lands based on a French title should be dismissed.

Among the seigniories granted under the terms of the edict made by Louis xiv on May 20, 1676, were those of Nashwaak and Jemseg on the River St John. These, with an earlier seigniory at the mouth of the St John, were granted to Pierre de Joibert, Sieur de Soulanges et Marson. The total area of his grants was more than one hundred square miles. The cities of St John and Fredericton and many smaller towns have since been built within their limits. The Sieur de Marson made his headquarters at the Jemseg Fort (fort de Gemisik), where his daughter Louise Elizabeth was born in 1673. This young lady, it may be noted in passing, married the Marquis de Vaudreuil, governor of Quebec, and her son, another Marquis de Vaudreuil, held the same position when Quebec surrendered to Wolfe’s army in 1759.

At this time a curious event occurred, which has been called the Dutch conquest of Acadia. A Dutch buccaneer, named Aernouts, with one John Rhoade of Boston, ‘an accomplished adventurer and pirate,’ plundered the French settlement at Penobscot, where Chambly was posted, and then paid a visit to Fort Jemseg, which was also pillaged and the Sieur de Marson carried off a prisoner to Boston. Through the good offices of Frontenac he was subsequently released. The Dutch commander and John Rhoade soon became involved in trouble with the people of New England for their presumption in seizing a number of their trading vessels. Both were very nearly hanged for piracy. The seizure of the forts in Acadia by Aernouts, however, became an international affair, and as late as 1679 the Dutch government was still vigorously insisting on an indemnity for damages inflicted upon its subjects by the people of Boston in having deprived them of the forts at Penobscot and Jemseg. The Dutch ambassador found little satisfaction on being told that the king’s orders were ‘little obeyed by those of Boston and the adjacent colonies.’

After de Marson’s death in 1678 La Vallière succeeded as commander of Acadia. The period that follows is not a very notable one. Governor succeeded governor at brief intervals, and each seemingly strove to make use of his opportunity to engage in surreptitious trade with the Indians and the people of New England. Many charges were made against La Vallière, whose term was brief. Then came Perrot, who was so engrossed in the pursuit of gain that he thought nothing of personally selling brandy to the Indians by the pint and half-pint, and that before strangers in his own house.

Such examples on the part of those in authority naturally found many imitators. Indeed, there was at this time a very general disposition on the part of the young men of the better families of New France to become coureurs de bois rather than cultivators of the soil. The governor and intendant at Quebec strove to discourage such conduct on the part of the young noblesse. Stringent laws were enacted against these outlaws of the bush, but they were of little avail. A number of the young adventurers came to the River St John and other parts of Acadia.

In the year 1686 Bishop Saint-Vallier made a tour of Acadia, visiting the Indian villages and the French inhabitants. The Marquis de Denonville, in his letter to the French minister announcing the bishop’s return to Quebec, says: ‘He will give you an account of the numerous disorders committed by the miserable outlaws in the woods, who for a long time have lived like the savages without doing anything at all towards the tilling of the soil.’

However, some little progress was now being made in Acadia, and a census taken at this time shows a total population of 851 souls, exclusive of soldiers, the number of inhabitants having more than doubled since the enumeration of fifteen years before. The settlements at Chignecto and Minas were beginning to grow rapidly.

Menneval, who was appointed governor of Acadia in 1687, was directed to rebuild the fort at Port Royal. He was instructed also by Louis xiv to encourage the observance of religion among the inhabitants, to send to France any of the coureurs de bois or others who might be guilty of excesses, and to prevent all foreigners from fishing or trading on the coast. Further to show his paternal interest the king instructed des Goutins, the lately appointed judge at Port Royal, to examine into the resources of the colony, to report where new settlements might be made to advantage, to give account of the best fishing stations, and to encourage the inhabitants to sow all sorts of grain and to plant all kinds of trees brought from France, in order that those which were most useful might be selected for the colony.

King William’s War

The year that followed Menneval’s appointment was notable for the outbreak of the most dreadful Indian war in the annals of Acadia. All the tribes east of the Merrimac took part in it, including the Micmacs and Malecites. The war is known in history as the King William’s War, from the name of the English sovereign in whose reign it occurred. It lasted with little intermission for ten years, and during its progress the people of Eastern New England suffered fearful outrages at the hands of the savages. Every settlement in Maine except Wells, York, Kittery and the Isle of Shoals was overrun, and a thousand white people were killed or taken prisoners.

To avenge themselves on the French, who were regarded as the instigators of this savage warfare, the New Englanders fitted out an expedition under Sir William Phips, which captured Port Royal in May 1690 and carried off Menneval prisoner. Phips was too intent upon the capture of Quebec, which he attempted the same year, to trouble himself much about Acadia. He contented himself with causing the inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance to the crown of England, and sent Alden, one of his captains, to reduce La Hève and Chedabucto.

Menneval’s brother, Villebon, had been sent to Acadia with supplies for the colony and a reinforcement for the garrison. Fortunately for himself he did not arrive until a few days after the English invaders had gone. Having no sufficient force to re-establish the post at Port Royal, he decided to take refuge on the St John River, where he could not be so easily molested. He held a conference with the Indians at the Jemseg—de Marson’s old post—after which he went to Quebec and thence to France. He returned in September 1691 with the king’s commission as commander of Acadia. He then took post at Fort Jemseg with fifty men and proceeded to organize war-parties of Indians to destroy the English settlements on the frontier.

Villebon, with all his faults, is one of the most picturesque and striking figures in the annals of Acadia. He was greatly admired by the savages, who deemed him every inch a chief. Dièreville, the poet historian, who saw him at St John in 1700, describes him as ‘un grand homme, très bien fait et plein d’esprit.’

It is not necessary to dwell upon the horrors of the King William’s War. The Malecites were much concerned in it, and were probably no better and no worse than their kinsmen of the other tribes. The English were in a great measure responsible for the trouble in which it originated, and were not slow to retaliate as the war went on, offering rewards for Indian scalps and for prisoners. The governors at Quebec seem to have been mainly responsible for the policy of employing the savages in this and the succeeding wars, the object being to check the growth of the English settlements. But this policy proved in the end to be very unwise, for it hardened the determination of the colonies to destroy French power in North America.

During the summer of 1692 Villebon removed his garrison about thirty miles farther up the St John, where he built, at the mouth of the little River Nashwaak, a new fort of four bastions, which he called Fort St Joseph. Here from time to time great war-parties of Indians gathered from all parts of Acadia. They were feasted, flattered, supplied with ammunition and sent to ravage the frontiers of New England. To please these savage allies Villebon adopted Taxous, one of their most famous chiefs, as his Indian brother, and to honour the occasion gave him his best coat.

The most notable deed in which the Indians of Acadia took part was the capture of Fort William Henry at Pemaquid. This was a stone fort that had been built by the people of Massachusetts at a cost of £20,000. It was taken in the summer of 1696 by a force of one hundred French and four hundred Indians after a brief resistance. By way of retaliation Benjamin Church was sent from Massachusetts with five hundred men to attack the French settlements in Acadia. He went to Chignecto, where for nine days he permitted his men to plunder the unfortunate people, most of whom fled in terror to the woods. The invaders of this peaceful little settlement, having burned all the buildings, including the chapel, and killed most of the cattle, made their way back to the River St John. Here they surprised Villebon’s small party of observation, killing their officer and capturing some prisoners. Continuing on his way westward Church met Colonel Hathorne, with a reinforcement of two hundred men. Hathorne now took command, and insisted that an attempt should be made to take Villebon’s fort. The expedition therefore returned and went up the river.

Villebon was on the alert. He summoned to his aid all the French inhabitants in the vicinity, as well as the Indians, whom the missionary Simon promptly brought to his assistance. The New Englanders threw up earthworks and placed their guns in position. The cannon fire was heavy on both sides, but the guns of the fort, being better mounted and well served, had the advantage. There was also a sharp exchange of musketry, the Indians with the garrison engaging in a vicious fight with Church’s Indians on the opposite bank of the Nashwaak stream. When darkness ended the day’s struggle the English had made little, if any, progress. The night was cold, in consequence of the lateness of the season, and the besiegers lighted fires to keep themselves from freezing. The French cannon opened with grape-shot and they were obliged to extinguish their fires. Church’s men, being almost destitute of clothing from their long service, suffered greatly, and were ill-disposed to continue the siege. The next day’s operations were no more successful, and it became apparent that the fort could not be taken without a regular investment. The siege was abandoned after considerable loss on the part of the besiegers. The historian Mather quaintly observes: ‘The difficulty of the cold season so discouraged our men, that after some few shot the enterprise found itself under too much congelation to proceed any further.’

A Short Period of Peace

By the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, England and France restored to each other all places taken in the war. The French therefore remained in possession of Acadia. The colony at Port Royal had during its chequered experience made slow progress, but the newer settlements at Chignecto, Minas, Petitcodiac and Shepody began rapidly to develop. Lesser settlements also had lately been made at the mouth of the Miramichi by Richard Denys and at Richibucto by the Sieur de Chauffours. On the Atlantic coast the settlements at La Hève and Chedabucto maintained a precarious existence. On the River St John were settled four sons of Mathieu d’Amours, a member of the governor’s council at Quebec. The young men came to Acadia in 1680, or a little after, and to each was granted a seigniory with ample boundaries. As was customary with the French noblesse, each of the brothers had a distinct title, and they figure in history as the Sieur de Chauffours, the Sieur de Freneuse, the Sieur de Clignancourt and the Sieur de Plenne. They found their situation very convenient for hunting and trade with the Indians. Villebon viewed them with a jealous eye and mentions them in unfavourable terms in his dispatches. He calls them soi-disant gentilshommes, and says that they are disobedient and seditious and require to be watched. Fortunately for the reputation of the brothers d’Amours the testimony of the intendant at Quebec and of the Récollet missionary Simon of the River St John does not agree with that of Villebon, but affirms that their conduct was good and that they applied themselves for the most part to cultivating their lands and raising cattle. The census of 1695 shows that they had a fair quantity of land under cultivation, their crops including wheat, oats, peas and corn; they had also a good number of cattle, hogs and fowls. The mill built by the Sieurs de Chauffours and Freneuse at the Nashwaak stream was the pioneer industry of a river that has since become famous for its mills and lumber manufacture. The Sieur de Freneuse died of fatigue and exposure at the siege of Fort Nashwaak, in the defence of which he exerted himself greatly. His widow and her children removed to Port Royal, where she applied to Governor Brouillan to use his influence with the king to obtain for her a small pension, alleging that such a charity would not be likely to extend further, as she was the only widow in the colony. She was not very circumspect in her conduct during the ten years of her residence at Port Royal and managed to keep the limited society of the place in a constant state of turmoil. Hardly an official letter was sent from Acadia that did not censure or defend her, for the lady had partisans and defenders as well as unrelenting enemies. She certainly did not lack courage, for on one occasion she crossed the Bay of Fundy in a bark canoe in the coldest part of the winter, accompanied only by an Indian and a young lad, her son.

Many English prizes were brought into the St John River at this time by the French privateers. The English prisoners were kept at Villebon’s fort, or put in charge of the French settlers until ransomed or exchanged. The fur trade was still carried on vigorously by the Company of Acadia, and the timber of the country began to attract attention. Villebon sent to France a mast, eighty-two feet long and thirty-one inches in diameter, cut on the St John River, as a specimen, and a little later, in the year 1700, the king’s ship Avenant, of forty-four guns, took home from the same river for the use of the French navy a considerable number of masts manufactured by the king’s carpenters and mast-makers. This first of timber-laden ships crossed the Atlantic in thirty-three days.

Villebon had now rebuilt the old fort at the mouth of the St John, and the garrison was removed to it in the autumn of 1698. It was a larger and stronger fort than the one abandoned at the Nashwaak. The walls were laid in clay and mortar and six 24-pounders were placed at each of the bastions. Within the palisade were barracks for the soldiers, a residence for the governor, with chapel adjoining it, and lodgings for the surgeon, gunner and armourer. The water supply was poor, and the Sieur des Goutins complained to his superiors that the governor kept the water within the fort for the use of his kitchen and his mare, others being obliged to use snow-water, often very dirty.

Nothing is more noticeable or pitiable than the petty grievances and complaints that fill the letters written by the officials of Acadia at this time. The spirit of fault-finding and mutual recrimination was perhaps nurtured at Quebec, where the governor and intendant kept watch over one another and made independent reports of all that transpired to the French ministry at home.

Villebon’s residence at St John lasted only two years. He died on July 5, 1700, and was buried near the fort. The life of this devoted son of New France went out with the century, and at his death the seat of government was again transferred to Port Royal.

Brouillan, who succeeded to the command, caused the fortifications at St John to be razed, demolished the houses and carried away the guns and whatever else was portable with him to Port Royal. Most of the people on the river, being left defenceless, followed him. The valley of the St John was left as desolate as in the days of Champlain. The Indian might wander at will around the ruins of forts and abandoned dwellings, and wonder at the folly of the white man in forsaking the finest river in all Acadia, with its wealth of forest, and its fertile lands awaiting the hands of industry and thrift.

Port Royal became once more the seat of government in Acadia. The fort, which was little more than a sodded earthwork, was put into tolerable repair by the joint efforts of the soldiers and the inhabitants. The fort occupied the site of Charnisay’s old fort on the point of land between the Annapolis River and the small stream called Allen’s River. The adjacent village consisted of seventy or eighty small houses of one storey and an attic, built of planks, boards or logs—simple and rude but tolerably comfortable. The small chapel of the settlement had been lately built by the people aided by the king’s bounty.

The New Englanders at this time had no less than three hundred vessels engaged in fishing on the coasts of Acadia. This greatly annoyed the governor of Port Royal. He wrote to the French minister: ‘It grieves me to the heart to see these Boston people (Messieurs les Bastonnais) enrich themselves in our domain, for the base of their commerce is the fish which they catch off our coasts, and send to all parts of the world.’

Last Days of French Rule in Nova Scotia

In May 1702 war was declared by Queen Anne and her Dutch and Austrian allies against France and Spain. The war is known in history as the War of the Spanish Succession. The great victories won by Marlborough at Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet were battles upon which New World empire largely depended. The war that added these victories to the long roll of British triumphs in arms also resulted in the final conquest of Acadia. In America the war was very largely a war of petty raids and surprises, in which much of the horror of savage atrocity was again displayed on the frontiers of New England. For several years desolating Indian raids swept the borders of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Scarcely a hamlet escaped a visit from the savages, who roamed over the country like wolves and kept all the frontier in a state of anxiety and alarm.

To hunt Indians with an endless forest behind them was like chasing shadows. The people of Massachusetts determined to retaliate upon the French. They accordingly sent Benjamin Church, who was experienced in Indian warfare, at the head of an expedition to the eastward. Major Church had at his disposal about five hundred and fifty men, besides sailors and some Indians. The expedition destroyed St Castin’s post at Penobscot and the feeble settlement at Passamaquoddy, and then proceeded to the head of the Bay of Fundy. Here the settlement of Minas was plundered, the houses burned and the dikes cut to let the salt water in upon the cultivated fields. Church afterwards visited Chignecto, where, in accordance with his instructions, he did all the damage he could, burning twenty houses and killing a large number of sheep and cattle. The unfortunate Acadians escaped by flight to the woods, but suffered much during the ensuing winter. Major Church gained little glory in this expedition. In accordance with his instructions he made no serious attempt to take Port Royal. But the English colonies had now become so exasperated by the raids of the French and Indians that nothing less than the capture of Port Royal and Quebec would content them.

Subercase came as governor to Port Royal in 1706. He was a man of great capacity, but his resources were meagre. However, the garrison was at this time reinforced by the arrival of fifty-one French prisoners from Boston, who had been exchanged.

The first serious attempt to capture Port Royal was made in the following year. Two regiments were raised by Massachusetts, one uniformed in red and the other in blue. The total force, including 140 men from New Hampshire and Rhode Island, was 1076 soldiers and 450 sailors. The soldiers were nearly all volunteers from the rural militia and the commanding officer, Colonel March, lacked the capacity and experience necessary to win success. The expedition got to Port Royal early in June, but the attempt to take the fort by assault proved a fiasco, and March returned to Boston greatly crestfallen. A second attempt the same season proved equally a failure. Subercase showed much personal bravery in the defence of his post, having on one occasion his horse killed under him. The Baron de St Castin of Penobscot was also of the greatest service in the defence.

While the English colonies were eager to seize the French possessions in this quarter, France displayed great indifference concerning their protection and did not seem to realize how important a matter it was to send reinforcements to Acadia. Subercase seems to have had a very real interest in the country. In his letters to the French minister he says that the land is good and fertile and produces everything that France does except olives. There is an abundance of grain and an inexhaustible supply of timber. The people are excellent workmen with the axe and adze. All along the coast are fine harbours. He proposes La Hève as a chief port and place for building ships. He also recommends Mocoudom and Louisbourg in Cape Breton as excellent harbours. He urges the formation of companies to settle colonies in Acadia. He would invest a million in this, if he had it, as a sure business. All his suggestions, however, fell on heedless ears, as did also his representation that Port Royal would most certainly be attacked by the English at an early day and that his garrison was insufficient for its defence.

It is clear that Acadia was lightly esteemed by both England and France. It was seemingly a convenient makeweight in adjusting the balance of losses and acquisitions in every peace negotiation.

Port Royal was at this time a rendezvous for the privateers that kept hovering about the coast of New England. The prizes taken enabled the French to live in comparative luxury. Subercase, writing in 1708, says: ‘The privateers have desolated Boston, having captured and destroyed thirty-five vessels.’ No less than four hundred and seventy prisoners were brought to Port Royal that year. In March 1709 a corsair left her winter quarters at Port Royal and returned twelve days later with four prizes loaded with wheat and corn. Another, commanded by Pierre de Morpain, brought in nine prizes after a ten days’ cruise. Morpain was attacked by a coastguard vessel near Boston, but, after a hard fight, succeeded in capturing the vessel and killing one hundred of her crew. She was brought to Port Royal with a number of prisoners. Subercase highly commended de Morpain’s bravery and persuaded him to remain at Port Royal, where he married, August 13, 1709, Marie d’Amours, daughter of Louis d’Amours de Chauffours.

In 1710 another and, as it proved, a final attempt was made by the English to capture Port Royal. The commander of the expedition was Colonel Francis Nicholson, a man of courage and resolution, although without much military experience. He had served as governor of Virginia, New York and Maryland, and was afterwards governor of Carolina. The Massachusetts Assembly requested the aid of ships from England. They were sent but did not arrive at Boston until July, and it was not until September 24 that the fleet sailed through the narrow entrance into the Basin of Port Royal. Here one ship was driven upon the rocks and twenty-six men were drowned. The fleet included four British frigates, the province galley, a bomb-ship and thirty transports. The attacking force included a regiment of Royal Marines under Colonel Redding, and four battalions of New England troops commissioned by the queen and armed at her cost. Colonel Samuel Vetch was adjutant-general and, in case of success, was to remain as governor of Port Royal. The result of this invasion of Acadia was almost a foregone conclusion. The besiegers numbered about fifteen hundred men, while Subercase had barely three hundred soldiers in his garrison, and was in no way prepared for a siege. He, however, withstood the attack as best he could, and it was not until October 12 that the garrison was forced to seek an armistice. Hostilities ceased for a few days while terms were being discussed, and on October 16 the keys of the fort were handed to Nicholson by Subercase.

Miserably clad and bearing all the marks of privation and distress the garrison marched out of the fort with their arms and baggage, their drums beating and colours flying, according to the terms of the capitulation. The French flag was replaced by that of England and the place renamed Annapolis Royal in honour of the reigning English sovereign. The Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, gave ‘all Nova Scotia, or Acadia, comprehended within its ancient boundaries, as also the City of Port Royal, now called Annapolis,’ to the Queen of Great Britain and to her crown for ever. Cape Breton and the other islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence were to belong to the French, who might erect fortifications there if they wished to do so.

Standing on the site of the old fort at Annapolis Royal, on the occasion of the tercentenary of its discovery by de Monts and Champlain, the representative of France, M. Kleczkowski, closed a striking address with these words:

The sun which shines on this happy land pours its radiant light on races equally free and at last reconciled. Those gallant men of the early days! Something of their life, something of their death, is mingled with these sweetly green meadows, the smile of which tells so well the vanity of pitiless wars, and the consoling charms of passive nature, ever young and merciful.

On more than one shore has France thrown by the handful the good seed of effort in which, so spontaneously, she gives her heart and her genius. Many a time has the initiatory idea come from her: she sows but does not always reap. I state the fact, not as one who complains. In the balance of things eternal beautiful will ever be

‘Le geste auguste du semeur.’

I
AN EXPERIMENT IN GOVERNMENT

Early Organization

With the formal cession of Acadie to Britain began a typical experiment in government, which, owing to the lack of documents, has hitherto been little understood. This was the government of a large population by a handful of Englishmen divided by race, language and religion from the people they governed. In spite of the indifference of the home authorities and the continuous intrigue of French political agents, these few ill-paid army officers in their crumbling fort at Annapolis Royal did succeed in holding the vast territory of Nova Scotia for the British crown, in establishing a framework of civil rule and in introducing order, law and justice to a people that had never known these blessings.

It was the intention of the British government to establish representative institutions in the newly acquired province as soon as possible; and the officers themselves desired the temporary makeshift of martial law to come to a speedy end. But the population was Catholic, and Catholics at home or in a colony were debarred from the suffrage by English law. An elective general assembly, such as Virginia enjoyed, was therefore not feasible. But a system of government was devised, which proved to be a fairly satisfactory working substitute for a more regular and constitutional administration.

All power was vested in the governor. He appointed the council of twelve, and might remove or suspend any member for due cause. He could levy forces and wage war against foreign enemies or domestic insurrection; he could, at his discretion, put to death or keep and preserve alive any prisoners; and he could adjudge and settle all claims and disputes in regard to land. Finally, he was empowered to do what further might be necessary for the security of the province, and he was to hold office during the king’s pleasure. The functions of the council were chiefly advisory; five members formed a quorum; in the absence of the governor or lieutenant-governor the senior member presided at its meetings. The minutes of the council indicate that all initiative came from the governor.

The will of the governor in council was imposed upon the inhabitants through the deputies. Elections were held annually on October 11. On assembling, the men were to be divided into eight companies, each of which was given its distinguishing name. Then each division chose ‘an honest discreet person,’ one of the ‘ancientest’ men of property, to represent them for the year. On election, the new-made deputies were to come to the seat of government, accompanied by two of the outgoing members, to receive the governor’s approbation and orders. They acted as intermediaries between the government and the governed, and were responsible for the order and good behaviour of their several districts. They were required to carry out the orders and proclamations of the governor, communicated by writing. These were read out on Sunday after mass and affixed to the ‘mass-house’ door. Among their duties were acting as arbitrators and examiners of disputed lands; inspecting roads, dikes and bridges; assisting the surveyor in determining boundaries. The deputies had no powers save those conferred by the government, but they formed a fairly efficient lever wherewith to move the mass of the population. British authority was never very powerful. At first it did not extend in the phrase of the time ‘beyond a cannon-shot from the walls of the fort.’ As time went on it became supreme about Annapolis Royal, but it diminished in direct ratio to the distance from the centre. It was weak at Minas, weaker at Cobequid. At Chignecto it had reached the vanishing point.

Other officials were justices of the peace, commissioned by the governor to keep order among the large population of fishermen at Canso, where the New Englanders took one hundred thousand quintals of fish in a year. One justice of the peace at the capital was an Acadian, Prudent Robichau. There was also a collector of customs, a naval officer and a secretary for the province, whose duties must have been light. In all emergencies, such as the Amhurst case of arson and the casting away of the brigantine Baltimore, an anxious desire was evinced to follow the form and spirit of English law.

The French of Acadie

The French of Acadie differ in character from the French of Quebec. They seem to have been less adventurous; never becoming coureurs de bois or explorers, though they bore arms at times against the English and manned a privateer in the troublous times that followed the Expulsion. They are also less vivacious; and they are dowered with an obstinacy which has become a proverb. They were essentially mediæval peasants, simple, pious, frugal. In mental make they must have been much the same as the peasants of the motherland, as described by Arthur Young. They had the peasant’s hunger for land, the peasant’s petty cunning, the peasant’s greed, all perfectly comprehensible in view of their hard, narrow life of unending toil. Their disputes over land were endless. Besides, the government had to take action against the use of fraudulent half-bushel measures, against cheating in the length of cordwood, against ‘clandestine deeds’ and unlawful transfers of land. It was necessary to issue proclamations against neglect of fences and failure to repair dikes; and to repeat orders frequently.

The Acadians were tillers of the soil. They did not penetrate and clear the forest, but clung to rich alluvial bottom lands along the tidal rivers. Their laborious aboiteaux or dikes still skirt the watercourses like some intricate system of earthworks. At certain times the fertilizing sea-water is let through on the land, and heavy crops are the result. These fertile meadows with their grass-grown ramparts are the Acadians’ best monument. They grew wheat, oats and flax; they raised horses, ‘black’ cattle, sheep, swine and poultry. They built shallops and sloops for coastwise fishery; and they dealt largely with New England in furs, oil and feathers. They carried on a trade with Cape Breton in foodstuffs and cattle by way of Baie Verte. They were not burdened with taxes, imposts and corvées to support an aristocracy and a court. They were guaranteed the free exercise of their religion by treaty, and zealous priests ministered to their spiritual needs. Though not the idyllic community of Evangeline, the Acadians had beyond doubt a happier lot than any peasant population of Europe.

Under Walpole’s long peace the population increased in a remarkable way. A census signed ‘Felix Pain’ sets the total number of souls at Port Royal and Minas in 1714 at 1290. Nicholson, the first governor, estimates the population to be 2500. A map made in 1710 shows the distribution in little knots and clumps of settlement almost like one continuous village stretching along the whole south shore of the Annapolis Basin and River. In 1755 the estimated French population is put as high as 10,000. Peace, a degree of prosperity and the custom of early marriages encouraged by the clergy, account for this enormous growth.

Annapolis Royal the Centre of Government

Annapolis Royal was garrisoned by two hundred men of Philipps’s regiment. This was composed of independent companies raised in America and never stationed in England. The colonel, a peppery Welshman, who saw service at the Boyne, resided in England and visited the colony of which he was ‘Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief’ only twice in the course of his long life. His place was supplied by a lieutenant-governor, who was always a regimental officer. For some time there was a lieutenant-governor of the fort as well as of the province. The chief administrators were the senior officers, Lawrence Armstrong (1720-39) and Paul Mascarene, who remained in power until the transfer of the capital from Annapolis Royal to Halifax in 1749. Armstrong was an unfortunate man with a temper. His mind became unbalanced and he committed suicide. He was found dead in his bed with five wounds in his breast and his sword lying beside him. Mascarene was of Huguenot descent from Castres, and a fellow-townsman and friend of Sir John Ligonier. He was the mainstay of the government from the surrender of Port Royal until the founding of Halifax. He mounted the first guard in the captured fort, and thirty-nine years later marched his ragged veterans through the forest to the new capital on Chebucto harbour. Wise, firm, chivalrous, an excellent officer, with a knowledge of the French language and character, he won the sympathy of the Acadians, without compromising any point in the policy of his adopted country. His report on the state of the province in 1720 is an admirable document. Soon after the advent of Cornwallis he retired to Boston, to chess and church-going and riding about the town and reminiscences of Portsmouth when the century and he were young.

The Government and the Acadians

The policy of the government in regard to the Acadians is marked by a vacillation which is quite easy to understand. If they availed themselves of the permission to withdraw from the province, the garrison could not be fed, and they would strengthen the French of Ile St Jean and Cape Breton. If they remained, they were a source of danger. In 1716 Caulfeild reckoned that there were at least nine hundred able men in the colony; and the various censuses show that nearly every family owned a firearm. The governors temporized, urged the need of strong military posts in the various settlements to bridle the Acadians; but nothing effective was done. The habitants for the most part remained on the land, increased and multiplied, and pressing on the means of subsistence, swarmed off into new settlements.

Another preoccupation of the governors was the oath of allegiance which the Acadians were required to take. It was an age of oath-taking. Every official in the administration from the governor down was required to take not one but two or three oaths on assuming office and on the accession of a sovereign. After various efforts to induce the habitants to make a simple declaration of obedience to the English king, Philipps on his second visit succeeded where his predecessors had failed. The precise form of the oath is as follows: ‘Je Promets et Jure Sincerement en Foi de Chretien que Je serai entierement Fidele, et Obeierai Vraiment Sa Majesté Le Roy George Second, qui Je reconnoi pour Le Souvrain Seigneur de l’Accadie ou Nouvelle Ecosse. Ainsi Dieu me Soit en Aide.’ The form and the exact meaning of this declaration were discussed by Philipps and Popple, secretary to the Lords of Trade. It is to be noted that fidelity is promised only to the reigning sovereign; the old form of declaration included his heirs, but, according to Blackstone, a new oath was framed after the Revolution of 1688 in which ‘heirs’ was omitted. When called upon by Cornwallis to renew their oath, the Acadians insisted that they had been exempted from bearing arms against France; but this form of oath cannot be found. This long hesitation on the part of the Acadians to swear allegiance has given rise to a widespread misconception of their legal status. They were encouraged to look upon themselves as ‘neutral French.’ Acadie had been bandied to and fro between France and England all through the seventeenth century. A turn of Fortune’s wheel, such as the success of the Pretender, and it might revert to France once more. So the political agents believed, and so they taught the Acadians. But it was impossible for them to be ‘neutral.’ By the law of nations the people went with the ceded territory. When the Treaty of Utrecht was signed, the Acadians became automatically British subjects. The taking or the refusal of an oath of allegiance could not affect their status, as long as they remained within the colony.

Far more important than the oath was the question of taxation. It is often stated that there was no taxation of the Acadians by the British government; but the statement is incorrect. By 1730 the seigneurial rights of the various proprietors under the French régime had been bought out by the crown, and a determined effort was made to collect for the benefit of His Britannic Majesty all quitrents, homages and services of whatever kind formerly paid to their respective seigneurs by the French of Minas and the other places on the Bay of Fundy. The legal tender was ‘Boston money,’ which the Acadians would not accept, preferring the French currency brought in by their clandestine trade with Cape Breton. These feudal dues were paid not in money but in kind—wheat, pease, capons, turkeys, partridges—as in the old days at the seigneur’s mansion.

‘Rent-gatherers’ were appointed for the different districts. Alexandre Bourg de Bellehumeur, a former seigneur, was Procureur du Roy at Minas. He was to render an account twice a year, to keep a rent-roll, to give proper receipts and to pay over only to duly legalized authorities. He was to pay himself by retaining three shillings out of every pound. All ‘contracts’ were to be brought in to the governor, that he might satisfy himself what was legally due in each case. There were refusals, excuses, delays, but the king’s rents were collected. After seven years Bourg was replaced by Mangeant, who had fled from Quebec after killing his man in a duel. Three years later Mangeant left the country, and Bourg was reinstated by Mascarene. The rent-gatherer for Annapolis Royal and the banlieu was Prudent Robichau; for the district along the river, John Duon; and for Chignecto, James O’Neal, surgeon, from Cork, who had studied medicine at the Lombards’ College in Paris.

These rent-gatherers were also notaries public. Besides their rent-rolls, they were to keep proper books of account, to take particular notice of all sales and exchanges, by whom and to whom alienated and transferred, to prevent fraud by clandestine deeds of exchange, to notify the provincial secretary of all sales, conveyances, mortgages, and agreements of exchange that they might be properly registered, to report the presence of strangers and to take cognizance of births, deaths and wills that the intention of testators might be duly carried out. This is civil administration in outline. Underlying all is a simple desire to establish law and order and to do justice between man and man.

Another incorrect statement frequently made is that the Acadians had few disputes, and those they brought to their parish priests for settlement. The fact is that these French peasants came to the British power for justice almost as soon as it was established in the land. The beginning of civil as distinguished from martial law under British rule is due to the humanity and good sense of a forgotten lieutenant-governor, Thomas Caulfeild. He was apparently a cadet of the noble house of Charlemont, an old soldier who had seen service under Peterborough in Spain. He describes himself as ‘buried alive’ in Nova Scotia, and he died there in 1717 burdened by debts incurred in the maintenance of the government. In a dispatch to the Lords of Trade he states that there are no courts of judicature in Nova Scotia; and the context makes it clear that in the opinion of Nicholson, the hot-tempered and overbearing governor, Caulfeild had exceeded his powers. Nicholson, he writes, asked to see the commission that authorized him to do justice in civil affairs, ‘to which I answered that as I had the honour to command in the absence of the Governor, I should always endeavour to cultivate as good an understanding among the people as possible, believing the same essential for His Majesty’s service, and tho’ I had no commission for that effect yet I held myself blamable to suffer injustice to be done before me without taking notice thereof, having never interposed farther than by the consent of both parties.’ He asks the Lords of Trade for instructions ‘on this head.’

Soon after Caulfeild died, but his suggestion did not fall to the ground. Philipps succeeded Nicholson as governor in 1719; and the fifth clause of his commission empowered him to adjudge and settle all claims in regard to land in the province. In his second commission, 1729, his powers are extended ‘to settle all questions of inheritance.’ Accordingly Philipps writes to the secretary of state in 1721 that the governor and council have constituted themselves into a court on the model of the General Court of Virginia to meet four times a year, for the notion that military government alone prevails, keeps settlers out of the country. Besides, three members of the council were commissioned justices of the peace and empowered ‘to examine and enquire into all pleas, debates and differences that are or may be amongst the inhabitants of said province.’ Ten years later the governor writes to the notary of Minas regarding the people of that district and other distant parts of the province ‘coming in daily’ with complaints against their neighbours, and failing to warn the ‘adverse partys’ of their intentions. The determination to follow the forms of law and to act fairly is unmistakable even without the express declaration that ‘I and the other gentlemen of the Council have no other intention than to do justice impartially to you all.’ Next year he repeats his instructions to Bourg. If the defendants refuse to appear, the plaintiffs are to have certificates from the notary to that effect. The reason given is surely adequate: ‘the great charge that persons praying for justice are put to by their expensive journeys from such remote parts of the province as yours.’

The preamble to a general proclamation, dated January 13, 1737-38, throws further light on the matter. It recites how it has been ‘customary’ hitherto for the inhabitants to come to the governor and council for justice at all times, and, from ‘ignorance or design,’ fail to summon the defendants. This practice ‘hath been exclaimed against by several of the inhabitants themselves not only as hurtful and prejudicial to their private and domestic affairs to be thus hurried and impeded by their impatient, cruel and litigious neighbours, but even also very troublesome, fatiguing and inconvenient to the governor and Council to be meeting daily and almost constantly to the prejudice many times of their own private affairs to hear and examine their many frivolous and undigested complaints.’

The proclamation fixes four days in the year for the hearing of causes, the first Tuesday in March and May, and the last Tuesday in July and November. This is simply varying the dates fixed by Philipps in 1721. The chief point in the proclamation is an order that plaintiffs must lodge their complaints at the office of the provincial secretary and apply to him for the necessary summons to be sent to the defendants, in order that the latter might have at least three weeks’ notice of proceedings taken against them. Here again the intention is plainly to make procedure regular, and to keep down the number of ‘frivolous and undigested complaints.’ The tone of these phrases proves that the annoyance was real.

Not only was the administration of justice burdensome and forced upon the council by the nature of the Acadians, but it was carried on for years without fee or reward. In 1738 Armstrong with his council sent an important memorial to Philipps, in which they state that they have to the utmost of their capacity and power endeavoured to discharge their duty by an equal and impartial administration of justice, ‘having never had any advantage or salary for our acting as members of His Majesty’s Council for this province.’

These documents, which he never saw, more than justify Parkman in his general statement: ‘They were vexed with incessant quarrels among themselves arising from the unsettled boundaries of their lands’; though perhaps it would be more just to assert that the difficulties arose simply and naturally from the great increase of population pressing upon the means of subsistence. Richard, quoting this passage from Parkman, asks: ‘Could it be otherwise when the population was four times as great as it had been in 1713, when these lands had been divided and subdivided so as to leave nothing but morsels?’ Here he is misled by Haliburton, who writes; ‘They had long been refused adjudication upon their disputes in the local courts; the boundaries and the titles to their said lands were consequently in great confusion.’ Both have erred through ignorance of the sources. The truth is the very opposite. The court did ‘adjudicate,’ and the Acadians’ lands were carefully surveyed.

In 1728 David Dunbar, surveyor-general of His Majesty’s woods in North America, was appointed surveyor of His Majesty’s woods in Nova Scotia. His special duty was to set apart lands most fit to produce masts and timber for the royal navy. Dunbar appointed George Mitchell, ‘gentleman,’ his deputy. In 1732 Mitchell reported to Armstrong the surveys he had made in the province between the Kennebec and the St Croix Rivers. Six townships had been laid out.

An order of Armstrong’s, dated July 20, 1733, directs Mitchell to survey the land on both sides of the Annapolis River ‘from the Gut upwards duly distinguishing the uninhabited lands from those belonging to the property of any particular person, whose estates you are also to survey and to mark out the uncultivated lands of each estate from those that are improven or inclosed.’ His discoveries as to wood and soil are to be transmitted to the Lords of Trade. Dunbar’s instructions to Mitchell to proceed to Annapolis Royal, dated Boston 1730, direct him to report to the governor and show his commission and papers. His primary duty as king’s surveyor is to select areas of large timber, particularly white pine, for masting; but if the situation of crown lands will interfere with settlements, he is to consult with the governor, and report all such cases, duly attested, to Dunbar. He is to keep regular plans carefully in a special book, to make a plan and survey for each grantee, and also a detailed copy of each in the book aforesaid. The survey was intended to be careful and thorough.

Mitchell had a guard of soldiers given him, as many as could be spared, and began his task. With the suspicion of peasants, the Acadians opposed this necessary work, and a special order had to be issued directing the elders to assist the surveyor by marking out their boundaries. By April 1734 Mitchell had completed his task, and received orders from Armstrong to continue his work throughout the French settlements, as specified, all round the Bay of Fundy. Mitchell was employed in this survey apparently until 1735, after which Lieutenant Amhurst acted as deputy surveyor. In 1739 Shirreff, the secretary, received strict orders from Armstrong to make out no patent except on the survey of Colonel Dunbar or one of his deputies. The preamble is evidence that great care was taken with the grants and surveys.

This plan of administration was in force until the Expulsion. It worked with very little friction; but the obscure patriots, who held the province for the Empire in spite of discouragement, hardships and neglect, have never received their due honour.

English Rule in Danger

While English authority was thus weakly maintained within Nova Scotia, it was menaced by the extraordinary growth of the Acadian population both in the province and Ile St Jean and also by the establishment of a French city at Louisbourg second in strength only to Quebec. From the year 1720 France lavished her livres upon the fortifications of this stronghold, for she parted most reluctantly with Acadie and was determined to win back her beautiful and fertile colony.

War broke out between France and England in 1744, and during that summer gallant old Mascarene sustained two hot sieges in his ramshackle fort at Annapolis Royal. The first leaguer was led by young Belleisle and the second by du Vivier, a descendant of Charles de la Tour. Both failed to take the town. In the next year, while the Young Pretender was winning his first battles in Scotland, the men of Massachusetts rose, and by splendid audacity struck down the Dunkirk of America; but that glorious adventure belongs to the annals of New England rather than Nova Scotia. In the winter of 1744-45 Mascarene strengthened his fort, and when the famous partisan officer Marin hovered in the vicinity the following summer, it was too strong for him to attack. In 1746 the great French armada under d’Anville, which was to sweep the English colonies on the Atlantic coast with fire and sword in revenge for Louisbourg, threw them all into consternation. De Ramézay with over seven hundred men beset Annapolis Royal and awaited its coming. But the peril melted away. Storms shattered the great fleet; disease swept off the crews; the leaders perished. Chebucto harbour saw the last of the tragedy, and more than a thousand Frenchmen left their bones on its shores. Timely succour in ships and men from Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, reached Mascarene and forced de Ramézay to withdraw to Chignecto. In the following winter his lieutenant Coulon de Villiers surprised Colonel Noble’s force at Grand Pré, and killed, wounded or took prisoner nearly two hundred men. The survivors were allowed to march off unmolested to the little capital beside the Annapolis River.

When the war ended in 1748 and Cape Breton was restored to France by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louisbourg, the ‘double-pointed thorn in the side of England,’ resumed its old attitude of menace to the very life of the English colonies. Then at last sluggish England moved to save the key to her possessions overseas. Here, as in many another phase of colonial policy, the influence of that far-sighted constructive statesman, William Shirley, is discernible. During his whole term of office as governor of Massachusetts he acted as the energetic guardian of British interests in America, and his commanding position was recognized by the home government and by the local authorities. The deferential tone of Lawrence’s correspondence with him is remarkable, and he was ordered by the king to prepare a plan of a civil government of Nova Scotia.

The Founding of Halifax

In July 1749 a fleet of thirteen transports, bearing 2576 colonists and escorted by the sloop-of-war Sphinx, reached the threefold harbour of Chebucto, long known for its excellence to French and English mariners. The leader of the expedition was the Hon. Edward Cornwallis, twin-brother of the gay Archbishop of Canterbury and uncle to the Lord Cornwallis who surrendered at Yorktown. He was a soldier, the colonel of the 24th Foot, Wolfe’s regiment, and had seen service at Fontenoy and Prestonpans. Later his military reputation was clouded by his share in the Rochefort and Minorca fiascos, but he did his work as a city builder well. The new military post, named Halifax in compliment to the First Lord of Trade, was quickly laid out, the land cleared, the population organized into a militia, and a rough line of stockade and abatis with blockhouses between run round the streets of tents and log-huts. In spite of the character of the settlers, for the most part soldiers and sailors trade-fallen on account of the peace, and in spite of the plague that carried them off in hundreds during the first hot summer; in spite of covert war of the Indians at the instigation of the French authorities, opposition from local smugglers, extortions of Boston merchants and discouragement by the home government, Cornwallis made Halifax a place on the map of the world. The British parliament had voted £40,000 for initial expenses, and engaged to feed the emigrants for a year, to grant them land on easy terms, with arms for defence and necessary implements for tillage. At last Nova Scotia had an effective garrison to counterpoise Louisbourg. The founding of Halifax gave England a naval base four hundred miles nearer the strong French post in Cape Breton and led directly to its second capture in 1758, thus leaving the road open to Quebec, which fell before the genius of Wolfe in the next campaign.

In the governor’s suite came the Rev. William Tutty, a missionary sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. His letters to the society contain important details regarding the founding of Halifax. To Cornwallis he gives an excellent character for affability, candour, mildness and moderation. His secretary, Davidson, and his aide Bulkeley, ex-officer of dragoons and king’s messenger, form with the governor a benevolent triumvirate, devoted unselfishly to the interests of the colony. One of the government’s first concerns was the erection of a wooden church on the model of Marylebone chapel, capable of holding nine hundred worshippers. Though added to and remodelled, it still stands on its original site at the south end of the Parade,—St Paul’s, the oldest Protestant place of worship in Canada. The many mural tablets epitomize the history of the city. Other men of note were John Salusbury, the scampish father of Dr Johnson’s friend, Mrs Thrale, who was provided with a seat in the council, and Horatio Gates, Indian fighter and leader of irregulars, who was destined to compel the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Some of the families in the original list of settlers have still representatives in Halifax. Settlers from Old and New England flocked to the rising town, where so much government money was being spent. Building lots were soon valued at £50. In 1751 Tutty, in his Notitia Parochialis, reports the population as about six thousand. Halifax was made the capital at once and the government was transferred from Annapolis Royal; but no change was made in the old plan of administration. A General Assembly was contemplated in the governor’s commission, but it was not actually established until 1758.

The British government followed up the work of colonization with energy. In 1750 the ship Alderney brought out 353 settlers, who were sent to the eastern side of the harbour and formed the nucleus of the present town of Dartmouth. More important was the assisted immigration of foreign Protestant settlers. These came for the most part from the Palatinate and the upper Rhine. Three hundred Germans in the ship Ann from Rotterdam reached Halifax in September 1750. Several died on the two months’ voyage; many were poor, old and sickly. The arrival of so many emigrants so late in the season was a serious embarrassment. They could not be settled on the land; and it was necessary to house them in wooden barracks and provision them through the winter. A number were employed on the various public works in the town at two shillings a day. Another difficulty lay in the hostility of the Indians. No man’s life was safe outside the pickets. In spite of a guard of sixty men Dartmouth was attacked and settlers killed and scalped. Parties cutting firewood on the Basin required armed protection; and a corps of rangers recruited from New England’s Indian fighters were constantly scouring the woods.

In the spring of 1751 a further immigration of nearly one thousand foreign Protestants reached Halifax, and in the year following a second thousand. The latter came from the little town of Montbéliard, which had formed part of the duchy of Würtemberg since the thirteenth century, and was noted as a stronghold of the reformed faith since 1525. The sufferings endured by these poor people may be judged by the governor’s statement: ‘On the 26th September last, when the last of these settlers were landed, there were thirty of them who could not stir off the beach, and among the children were 8 orphans, who in twelve days increased to 14 by the death of their parents.’ The difficulties of providing such a number of dependent persons with food and shelter were very great. Food was scarce, and the Boston and New York merchants charged high prices. They were housed in ‘boarded barracks’ in the north and south suburbs and at the head of the Arm, where the misnomer ‘Dutch Village’ perpetuates their memory. Few records remain of their coming; but a list of families compiled in July 1752 contains names like Moser, Oxner, Schafner, Conrad, which are at the present day widely spread throughout the province and proclaim the Teutonic origin of those who bear them. While the majority were poor, there were among them men of birth and education, as is proved by the diaries extant and the number of Bibles and other books brought over with them.

Two reasons have been given for the coming of these foreign settlers: one was the fear of a new war, and the other the promises of Dick, the government immigration agent, regarding conditions in the colony, which were disappointed. Some were discovered to be ‘Papists’ and some went off to the French settlements and Ile St Jean. Discontent amounting almost to rebellion was manifested later, not without due cause. In 1752 ‘Major Cope,’ a noted chief of the Micmacs, came in and made a formal peace with the British and buried the hatchet. In the same year the first newspaper was printed in what is now Canada. This was the Halifax Gazette, the first number of which appeared on March 23, 1752, old style, from the office of John Bushell in Grafton Street.

The Lunenburg Settlement

Early the next year 1753 German settlers were transferred from Halifax to Merliguesh (‘Milky Bay’) in fourteen small vessels in charge of Colonel Charles Lawrence with a number of regular soldiers and rangers. The site was selected on account of its nearness to Halifax, its good harbour and the fertile land in the neighbourhood. In general plan it was the same as Halifax—a compact town, defended by a stockade and nine blockhouses. Each settler was allowed a town lot, a garden lot, a three hundred acre lot and a thirty acre lot. Over five hundred lots were so drawn, a pack of ordinary playing-cards being used for the purpose. In addition the settlers received building materials, tools, arms and ammunition. The town was to be a rallying-place in case of danger; but the settlers were to live on the surrounding farms. This plan explains the frequency of Indian killings and captures in this district. As the settlement was forty miles in circuit, it was easy for war-parties to pounce on isolated farmers and defenceless women and children.

Lunenburg is an instance of the transforming power of environment. In a century and a half these inland peasants settled on the sea-coast have developed into a race of shipbuilders, sailors and fishermen. They retain traces of their language and old-world customs; and they are noted now, as when they first came to the country, for their thrift and industry.

Establishment of Regular Law-courts

For five years after the founding of Halifax, the governor and council exercised judicial functions as a general court, as in the days of Armstrong and Mascarene. The very first case tried was a murder. On August 26, 1749, as Pierre Cartell, an Acadian, was dressing his supper on board the Beaufort transport about five o’clock in the afternoon, Abram Goodside, the boatswain’s mate, who was drunk, renewed a quarrel the two men had begun in the morning. Then Cartell had attempted to stab his tormentor and failed. Now he made sure. With a knife valued at twopence he struck Goodside under the pap of the left breast, making a wound one inch long and four inches deep, of which the said Goodside there and then died. Cartell also wounded two other men who attempted to arrest him. Two days later a general court was held in an empty storehouse on the beach. The governor and council presided as judges. Twelve talesmen were summoned from each quarter of the town. On August 31 a grand jury found a true bill against the prisoner and a petit jury found him guilty. He was accordingly hanged on a warrant from the governor on September 2. Tradition says that a large forest tree standing in the market-place served as a gallows, though the Jeffreys plan of the city published in January 1750 shows a regular gibbet and a pair of stocks on the beach as permanent decorations. In transmitting an account of the trial to the Lords of Trade, Cornwallis is careful to state that ‘we endeavoured to follow as near as possible the English Laws and Customs; we may have failed in form, but the substance and design of the laws was certainly observed’; and the action of the court received their decided approval. Almost immediately afterwards they settled a vice-admiralty case of collision by the appointment of umpires. They dealt in a drastic way with three suits for divorce. The intention of the administration, now as formerly, is plainly evident—to do justice and execute judgment in spite of the absence of regular legal machinery.

Though their functions were lightened by the creation of several justices of the peace who took cognizance of minor offences as a County Court, which was renamed in 1752 the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, the governor and council continued to try all kinds of civil and criminal cases until the establishment of regular courts. Their greatest difficulty was in regulating the traffic in drink. In those days a tot of rum was a regular ration in the army and navy; labourers received rum as part of their daily wages; customers in shops were served with rum to facilitate bargains. In 1749 the small garrison of Annapolis Royal had 3000 gallons of rum, which the Lords of Trade considered ‘an immoderate allowance,’ and between July and December of the same year the settlers at Halifax consumed 15,000 gallons of molasses (from which rum was distilled) and 10,000 gallons of rum over and above what they were entitled to from the contractor. In the autumn and winter of 1749-50 a destructive epidemic carried off a great number of the settlers. The disease is not named, but no doubt rum assisted it. In February 1750 the grand jury presented nearly forty houses for selling liquor without a licence, and the council resolved to increase the punishment of illicit dealers by one hour in the stocks or pillory for the first offence, and twenty lashes for the second. Their measures were not very effective, for ten years later it was possible for a settler from Boston to make the jibe, which is repeated to the present day: ‘The business of one-half the town is to sell rum and the other half to drink it.’ He further states that ‘we have upwards of 100 licensed houses and perhaps as many more which retail spirituous liquors without a license.’ The first temperance society in the province was an association of employers, who bound themselves by a self-denying ordinance not to give liquor to their work-people. The first tax the government levied was excise, and for half a century the statute-book shows continual legislation progressively restrictive. The eighteenth century was a hard-drinking age, and old Halifax was simply an English garrison town and naval station on this side of the Atlantic, with morals to correspond.

It was not until 1754 that courts of law in Nova Scotia began to be organized on the present basis. The advent of Chief Justice Belcher on the scene marks the change. Jonathan Belcher, Jr. was born in Boston in 1710, and, after graduating from Harvard, studied law in London at the Middle Temple. The ceremonies attending his formal installation into office in Halifax attest the importance of the event in the eyes of the community. On October 14 he was by a royal mandamus sworn in a member of the council. The council then adjourned to the court-house, where the king’s commission was read appointing Lawrence governor, who was then sworn in and took the chair. An address of congratulation was read, to which the governor made a suitable reply. A commission by letters patent for the chief justice was prepared. This was read in council on October 21, and the chief justice took the usual oaths.

The first day of the Michaelmas term that same year saw one of those eighteenth-century pageants which constantly brightened the streets of old Halifax. Preceded by the sheriff, or provost-marshal as he was then called, the judge’s tipstaff and other civil officers, the chief justice, in his scarlet robes, wig and ermine, passed in stately procession from the governor’s house in the Lower Parade on the site of the present Province Building to the Great Pontack, the famous tavern by the waterside at the foot of Duke Street, which was long the favourite place for important social functions. He was attended by Governor Lawrence, the members of the council and the gentlemen of the bar in their robes. In the long room of the Pontack an elegant breakfast was provided and a regular reception was held, for we are told the chief justice ‘was there and complimented in the politest way by a great number of gentlemen and ladies and officers of the army.’ After breakfast the procession reformed, and with his commission borne before him the chief justice and the company proceeded to St Paul’s to listen to a suitable anthem and a sermon by the Rev. John Breynton, former naval chaplain, on 2 Samuel xx. 19: ‘I am one of them that are peaceable and faithful in Israel.’ No doubt the compliments of the Pontack’s long room were repeated in the church. After the service the company adjourned to the court-house, which was handsomely fitted up for the occasion. The chief justice took his seat under a canopy with the governor of the province at his right hand. The clerk of the crown presented the commission to the chief justice, who solemnly handed it back, and, after proclamation for silence, gave some directions for the guidance of the bar. Then the grand jury was sworn in and received a charge from the chief justice. After this the court adjourned and the chief justice ‘accompanied and attended as before’ returned to the governor’s house. Thus with festivity and religious service and every mark of respect was the first chief justice of what is now Canada installed in office. It was a significant event in the life of a people that has ever since been noted for its respect for law.

The situation of the colony in 1754 may be précised as follows. After nearly half a century of neglect England, in the lull between two great wars, took up the work of ‘planting’ Nova Scotia with marked energy. Within four years she poured nearly six thousand settlers into the province and established them firmly in two defensible towns on good harbours. The work did not need to be done again. At the same time Louisbourg was within easy striking distance of the new rival capital, and the large Acadian population settled in the most fertile part of the province supported, as was natural, the French settlement of Cape Breton. This was the posture of affairs when the Seven Years’ War broke out.

A Map of the South Part of Nova Scotia and it’s Fishing Banks
Engraved by, T. Jefferys Geographer to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

To the Right Hon^ble. the Lords Commission^rs. for Trade and Plantations, This Plate is most humbly presented by your Lordships most Obedient and Devoted humble Servant. T. Jefferys.

A Plan of HALIFAX Survey’d by M. Harris.

	Explanation
A.	Parade.
B.	Court House & Prison.
C.	Church.
D.	Governor’s House.
E.	Store Houses.
F.	Chebucto Harbour.
G.	Barracks for Soldiers 2 Companies Each.
H.	Forts of Palisades.
I.	Walls of Palisades.
K.	Public Houses witho^t y^e Town.
L.	Store House.
M.	Shewing the Number of Lofts in Each Division.

A View of HALIFAX. Drawn from y^e Topmasthead.

Publish’d according to Act of Parliament Jan.25.1750. price 1^d. Printed for T. Jefferys at the Corner of S^t Martins Lane Charing Cross. Where in a few Days will be published a new Map of France, and a Plan of Coventry.

II
A CRITICAL PERIOD IN NOVA SCOTIA’S HISTORY

The Expulsion of the Acadians

No just opinion can be formed regarding the forcible removal of the French population from Nova Scotia in 1755, without recognition of the fact that for two years prior to the formal rupture between France and England in 1756 their colonies in America had been openly at war. In 1754 Virginia sent a small force under Colonel Washington to resist French encroachments in the valley of the Ohio. After one slight success and a long day’s fight in the rain, Washington was obliged to surrender to a superior force of French and Indians under Coulon de Villiers at Great Meadows. In the same year Shirley ^[1] planned the reduction of the French forts in Acadie. In 1755 four separate expeditions were organized in the English colonies and launched against the French power in America: one under Braddock against Fort Duquesne; one under Shirley against Niagara; one under Colonel William Johnson against Crown Point; and one against Beauséjour under Colonel Monckton, a seasoned regular officer, who afterwards served as brigadier-general under Wolfe at Quebec. The campaign was well planned, for it struck at vital points in the long line of the French defences. Meanwhile the French government was hurrying reinforcements into Canada and Cape Breton, in a fleet of eighteen sail under La Motte, and England had dispatched Boscawen with twelve ships and secret orders to cut him off. Only one of these expeditions was a complete success. The two thousand New England men led by Monckton forced Beauséjour to surrender after an investment of four days; but Shirley was compelled to abandon the attack on Niagara, and Johnson, notwithstanding his repulse of Dieskau, failed in the military object of his campaign. The fourth expedition, under Braddock, met with crushing and shameful defeat at the hands of a French and Indian force about one-fifth their number. Out of 1460 men of all ranks who went into action that fatal 9th of July on the banks of the Monongahela, 863 men were killed, wounded or taken prisoners. Braddock was partly to blame; he tried to fight in the forest according to the drill-book, but the men misbehaved; they broke and ran for their lives. The long list of casualties among the officers by itself would attest that fact. This was the bloodiest battle which had taken place among white men upon American soil, and the most terrible reverse any English force had hitherto met with. The effect upon the English colonies was immediate and marked. They shared for a time the panic terror of the fugitives from that bloody field. Within a fortnight the dire news reached Halifax and no doubt tended to confirm Lawrence and his council in a momentous resolution they had already taken. By sea the story of failure was repeated. The French fleet escaped Boscawen; but, by chance, he captured two vessels, the Alcide and the Lys, which had strayed from the main body in the fogs of the gulf, and brought his prizes into Halifax. It was not in a time of profound peace, as the readers of Evangeline imagine, but in a time of open war, and as a war measure, that the Acadians were deported from Nova Scotia. Neither was it a local measure, but one detail of a large and comprehensive plan to destroy the power of France in America, which grew out of the irrepressible conflict of the two races for the possession of the New World. That all the English colonies were concerned, that the measure was dictated by the urgent need of collective defence, is plain from the fact that the exiles were distributed among them all.

Again, the situation cannot be understood without recognition of the fact that the French parted most reluctantly with Acadie, never relinquished the hope of regaining it and never ceased to labour towards that end. Their chief political agents were the various missionary priests sent into the province under the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht. To teach their flocks to consider themselves still virtually subjects of King Louis, or ‘neutrals,’ to undermine English influence wherever possible, could only have appeared to them in the light of a hazardous, patriotic duty. On this subject much indignation has been displayed by partisan historians on both sides; but the French are no more to be blamed for striving to win back their lost province by all means in their power than the English are to be blamed for striving to retain it.

Of all the missionaries the most zealous and efficient by far was Joseph Louis le Loutre. Bold, resourceful, wary, untiring, truculent, tenacious of his purpose, Le Loutre was a born leader of men. Coming to Canada in 1737, he appears three years later in Nova Scotia as missionary to the Micmacs. Over the savages, the Acadians, his fellow-priests he soon acquired a complete ascendancy. He was made vicar-general of the province, but he could hardly be held in check by his bishop, who warned him in vain against meddling in temporal affairs. Le Loutre seems to have had the soldier spirit rather than the ecclesiastic. At the siege of Beauséjour he was seen in his shirt-sleeves with his pipe in his mouth directing the workers in the entrenchments. On his first coming to the province Mascarene wrote him a courteous letter. Four years later he led a party of Abnakis against Annapolis Royal, when young Belleisle attacked the town. From that time until he left the province in 1754 his hand is to be seen or suspected in every move against the English power. Acting under express orders from the French government he stirred up the Indians to harass the new town of Halifax and discourage the settlers. Many were the massacres in the early days, and deep the terror caused by them. As Duquesne wrote to Le Loutre, ‘Ten scalps would stop an English army.’ He hectored the Acadians into compliance with his will by threatening to loose the Indians upon them if they disobeyed. He threatened them from the altar with spiritual pains and penalties if they resisted his dictation. With his own hand he fired the church at Beaubassin to force the inhabitants into retreating across the boundary-line into French territory. He was blamed by the French officers for the cold-blooded murder of Captain Edward How, who was shot while parleying with some disguised Indians under a flag of truce on the banks of the Missaguash. Le Loutre must be reckoned with as checking Cornwallis at every turn, as far as lay within his power. In his correspondence the aristocratic governor calls him ‘a good-for-nothing scoundrel as ever lived.’ The phrase only testifies to his anger at the machinations of an able and unscrupulous enemy. The dangerous power of this turbulent priest is proved by the fact that during the years 1751-52 he forced at least two thousand Acadians to withdraw from Nova Scotia into French territory beyond the isthmus, or into the Islands of St John and Cape Breton, where their state was miserable indeed. It was Le Loutre who began the Expulsion of the Acadians.

The ultimate cause of this emigration was the action of Cornwallis in demanding a renewal of the oath by the Acadians as a condition of retaining their lands. The new governor was determined to bring matters to a head. Either the Acadians were British subjects, or they were not. There was no middle ground; they could not be ‘neutrals.’ If they were British subjects and would not take the oath of allegiance; if, further, they gave aid and comfort to the enemy or could be forced by the enemy to do so, they must be considered as rebels and treated accordingly. If they were not British subjects, and, while living in a British province, did not regard themselves as British subjects, their status was still worse. In a state of actual war with France it would be impossible to distinguish them from open enemies. The situation was without a parallel. In either case their presence in the province was a most serious menace to British supremacy. The rapid increase in their numbers, their subservience to their priests, their natural sympathy with those of their own race, the fact that not a few had borne arms against the British in the previous war, made the power of the lawful owners of this territory as slight and precarious as when it did not extend beyond a cannon-shot from the walls of old Fort Anne. Halifax, the one defensible settlement, was thrust far up into the French dominions, like a nut in the jaws of a nut-cracker. It was hemmed in by the French of Canada, of the Island of St John, of Cape Breton and by the local population, variously estimated at from ten to sixteen thousand souls. The situation was highly critical and the English governors met it, not as all-powerful tyrants, but as men who in the midst of danger take obvious precautions for their safety.

Cornwallis failed to persuade the Acadians to renew their unconditional oath of allegiance. He returned to England in 1752, and his successor, Hopson, held office only for a year. The next captain-general and governor-in-chief was a man of much more decided character and stronger will than any who had held office before him. Charles Lawrence came of an old English county family, which had given many sons to the land and sea services. As a young ensign of twenty in Montague’s Foot he saw some service in America, bush-fighting with the Indians. He also served in the West Indies; and he was present at the carnage of Fontenoy. When Louisbourg was handed back to France in 1749, Lawrence held the rank of major in Warburton’s regiment stationed there. With the rest of the force he came to Halifax, where he was appointed a member of the council by Cornwallis. He soon proved his value to the colony as a soldier in the field and as an energetic administrator in civil affairs. In person he was a giant, six feet two inches in height; in character he was a typical soldier, frank in manner, fearless of opposition, devoted to duty and the interests of his country as he understood them.

In deciding to remove the French population from the province Lawrence and his council felt that they were obliged to act swiftly in a crisis. War was in active progress; British prestige had received a crushing blow in the annihilation of Braddock’s command; intercepted dispatches from the French governor at Louisbourg revealed a plan of campaign to destroy Halifax and drive the English into the sea; leather bags filled with scalping-knives for distribution among the Indians were found in the captured French men-of-war; and the Acadians had refused once more, and for the last time, to bind themselves by an unconditional oath of allegiance. This fatal decision was reached on July 27, 1755. At a meeting of council held on the preceding Friday the two alternatives had been plainly set before the French deputies, either to take the oath or to quit their lands; and they were given the intervening days to think the matter over. Called before the governor in council, they refused point-blank to take the oath. When they were dismissed the council passed this momentous resolution:

As it has been before determined to send all the French inhabitants out of the Province if they refused to take the Oaths, nothing now remained to be considered but what means should be taken to send them away and where they should be sent to.

After mature Consideration, it was unanimously agreed that, to prevent as much as possible their attempting to return and molest the settlers that may be set down on their Lands, it would be most proper to send them to be distributed amongst the several Colonies on the Continent, and that a sufficient Number of Vessels should be hired with all possible Expedition for that purpose.

The resolution was put into effect with secrecy and swiftness. Some vessels were made ready at Halifax, while others were chartered through the agency of Apthorpe and Hancock, a prominent firm of Boston merchants. Details were carefully considered. The number of transports required was based on an estimate of two passengers per ton. The allowance of food for seven days was five pounds of flour and one pound of pork for each person. The destination of every shipload was definitely determined beforehand; three hundred prisoners for Philadelphia, two hundred for New York, and so on.

Apparently neither the Acadians nor their leaders had any suspicion of these preparations; and they paid little attention to the government’s threats of punishment. The possibility of removal from the province of their own free will or by force had been hanging over the heads of the habitants ever since the British occupation. Even the humane Mascarene had menaced the deputies with deportation. But threatened men live long, and the Acadian deputies went back to their parishes as if the year 1755 was to be as all that had gone before.

The work of deportation began almost at once. On August 11 Monckton herded the men of the surrounding district within the newly captured fort at Beauséjour, renamed Fort Cumberland. Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow, whose diary is a primary authority for this episode, was encamped near by, at Baie Verte. Winslow was a descendant of one of the original Plymouth settlers, a zealous upholder of Great Britain, a keen horseman and a soldier of considerable experience. He was a good-natured man of little education, whose grotesque spelling and grammar must be severely handled to make his narrative intelligible. His account of the scene runs thus, in conventional English:

This day was one extraordinary to the inhabitants of Tantramar, Oueshak, Aulac, Baie Verte, Beauséjour and the places adjacent; the male inhabitants or the principal of them, being collected together in Fort Cumberland to hear the sentence which determined their property, from the Governor and Council of Halifax; which was that they were declared rebels, their lands, goods and chattels forfeited to the Crown and their bodies to be imprisoned. Upon which the gates of the Fort were shut, and they all confined to the amount of four hundred men and upwards.

By the 19th of the same month Winslow was encamped with three hundred men at Grand Pré, a rich, beautiful stretch of level land watched by Cape Blomidon. At Piziquid, ten miles away, was another detachment under Captain Murray. The two officers visited each other and consulted how best to carry out their orders. They agreed on Friday, September 5, as the time to strike. Thanks to Winslow’s particularity, it is possible to reconstruct the actual scene at Grand Pré. In response to a peremptory order of three days before, the Acadians, ‘their best men,’ to the number of 418, crowded into the parish church. In the centre Winslow had a table placed by which he took his stand together with such of his officers as were off guard; for, anticipating trouble, he had powder and ball served out to his command and ordered ‘the whole camp to lie upon their arms.’ By means of interpreters he announced their doom to the assembled habitants.

‘Your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds and live stock of all sorts are forfeited to the Crown, with all other your effects saving your money and household goods, and you yourselves to be removed from this province.’ After stating that all the French inhabitants were to be removed, Winslow continued: ‘I shall do everything in my power that all those goods be secured to you and that you are not molested in carrying them off and also that the whole families shall go in the same vessel; so that this removal which I am sensible will give you a good deal of trouble, may be made as easy as His Majesty’s service will admit; and I hope that in whatever part of the world your lot may fall, you may be faithful subjects and a peaceable and happy people.’

To a man of Winslow’s easy-going, kindly make and temper this duty was plainly disagreeable; he tried to execute his orders with as much humanity as possible. For some time the Acadians could not realize the severity of their sentence. Their first concern was for their families, and they requested that they might be allowed to communicate with them. After obtaining a promise that they would be responsible for the messengers, Winslow permitted twenty of his prisoners to carry the evil tidings to their respective parishes. He was also as good as his word about securing their property to the Acadians. Two privates found guilty of stealing fowls were sentenced to receive thirty lashes each, ‘well laid on.’

On the same day Murray writes that he has secured 183 prisoners at Piziquid. He was struck by the patience of the ‘poor devils,’ and the real or assumed indifference of the women. At Annapolis Royal, Handfield had been unsuccessful. Instead of ordering the men to come to him, he sent out an armed force to bring in a hundred heads of families, but the Acadians took alarm and fled to the woods. At Chipody, Major Frye of Winslow’s regiment met with disaster. After burning two hundred and fifty-three houses on both sides of the river, he landed a detachment of fifty men at Petitcodiac to burn the ‘mass-house.’ It was attacked by three hundred Acadians and Indians under Boishébert, who killed, wounded or took prisoner more than half the force. Frye landed what men he could in support, but, after an obstinate fight of three hours against heavy odds, the New Englanders were driven back on board their vessel. This was the only instance of serious opposition.

On September 10 Winslow, after some little difficulty, placed two hundred and thirty of his prisoners on board the five transports which had arrived from Boston. To each vessel a guard of six soldiers was told off; and the Acadians, refusing the king’s ration of flour and pork, were supplied daily with food by their families. A time of long and weary waiting ensued. Transports and provisions did not come, and it was not until October 8 that the women and children began to be embarked from Grand Pré. Strong efforts were made to keep those of one parish together, and therefore members of the same family; but some separations undoubtedly occurred.

By November 3 Winslow had sent away 1510 persons in nine vessels. More than another month elapsed before the six hundred who remained were shipped out of the country. From Piziquid, Murray removed 1100 by the end of October; 1664 were sent from Annapolis Royal, and about 1000 from the neighbourhood of Fort Cumberland. The whole parish of Cobequid escaped; no prisoners were made there. Altogether a little over six thousand habitants were thus forcibly deported. Some escaped to Canada, or to the Island of St John or Cape Breton; and some few never left the province. The rich meadow-lands of Acadie beside the tidal rivers were swept bare; the homes of six thousand persons were burned to the ground; their cattle and grain were forfeited to pay the charges of their deportation. The stern measure was carried out with unrelenting rigour, and completely attained its object. One year the Acadians were firmly seated in their farms; the next they were scattered from Canada to the West Indies, and the place that had known them was a solitude.

Before passing judgment on the men who conceived and executed this removal of an entire population, it should be remembered that they acted as did Louis xiv in expelling the Huguenots from France and the United States in expelling the tories. All were precautionary measures dictated by the need of national self-preservation; and they were regarded by those who took them as imperative in a dangerous crisis. Lawrence acted like the commander of a fort expecting a siege, who levels trees and houses outside the walls in order to afford the enemy no shelter and to give the garrison a clear field of fire.

One immediate effect of the Expulsion of the Acadians was the renewal of hostilities by the Indians. On May 8, 1756, five persons were killed at Mahone Bay and a mother with her four children carried off captives to Quebec. This outrage was committed within three miles of Lunenburg, where a force of soldiers was stationed. The tale of the Payzant killing is one of the most complete in the annals of Canada. These murders were followed by many others. Brief entries in the journals of the German settlers tell of hapless women and children cut off in the lonely clearings, killed and scalped. Without the slightest warning a war-party would emerge from the leafy mystery of the forest, shoot, knife, tomahawk and burn, and then disappear again into the woods as silently as beasts of prey. In Holy Week, 1758, Schmidt notes in his journal that Oxner, his wife, two children, Mrs Roeder, Joseph and Jacob Hate’s wives and two soldiers of the La Hève guard all fell victims to the savages in one day. Attempts at reprisal were futile. The usual policy of offering huge bounties for scalps and prisoners did not check the raids. Many were the ‘ransomers,’ or single settlers snatched by the Indians from isolated farms and dragged off to miserable captivity in Quebec. Such a prisoner was John Witherspoon, who was taken on the South Mountain in September 1756. He was imprisoned first at Miramichi, escaped, was retaken, and, on the fall of Louisbourg in 1758, was transferred with other captives to the stronghold of French power on the St Lawrence; There they suffered from cold, sickness, bad and scanty food. Many died; but Witherspoon lived to hear from his cell in the barracks of Quebec the rolling fusillade on the Plains of Abraham coming ever nearer to the doomed city on September 13, 1759. His journal makes mention of other ‘ransomers’ being constantly brought in. Against the depredations of the Indians Lawrence employed rangers, native American woodsmen trained in bush-fighting; but with little effect. Lawrencetown, a palisaded settlement to the east of Halifax, had to be abandoned for a time, as incapable of defence.

The Seven Years’ War

The war had one notable effect upon Halifax, which was never ‘a miserable fishing village,’ as one American writer has called it, but from the first a centre of wealth and influence. This was the activity of privateering. During the five years 1756-60 the Halifax merchants fitted out eighteen private vessels of war, with an aggregate burden of nearly three thousand tons, mounting 232 carriage guns, besides minor armament, and carrying nearly a thousand men. In November 1757 Lawrence complained that he could not get sufficient wood for fuel, as most of the labouring people had taken to privateering, a natural pursuit for the disbanded soldiers and sailors who formed the bulk of the population. This was a favourite form of mercantile speculation in the eighteenth century and must have been most profitable. It flourished in Halifax in each of the three great wars that city has seen. Halifax was also a centre for the North Atlantic smugglers. Joshua Mauger, a Jew victualling agent for the troops and distiller, was one of the leaders in this illicit traffic, and frequently came into conflict with the authorities, who tried to execute the laws. He soon made a large fortune and returned to England. Commerce was active but feverish.

For three years the war continued to run counter to the English. The crushing defeat of Braddock was followed by Montcalm’s brilliant capture of Oswego in 1756 and of Fort William Henry in 1757. The English retorts were feeble. In 1757 a large force under Loudoun was concentrated at Halifax for the overthrow of Louisbourg, but when he ascertained its exact strength he abandoned the enterprise. This was the famous cabbage-planting fiasco, so ridiculed by the London wits. Loudoun had landed his men and exercised them in siege operations on shore. The large vegetable garden he planted was of real service in preserving the health of the troops. Both were measures of a sensible commander, careful of his men; but his over-caution, so like Byng’s disgraceful slackness before Minorca, incensed the British public. Nothing effective was done to stem the tide of French success. Their series of victories had hemmed in the English colonies within narrower limits, ‘pushed the frontier back,’ with the desolating accompaniment of bloody Indian raids along its entire length. The British fortunes were at their lowest ebb, when Pitt came to power. Then the tide turned, and in three years French dominion in America was at an end.

May 1757 saw the concentration of a new British armada at Halifax for the reduction of Louisbourg.^[1] Twenty-three ships of the line, eighteen frigates, fully one hundred transports carrying 12,000 soldiers under the command of Amherst and Boscawen formed an expedition of overwhelming force. For the defence of Louisbourg, Drucour had only eight ships of the line, three frigates, 3000 regular troops and 700 Canadians. The strength of the fortifications, which had just been renewed at great expense, did not counterbalance the crushing numerical superiority of the British in men and ships. Rodney was in command of the Dublin and Wolfe was a brigadier-general. Lawrence, leaving the administration of his province to Monckton, accompanied the troops, also with the rank of brigadier-general. On June 8 a landing was effected at Gabarus Bay, well to the westward of the town, in spite of determined opposition. Wolfe commanded the left, Lawrence the centre and Whitmore the right division during this operation. The investment began at once and was pushed on with great energy, the land and sea forces working together in perfect harmony. The greatest difficulties were found in landing stores and in making roads. By July 26 the French resistance was at an end. With his batteries dismounted, his ships burned or sunk and a practicable breach established in his walls, gallant Drucour had no alternative to a surrender on honourable terms. A great quantity of warlike stores fell to the victors. Over six thousand persons became prisoners of war. The second strongest French town in America had fallen, and now the road was open to Quebec. The Island of Cape Breton became a British possession and ultimately was annexed to the government of Nova Scotia. Another immediate result of the capture of Louisbourg was the acquisition of Ile St Jean, later named Prince Edward Island, which had at that time, according to Boscawen’s official report, four thousand inhabitants, Acadians who had retired thither from Nova Scotia. These also were deported, or made their escape. When Captain Holland made his survey in 1764, he found only thirty Acadian families, ‘on the footing of prisoners,’ and a tiny British garrison lodged in a miserable fort. The island remained an annex of Nova Scotia until 1770, when, on the petition of a majority of the proprietors, it was erected into a separate province.

The First General Assembly

Lawrence returned to Halifax at the end of August to preside over the first general assembly of Nova Scotia. The granting of self-government to the province had been intended by the British authorities from the outset. The greatest obstacle was that the French as Catholics were by British law excluded from the franchise. The makeshift for representative institutions which prevailed until the founding of Halifax was regarded by the very men who invented and employed it as a poor substitute for a more regular form of government. The commission of Cornwallis empowered him ‘with the advice and consent of our said Council from time to time as need shall require to summon and call General Assemblies of the Freeholders and Planters within your Government according to the usage of the rest of our Colonies and plantations in America.’ The governor is further empowered with the advice and consent of the council and assembly ‘to make, constitute and ordain Laws, Statutes and Ordinances for the Public peace, welfare and good government of our said province,’ with certain necessary restrictions. Such provincial laws must not conflict with English law and must be submitted for the royal approval within three months of their making. To Cornwallis was given the power to override the will of the council or assembly by his veto. He is to ‘have and enjoy a Negative Voice in the making and passing of all Laws, Statutes and Ordinances as aforesaid.’ The intent of the commission is plainly to establish a threefold form of government—governor, council, general assembly—with the control vested firmly in the hands of the king’s representative in the colony, who should be responsible only to the home authorities. These instructions Cornwallis did not execute. There were other and more pressing needs: a city to be built and defended, foreign settlers to be housed and fed, smugglers and illicit traders to be put down, French encroachments and Indian raids to be resisted. Besides, the military man of the mid-eighteenth century was no great believer in popular rights or democratic institutions. A local parliament could easily harass and hamper an autocratic governor. Under the administration of Lawrence a number of New Englanders settled in Halifax. These men brought with them a perfect acquaintance with all the details of self-government, and they were fiercely impatient of arbitrary action by irresponsible officials. Lawrence was still less conciliatory than Cornwallis; he deliberately put off the establishment of a general assembly, and carried matters with such a high hand that the Halifax merchants petitioned the English government for his recall. Their motives were not unmixed. Lawrence had interfered with their Louisbourg business, a direct contravention of the Trade and Navigation Laws. At last the pressure became too strong for him; the Lords of Trade insisted on his obedience, and, on February 7, 1758, the governor and council passed resolutions providing for the election of sixteen members for the province at large, with four for the township of Halifax and two for the township of Lunenburg; and the limits of these districts were determined. The elections were held in due form. Electors were required to declare and subscribe to the test, to take the usual state oaths and also a qualification oath, affirming the voter’s possession of a freehold and a denial of bribery. ‘Popish recusants’ were thereby rendered ineligible for the house and they were debarred from voting. No elector was to have more than one vote. As soon as fifty qualified electors should be settled at Piziquid, Minas, Cobequid, or any other townships that should afterwards be erected, these communities were each to have the power to elect two members. One member for every twenty-five voters was certainly no inadequate provision for letting the popular will prevail. Nineteen members were returned, six of whom are classed as ‘esquires’ and the rest as ‘gentlemen.’ Five were settlers from New England.

The influence of Chief Justice Belcher in hastening the establishment of representative government in Nova Scotia was undoubtedly great. No sooner had he assumed office than he raised the constitutional question of the validity of the laws and ordinances passed by the governor and council without the concurrence of a general assembly. It is significant that the right to tax without representation should be questioned, for some revenue had been obtained by duties on liquor. Belcher wrote to the Lords of Trade on the point, and obtained an opinion from the attorney-general and the solicitor-general of England, dated April 29, 1755, which states that ‘the Governor and Council alone are not authorized by his majesty to make laws.’ The first laws passed by the newly elected assembly were to confirm the irregular ordinances of the governor and council in restricting the liquor traffic and in transferring land.

The first general assembly in what is now Canada met for the first time on October 2, 1758, in the Court House at the corner of Argyle and Buckingham Streets in the city of Halifax. The importance of this event has been fittingly marked by the erection of a memorial tower on the banks of the North-West Arm by the Canadian Club of Halifax. The ceremonial of opening the house was elaborate. The members met at the Court House and deputed three of their number to wait on the governor. He appointed two others to administer the usual oaths. This done, the assembly received a message from His Honour, requesting their attendance at his house. When they reached it they found him sitting in council. He directed them to elect a speaker. They obediently retired, elected Robert Sanderson, Esquire, to that important office and again presented themselves before the governor to receive his sanction. He then made what might be considered as a speech from the throne. After some commonplaces he reminded the people’s representatives of the fleets and armies sent by Britain for their protection and of the sums of money voted by parliament for the support of the colony. He suggested that by and by Nova Scotia would be self-supporting; he urged the passage of legislation confirming the acts of the governor in council; and he promised ‘to concur in all reasonable acts agreed on.’ The tone is distinctly that of the master. The well-nigh autocratic nature of the governor’s office is recognized by himself and by the house in their reply. The ceremonial of this senate of Lilliput is copied from Britain. When Dickens visited Halifax in 1840 and witnessed the opening of the session, he noted that it was like looking at Westminster through the wrong end of the telescope.

That first assembly was a frugal legislature. The members resolved to give their services without pay. The total expenses of the first session were only £250, of which £100 went to the clerk. Two incidents show the spirit of those early legislators and their clear understanding of constitutional forms. One of the first acts of the assembly was to order the various public officials to furnish tables of their fees. The Hon. John Collier, a retired English officer, filled various positions of emolument. He was a justice of the peace, a member of the council, judge of probate, judge of admiralty, and apparently he had acted as chief justice before the appointment of Belcher. On demand, Collier made a return of the fees for probate, but declined to furnish the fees in the court of admiralty. His refusal raised a storm. One of the members of the house, George Suckling, ‘in the presence of the governor and council charged Mr Collier ... and the other officers of the court of vice-admiralty with taking such fees as were grievous and oppressive, and such as the subject was unable to bear.’ The council was incensed and desired ‘that the Assembly would give leave to Mr Suckling to waive his privilege and attend the council when required, in order to make good his said charge.’ But Mr Suckling knew his rights and the assembly stood firm. He declined to waive his privilege, and the house held that he was only accountable to them for his utterances.

Some time afterwards the house represented to the governor that the ‘collectors of the impost and excise duties are, by the gout and other infirmities of body rendered incapable.’ Report of this or some similar criticism seems to have aggrieved another official. On Thursday, December 14, 1758,

Mr Pantree, one of the members of the house, complained that yesterday, going in a peaceable manner from the house, he was accosted by Mr Archibald Hinshelwood, in these or the like words: ‘Damn you, sir! what is this you complain against me?’ Upon Mr Pantree’s denying that he had complained against him, he, in a threatening and haughty tone, said: ‘Damn you, you have—your house has; by God, sir, I’ll not bear it. Take care for the future. I have but one life to lose, and by God, sir, I’ll not be used so.’

For this insult to one of their number the assembly summoned Hinshelwood to their bar. He attended and apologized humbly to Pantree and also to the house. But the ruffled assembly was not easily appeased. Hinshelwood was placed in the custody of the messenger under a sort of mild arrest, and, after having signed a written apology dictated by the house, was the next day set at liberty. These nineteen men composing the first parliament of Canada needed no elementary instruction in the principles of self-government, as in the case of Quebec; and this early initiation into all the procedure of politics had no doubt a great influence in making Nova Scotia a school of politicians.

The legislation of that first session was eminently practical. The assembly obtained an account of the sums collected as excise duties from 1751 to 1758 and directed that the cost of such public works as a lighthouse at Sambro and a workhouse in Halifax should be paid out of the unexpended balance. This was asserting the right of the popular assembly to control the purse-strings. Several acts were needed to confirm the governor and council’s irregular law-making. The Church of England was formally established; Protestant dissenters were to have freedom of worship and conscience, but this toleration was not extended to those professing the ‘popish religion.’ The contemporary English criminal code was adopted bodily, with its long list of felonies without benefit of clergy and the savage old penalties of the stocks, the pillory, flogging, branding, cutting off the ears and hanging. Profane swearing, drunkenness, blackmailing, publication of a lie were indictable offences. These acts long remained on the statute-book. As late as 1816 the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia sentenced a man to have his ears cut off. One act regulated the ‘assize of bread,’ that is, the standard weight of the loaf, and another fixed the standard weights and measures ‘long, liquid and dry.’ An act was passed for the better observation and keeping of the Lord’s Day, limiting the time on Sunday during which shops might be open. A later act imposed a fine for non-attendance at church and required the churchwardens and constables to walk through the town during the hours of divine service and suppress disorders. At first the laws were published by being read aloud on the grand parade by the provost-marshal, after notice by beat of drum. As Chief Justice Uniacke notes in the preface to his Statutes at Large in 1805: ‘Our predecessors anxiously endeavoured, as near as local circumstances would permit, to copy the Laws of the Mother Country and to form our establishments agreeably to the British Constitution.’

The house sat from October 2, 1758, until April 11, 1759, with a long Christmas recess; and after a very short second session (August 1 to August 13) it was dissolved. The legislation standing to its credit is notable both for its amount and value. At last the province had that regular civil government which had long been desired. To modern democratic ways of thinking the measure of self-government accorded to Nova Scotia may seem small. The other colonizing nations, France and Spain, permitted nothing of the kind, but ruled their dependencies solely by officials in the interests of the parent countries. England alone allowed her colonies to rule themselves. In the case of Nova Scotia, although the autocratic power of the governor and the irresponsible character of the council continued as powerful counterchecks to the popular assembly, the principle of government by the people was established, and securing full control was only a matter of time, a natural and legitimate outgrowth of the first parliament of 1758.

The Immigration Problem

To one governor after another the problem of Nova Scotia was the immigration problem. The prosperity, the very existence of the province depended on settlers, and, as the French increased, on English and Protestant settlers. It was thought at first that the absence of civil government kept settlers away. As early as 1732 the attempt was made to attract Protestant settlers to Nova Scotia by advertising the province in the New England newspapers; but no results were obtained. The Expulsion of the Acadians was only one half of Lawrence’s plan: the other half was to plant the vacated farms with emigrants from the nearest English colonies. The home authorities wished to send over more disbanded soldiers; but Lawrence opposed the idea; he considered that the soldier made the very worst kind of settler. A series of events—the first siege of Louisbourg, the founding of Halifax and the profitable trade which sprang up from it, the unwelcome coming of the French exiles in the different provinces—had drawn all eyes in the direction of Nova Scotia: and when Lawrence proclaimed the fact that the rich cleared lands about the Bay of Fundy were to be had for the asking, the response was immediate and surprising. The first proclamation in October 1758 at Boston aroused much inquiry. It was followed by a second early in 1759 stating more definitely the terms on which the land was to be granted. In April, although the war was still raging, prospecting parties from Connecticut and Rhode Island appeared at Halifax, and were afforded vessels and guards so that they might view the offered lands for themselves. They were pleased with what they saw, for they followed up their inspection by applying for grants. At Minas 100,000 acres were to form one township supporting 200 families. A second at Canard was granted to 150 families. The townships of Horton, Cornwallis, Granville, Chignecto, Onslow and Annapolis were all granted in this year; and the province was divided into five counties—Annapolis, King’s, Cumberland, Lunenburg and Halifax. The Indians had begun the spring as usual, by murders in Lunenburg County, and, although blockhouses were to be built to protect the settlers in the new townships, it was not considered advisable to proceed further with their development. But the fall of Quebec changed the whole aspect of affairs. To Nova Scotia it was ‘that barbarous metropolis from whence his good subjects of this province and the king’s other American dominions have groaned under such continual and unpardonable wrongs.’ The war in America was at an end; and the peaceful growth of Nova Scotia was possible.

The Submission of the Indians

The downfall of French power was followed at once by the submission of the Indians. On January 9, 1760, Roger Morris and four other Indians appeared before the council to make peace on behalf of a large number of Micmacs. In February Colonel Arbuthnot brought in the chiefs of the St John and Passamaquoddy tribes to renew the treaty of 1725. One tribe after another followed their example—Lahave, Richibucto, ‘Pictock.’ Starving Acadians from the French territory beyond the Tantramar also came in and were made prisoners of war at Halifax. The final scene was a grand powwow in the governor’s garden in 1761. Introduced by the Abbé Maillard, their missionary, into the presence of the assembled dignitaries, the acting governor, Chief Justice Belcher, the council, the assembly, the magistrates and other officials, Joseph Argimault, or Argimoosh, ‘the great white witch,’ and his braves solemnly buried the hatchet and washed the war-paint from their bodies in token of ‘a peace that should never be broken.’ They then partook of a feast set out for them on the ground; and the ceremony ended by all present drinking the king’s health with hearty cheers. Thus was the long story of savage warfare, murders, scalpings, captures in Nova Scotia brought to a close. Since that day in the governor’s garden the peace has never been broken.

The Character of Lawrence

In the autumn of 1760 Governor Lawrence died after a brief illness. Among his other public acts he had the original Government House rebuilt on a larger and more splendid scale. On its furnishing he is said to have expended a thousand pounds of his own money. In August 1758 the new residence was the scene of a grand ball in honour of the fall of Louisbourg. On October 11, 1760, Lawrence gave another ball in Government House. When over-heated with dancing he drank a glass of cold water, took a chill and died of pneumonia within eight days. He was buried with great ceremony in the chancel of St Paul’s. The next assembly passed a eulogistic resolution in his memory and voted for the erection of a costly tablet in the church. During repairs to the church some years later the monument was taken down. Then it disappeared from human ken.

Whatever estimate may be given of Lawrence, he cannot be called either selfish, stupid or weak in will. It is the custom to denounce him as a brutal tyrant; and he was undoubtedly the most masterful spirit that ever guided the affairs of Nova Scotia. But he spent himself and his fortune in the public service; he saw clearly that without the removal of the Acadians, Nova Scotia would continue to be a British colony in name only; and seeing what he believed to be his patriotic duty, he carried it through with irresistible determination. He rooted out one race and he planted another in its stead; and this policy determined the character of Nova Scotia. It was to be an English-speaking province.

The New England Settlers

The fifteen years that followed the death of Lawrence were decisive in forming the character of Nova Scotia. The immigration policy of that masterful man was firm as it was wise; and when it brought him into conflict with his superiors, the Lords of Trade, he did not give ground. Their plan was to reserve the good lands for the officers and men who should be disbanded in America at the close of the war. They even ordered Lawrence to cease granting lands to the New England settlers; he obeyed, but he remonstrated with decision, and in the end his will prevailed. His reasons for opposition were sufficient. Although he was himself a military man, he told the Lords of Trade plainly that soldiers made the very worst kind of settler: in his own phrase, ‘the least qualified, from their occupation as soldiers, of any men to establish new countries.’ Lawrence knew. He had seen the founding of Halifax and the difficulties of Cornwallis with the ‘King’s hard bargains.’ The disbanded soldier was drunken, insubordinate, idle. His way of life made it difficult for him to settle down. After being brought out to the colony at great expense, given land, building materials, tools and rations for a year, he took the first opportunity to sell his lot, or take up a roving adventurous life on board a privateer. Lawrence says: ‘Every soldier that has come into this province since the establishment of Halifax has either quitted it or become a dram-seller.’ The attempt to settle the disbanded 84th regiment in Pictou County at the end of the Revolutionary War proved a failure and justified the policy of Lawrence. He realized that the ultimate strength of any country must lie in the husbandman’s art and the tillage of the soil; he had a high regard for the sterling qualities of the New Englanders, their industry, their sobriety, their intelligence; and he also preferred them on account of their familiarity with new-world conditions. So the New Englanders settled the western part of Nova Scotia. Their mark is on every settlement they made to this day; and the beautiful valley of the Annapolis, one long, watered garden between its sheltering hills, testifies to their character and justifies the policy that planted them there.

A ‘Boom’ Time

The province had long been neglected and passed over; the work of settlement had been interrupted by war; now, after 1760, something like a ‘boom’ began in Nova Scotia real estate. Not only were the Acadian farms occupied, but in the many fine harbours which serrate the coast-line fishing villages sprang up. For years the value of Nova Scotia for New Englanders lay in its fisheries. Canso was long a fishing centre whence a hundred thousand quintals were taken every season. It was worth £50,000 a year to England. All observers testify to the ‘inexhaustible mines of fish’ wherever fish could swim, in every bight, bay and estuary. Such a town was Liverpool, founded in 1760 with seventy heads of families brought from Connecticut by Captain Doggett. In this harbour Champlain confiscated Rossignol’s vessel for illicit fur trading. These settlers did not come empty-handed. They had livestock and thirteen fishing schooners, some of which proceeded at once to the Banks. Those who remained set up three saw-mills and built houses. In the Napoleonic wars Liverpool became famous as a nest of privateers. From this port Godfrey sailed in the Rover on his victorious cruise against the Spaniard, as did Barss, Freeman, Collins and other forgotten sea-captains who could fight as well as trade.

Now Nova Scotia became a favourable field for speculation in land. Benjamin Franklin sent ‘mad Anthony Wayne’ to survey the land about the head of the Bay of Fundy where Parrsboro now stands. In 1767 the Philadelphia Company in which Franklin was interested dispatched the first handful of settlers in the brig Hope to the part of Eastern Nova Scotia now known as Pictou County. This first venture was followed in 1772 by the crazy, ill-found Hector from Loch Broom with a hundred and seventy Scottish Highlanders on board. From this year dates the true settlement of this noted county. Their sufferings and privations were more severe than those undergone by any other settlers. Eighteen had died on the passage; others reached the shore of the new world only to find a grave upon the beach. They were disappointed in the land assigned them, and they were refused provisions unless they occupied their grants. In their native Scotland they had little enough; their condition must have been that described by Dr Johnson in his Journey to the Hebrides; they landed in Nova Scotia in absolute destitution. ‘Those who remained had only rude camps to shelter themselves and their families during the winter, of the inclemency of which they had previously no conception. To obtain food for their families, they had to proceed to Truro, through a trackless forest and in deep snow, and there obtaining a bushel or two of potatoes, and sometimes a little flour, in exchange for their labour, they had to return carrying their small supply on their backs, or in winter dragging it on hand-sleds on the snow sometimes three or four feet deep.’ They spoke only Gaelic, as do many of their descendants at the present day, and they brought with them the belief in ghosts, witches, fairies, second-sight, which the Christian minister had to combat. By the year 1775 the settlement petitioned for representation in the assembly. The largest immigration took place in the early nineteenth century.

It is at this time of inflation that ‘Colonel’ Alexander MacNutt made his appearance in the province. He was an adventurous Irishman with generous ideas. The story of his life is full of curious events, for which corroboration is not always forthcoming. Huge tracts of land were granted to him and his associates—a million acres in one day—which were escheated later for failure to carry out the conditions of the grant. His substantial service to Nova Scotia was planting hard-working north of Ireland stock in what is now Colchester. The first shipment of 300 persons arrived in Halifax in October 1761: 170 followed in 1762. Governor Wilmot considered MacNutt ‘very active and zealous in promoting settlement,’ and his settlers ‘useful and valuable.’ In 1766 the townships of Truro, Onslow and Londonderry consisted of 694 persons, men, women and children: they raised in that year 7524 pounds of flax. They made their own linen and had even a little to spare for the neighbouring towns. Here non-Catholic Murphys and O’Briens are to be found in great numbers to the present day. What is now Cumberland County received an Irish immigration, as well as hundreds of settlers from the north of England, stalwart, loyal Yorkshire folk who brought with them the first fervours of Methodism and the tradition of Wesley.

Settlement spread beyond the bounds of the peninsula. Very soon a sufficient number of people had taken up land in what is now New Brunswick to entitle them to representation in the general assembly. By 1765 the St John’s River district was erected into a county and named Sunbury. In the same year the inhabitants of Sackville claimed the right to representation on the ground that there were eighty families in the settlement. In 1766 Joseph Mason took his seat in the assembly for Sackville; but apparently the first member for Sunbury was Charles Morris, Jr, in 1770. In 1765 the population of Cape Breton was large enough to warrant it being made a separate county with a Court of Quarter Sessions, an inferior Court of Common Pleas and the right to be represented in the assembly by two members.

The mania for speculation in Nova Scotia lands injured the province. Large tracts were taken up by private persons, army officers, members of the aristocracy, solely with the hope of being able to sell them at a profit. Whole townships were granted at a time. The reason assigned by Murdoch is probably the right one. At first no fees were charged for making grants; but the government officials soon turned it into a source of income. The larger the grants, the larger the fees. The year 1765 was noted for this extravagance with the public domain. On it Murdoch’s sober judgment runs: ‘I cannot help thinking it an ugly year and that the growth of the province was long retarded by the rashness of giving forest lands away from the power of the crown or of the people in such large masses.’

The Acadians Once More

Another factor in determining the present racial map of Nova Scotia was the repatriation of the Acadians. Almost as soon as they had been driven out they began to return to Acadia. By July 1, 1756, Lawrence learned that the Acadians sent to the most southerly colonies had procured small coasting vessels and were coming back. This he considers would be ‘fatal to His Majesty’s interest in this part of the world.’ Before the end of the month the news is more definite. Seven boats with ninety persons have reached Massachusetts. Their return is not illegal, for they are provided with passports from the governors of Georgia, South Carolina and New York. The government of Massachusetts was willing to detain them but wished to be recouped for all expenses, as it had already received more than its share of the exiles. The governor and council of Nova Scotia agreed to this proposal. Later in the same year a second homing band was stopped in its progress through the province of New York.

Not all the Acadians accepted their sentence of banishment without protest. Many escaped the nets of Lawrence altogether and took refuge beyond the Isthmus of Chignecto, where they aided in the general hostilities against the English. Broussard, a noted fighter, better known by his sobriquet ‘Beausoleil,’ fitted out a privateer and captured several vessels in the Bay of Fundy. In the waters of the gulf, also, Acadians captured twelve English vessels during the summer of 1758. But the downfall of Louisbourg and of Quebec put an end to their active opposition and drove them to surrender. In July 1759 Major E. J. Philipps received the thanks of the council for marching from Annapolis Royal and capturing 151 Acadians at Cape Sable: the prisoners were brought to Halifax and landed on George’s Island; later, they were transferred to England. In November two separate parties of Acadians, representing nearly nine hundred persons, living at Petitcodiac, Memramcook, Miramichi, Richibucto and Buctouche appeared before Frye at Fort Cumberland. They had not provisions enough to last until spring, and they wished to know on what terms the government would receive them. Frye agreed to take a number of them into the fort for the winter; and in January 1760 Lawrence decided to accept their submission and assist with provisions. Vessels were provided for such as could not march overland. After the fall of Quebec two hundred Acadians, under the leadership of two priests, Germain and Coquarte, came down the river to Fort Frederick, where Colonel Arbuthnot was in command. They ‘were in a starving condition,’ and preserved their lives by their surrender. Next year three hundred were sent from this district to Halifax as prisoners of war, where they received government rations and good wages for road-making. Abbé Menac brought in fifteen families to the English interest, though he was afterwards deported for publicly drinking the Pretender’s health. Privateering continued in the gulf until the end of 1761, when Captain R. Mackenzie of Montgomery’s Highlanders, who had replaced Frye at Fort Cumberland, organized a small expedition with great secrecy and rapidity. Sailing in two small vessels at the end of autumn, he surprised nearly eight hundred Acadians settled about Chaleur Bay and brought away 335 prisoners. The majority of the Acadians thus taken in different parts of the province were concentrated at Halifax; and again the old problem confronted the government. What was to be done with them? If they were settled in Nova Scotia, they could not be depended on; they would not accept the status of British subjects and take the oath of allegiance. If they were permitted to go to the other French colonies, especially those nearest at hand, they would strengthen the enemy. Deportation was tried again and proved a failure. In 1762 five transports laden with prisoners were sent to Boston, but there they were refused permission to land, and had to be brought back to Halifax at the expense of the provincial government. Two years later the committee of the council on settling the Acadians in Nova Scotia reported on their plan of distributing 165 families, consisting of nearly one thousand persons, in groups of ten throughout the province; but they would not take the necessary oath. Stiffened in their resistance by some French prisoners of war, they had formed a plan of emigrating to Cap François, the old capital of Hispaniola, now Hayti, in the West Indies, and thence up the Mississippi to settle in the country of the Illinois. Accordingly in November 1764 they hired vessels with their savings of four years and flitted, to the number of 600, to Cap François, whither several bands of their compatriots had preceded them. The total number of Acadians in the province this year is given as 2212; of whom 1056 were at Halifax, 227 at Fort Edward, 91 at Annapolis Royal, 338 at Fort Cumberland, 300 in the Island of St John, and 150 at Canso. The emigration of the 600 left the problem unsolved.

The actual cession of Canada to the British crown must have tended to reconcile the Acadians to the new order of things. In March 1767 the council ordered that the oath of allegiance should be administered to the French of St John’s River, who had expressed a desire to take it. In October eighteen French families were granted land in the neighbourhood of Barrington and Yarmouth, on the same indispensable condition. Some of the hundred and fifty Acadians who had gone to St Pierre and Miquelon in 1764 now returned of their own free will to become British subjects in Nova Scotia. Their example had a great effect upon the French within the province, who sent in deputations desiring permission to take the oaths to the king and have lands granted them. In December Lieutenant-Governor Francklin, who seems to have always acted with kindness and tact, presented the case of the Acadians about Annapolis Royal and Windsor before the council. They too received grants on the usual terms. The next year J. Morrison surveyed the district between Sissiboo River and St Mary’s Bay, ever since known as Clare. That autumn the pioneer settler, Joseph Dugas, put his young wife on horseback and brought her through the bush to the shore of St Mary’s Bay. The house he built is still standing and possessed by his descendants. Hither came Acadians from Massachusetts, and more lands were granted in 1771 and 1772. At the present day, while descendants of the Acadians are found in various parts of the province, such as Cape Breton and Halifax County, the bulk of the French population is concentrated in Clare. They retain their faith, their language, their ancient simple manners. Lining the road beside the blue waters of the bay, their white houses straggle along in one continuous village like the settlements that Nicholson saw stretching beside the shore of the Annapolis two centuries ago.

In 1768 Francklin reckons the Catholic population at 2000 souls. The Acadians have taken the oath of allegiance and declared their readiness to defend the government against French, Indian or other enemies. Later, they were enrolled in the provincial militia. In 1774 one hundred of the men of Clare volunteered for the regiment Governor Legge was trying to raise for the safety of the province. That single fact shows how completely they had accepted the new order.

Instructive Statistics

A very careful and detailed ‘Return of the several Townships in the Province of Nova Scotia, the first day of January, 1767’ presents a mass of instructive statistics. The total population is given as 13,374, of whom 6913, or more than half, are set down as ‘Americans’; next in order come the Irish, 2165. Germans ‘and other Foreigners’ amount to 1946; while the Acadians number 1265. In religion, 11,228 are Protestant; 2146 Roman Catholic. The property owned by this scant 14,000 of a population is surprising: they possess 1237 horses, 12,602 cattle, 7837 sheep, 3479 swine. The census of animals includes 22 goats. This population had 31 saw-mills, which in 1766 produced 1,271,000 feet of boards; and had set up besides 30 grist-mills. Nova Scotia owned 357 fishing-boats, 119 schooners and sloops and 3 square-rigged vessels. This fishing fleet harvested from the sea 50,143 quintals of cod, 10,667 barrels of salmon, mackerel and other fish and 639½ barrels of oil. Besides, they raised on their farms over 67,000 bushels of wheat, rye, pease, barley and oats. Such figures are eloquent of the energy and intelligence of the early settlers in Nova Scotia.

The Civil Government

During this period civil government was continued under constitutional forms. The assembly met regularly in Halifax, though at times it was difficult to obtain a quorum: the representation was extended with the growth of settlement; useful laws, some distinctly in advance of the times, were passed; but the popular body did not grow, as it should have grown, in dignity and influence. The council remained supreme and independent. One reason was the dual control of the public purse. The revenue was made up partly by low duties on rum, sugar, tea, chocolate, coffee and partly by an annual vote of the imperial parliament. Both together were insufficient to meet the provincial debt, which grew from £4500 in 1762 to £26,000 in 1775, causing a great deal of alarm in the minds of these frugal legislators. The popular assembly had the spending of the revenue raised locally, but the council did what it pleased with the annual grant from Great Britain. ‘The council had not only much public money to give away, but held all the best local offices themselves, and exercised the almost exclusive patronage of all others, whether of honor or emolument; and this anomalous and unconstitutional state of things endured far into’ the nineteenth century. Inevitably friction arose between these two bodies, and obviated the need of political parties in the assembly.

Initiative lay with the council. Immediately after the dissolution of the first assembly in 1759, the council decided that it should consist of twenty-two members, as well as the number that should constitute a quorum, the property qualification of voters, the distribution of the seats. This alteration and rearrangement of the constitution, Murdoch justly calls ‘a great stretch of power in the governor and council.’ On the death of Lawrence the council assumed the reins of government, Chief Justice Belcher acting as governor. On the death of George iii it decided that the assembly was ipso facto dissolved and that writs should issue for a new election. In 1765 the house passed an act fixing the number of representatives for the different counties and townships. It would have prevented further tampering with the constitution of the assembly by the council; but the crown not merely disallowed this act but forbade the passage of any such legislation in the future. Besides, the governor and council could punish objectionable members of the assembly by dismissing them from all civil and military posts held under government. Against such power it was well-nigh hopeless to struggle.

Still, the house never lost sight of most important principles, or failed to assert them on occasion. They viewed with alarm the growth of the provincial debt. They pleaded debt as an excuse for not voting money to pay for presents to the Indians, for Governor Wilmot’s funeral expenses, for completing the church at Lunenburg, for aiding distressed settlers. In 1766 they complained that money had been paid out which they had not voted; and two years later they objected to an item of over £1000 in the public accounts, ‘as not provided for by any funds or allowed by any vote or resolution of the general assembly.’ They were still extremely sensitive on the point of honour. Mr Woodmass quarrelled with the speaker over a technicality in the matter of adjournment, and so far forgot himself as to call him a ‘scoundrel,’ for which the speaker struck him. The house held that Woodmass was in the wrong, and forced him to apologize before he could take his seat. In 1762 the house learned, by a side wind, that the Lords of Trade were dissatisfied with the conduct of some of their number, and they requested the governor to inform them of what they were accused, that they might have the opportunity of clearing themselves. Chief Justice Belcher, as lieutenant-governor, returned a cavalier answer; and one member moved that ‘a message be sent to the lieutenant-governor that they think it inconsistent with the honour of the house to do any more business till his Honor will declare who these members are and the crimes that have brought them under the displeasure of the lords of trade.’ The motion was seconded but voted down. Later, five members, Salter, Binney, Gerrish, the author of the motion, Knaut and West, were dismissed from all employments civil and military. Their offence apparently was not attending the assembly the preceding autumn. The house was not always in the right, as when it approved the principle of farming the taxes; but in general its adherence to principle, its public spirit, its grasp of affairs are worthy of all praise. Nor perhaps is the little oligarchy called the council to be too severely blamed for not putting into practice modern democratic ideas of government. Its paternalism was strictly in accordance with that age.

The administration of the law continued to be perfectly regular. The machinery included justices of the peace, inferior or county courts in two instances, and the Supreme Court. For some time this consisted of one person, Chief Justice Belcher. In 1763 the house proposed that two judges be associated with him, for the excellent reason that so important a court should not consist of ‘one man, however capable and upright.’ In 1775 Governor Legge recommended the assembly to make permanent provision for two such assistant judges. The circuits of the Supreme Court were first established in the previous year, by an act which authorized the court to be held at Cumberland, King’s and Annapolis Counties. When the Revolutionary War broke out, the judges deemed it inexpedient as well as unsafe for themselves to attend circuit in the spring, and the courts were postponed until September.

While the interior development of the province proceeded thus peacefully, commotions of the outer world affected it but slightly. Towards the end of the Seven Years’ War the danger of invasion flared up again. During the summer of 1762 a small French squadron captured St John’s in Newfoundland. Halifax was thrown into a panic. Martial law was proclaimed. Extraordinary measures were taken to prevent action by the Acadians and the Indians. Among other precautions, a vessel of war was moored in the North-West Arm behind a boom, to prevent Halifax being assailed on the flank, a manœuvre which was repeated later. It is easy at this distance to smile at what seems needless anxiety, but the danger was very real for the time being, and the need of speedy action imperative. Soon a British force recaptured St John’s and the panic came to an end.

Nova Scotia Loyal in Time of Stress

Much stranger to modern eyes than this excitement at the approach of danger was the curious apathy of Nova Scotia over a matter which threw her thirteen sister colonies into a fever of political agitation. This was the unlucky Stamp Act of 1765 imposed by Great Britain upon the colonies to meet the cost of the Seven Years’ War. While the other colonies were burning the obnoxious act in public and compelling the stamp distributors not to perform their duty, Nova Scotia accepted it with complete passivity. The reasons given by Murdoch are doubtless valid. The trouble and expense undergone by the mother country in conquering the province, the struggles with the Indians and the Acadians, the liberal treatment of the settlers from New England who were transported free of charge and endowed with excellent cleared farms, the expenditure of public money due to the presence of military and naval forces in the province, all tended to suppress criticism and encourage obedience. That the act was obeyed in Nova Scotia is attested by the existence of many stamped deeds, which must have been executed between the passage of the bill and its repeal in the following year.

The official attitude of Nova Scotia was directly opposed to that of all other colonies. The circular letter issued by the Massachusetts Assembly in 1768 and addressed to the speaker of the Nova Scotia Assembly was shown by him to Lieutenant-Governor Francklin, who sent it to Lord Shelburne. It was not read in the house, or answered. The colony receives repeated official commendations for its ‘most noble and submissive obedience,’ and the reply of the house to the governor’s speech in 1767 approaches the slavish in such expressions as ‘We are free to own our dependance,’ ‘We shall ever esteem ourselves happy, my Lord, when we have opportunity to shew the obedience we owe to the king, and our ready submission to the laws of the British parliament.’ When the Philadelphia Congress of 1774 transmitted its resolutions to the speaker of the house, no notice was taken of them, and the accompanying threat of non-intercourse was disregarded. As early as 1775 Governor Legge comments on ‘the great prejudice against this province’ felt by the other colonies. This ‘prejudice’ became more and more intense during the two wars with Great Britain, and was long in dying out.

As the struggle was renewed in 1773 over the duties on tea and glass, and the political agitation became fiercer than ever, signs were not wanting that even in Nova Scotia there were those who sympathized with the upholders of colonial rights. It could hardly be otherwise. The most important settlers were all from New England, where they had left kith and kin, with whom they had not lost touch. They had been removed from their environment little more than a decade when the tension between Britain and her colonies ended in war. The wonder is not that they sympathized with the ‘rebels,’ but that they refrained from joining them.

The famous incident of the Boston tea riot had its faint counterpart in Halifax. In September 1774 William Smith, a merchant who was also a judge of the Inferior Court for Halifax County, received a quantity of tea from New England, not the property of the East India Company. Believing, as he stated before the council, that the people of Halifax would be ‘prejudiced against the tea’ if they knew that it was consigned by the East India Company, he sent a circular letter with his compliments to the general traders, requesting them to meet him at Rider’s, ‘on business of consequence.’ He also informed Governor Legge of his intention, which was merely to consult his fellow-merchants as to the disposal of his consignment. Other citizens did not take the same view. John Newton prevented the meeting at Rider’s, for which he received the official thanks of the council, while Smith, in spite of his protest that he would not have done so had he known that his action was illegal or improper, was dismissed from all the offices which he held under government.

Later in the same month his friend and adviser, John Fillis, who had represented both Halifax and Barrington in the assembly and carried a picture of Wilkes in his watch, was summoned before the council to answer the charges brought against him by George Henry Monk. Monk had a cargo of the East India Company’s tea consigned to him, and had tried to induce William Smith to aid in its sale. Smith declared that it was ‘against his principles’ to do so, but in the end agreed to Monk’s proposal. At the landing of this tea there was evidently some excitement on the wharf. Monk testified that ‘many people complained against the landing of it, particularly Mr Fillis, who declared that the measures of the government were oppressive, that he had thoroughly considered it, and was firmly of that opinion.’ He also ‘used several arguments to dissuade the purchase of it.’ Fillis admitted the charges, and, like Smith, was removed from all posts held by him under government. Some time after, Governor Legge reported that since ‘the affair of Fillis and Smith’ the inhabitants behave with great decorum; and further, that the East India Company’s tea had been purchased and disposed of throughout the country. Fillis and Smith remained under suspicion. The following year they complained of defamatory reports that they had fired a quantity of hay intended for Howe’s cavalry in Boston. The house cleared their characters by a strongly worded resolution. The incident is illuminating. Smith’s action was due to the fact that the tea was from New England; and Fillis protested against landing East India Company’s tea. It would seem that the city was divided in feeling in regard to the obnoxious tax, but Fillis and Smith received no support in their protests against it.

The temper of Nova Scotia at the crisis of actual disruption is most justly expressed in a long memorial addressed to the king and both houses of parliament in June 1775. It manifests deep concern regarding the ‘civil discord ... impending all over British America.’ ‘We tremble at the gloomy prospect before us. We feel for our gracious king—we feel for our mother country, of which many of us are natives—we feel for the British American race, once the most loyal, virtuous and happy of mankind.’ The sympathies of the petitioners were naturally divided. They profess their loyalty to the king and constitution in full and unmistakable terms, while it is plain, at the same time, that there is need of many reforms of the government of the province. One was vote by ballot. Other measures would limit the great powers of the council for interference with the popular will. Legge, the governor, a narrow, suspicious, domineering and ill-balanced man, dispatched a counter-blast. To his mind the address ‘sets forth some pretended grievances, but principally contains some projection for the alteration of government upon the American system of popularity, which, if attended to, may produce the same convulsions in this as in the other provinces.’ The grievances of the house went unredressed.

The Expulsion of the Acadians and the outbreak of the American Revolution mark the limits of a clearly defined period of construction in provincial history. In the beginning the best lands were swept bare of inhabitants. As soon as peace made it possible, the distinctive and determining plantation of the province took place. The New Englanders settled the western part, the valley of the Annapolis, the districts at the head of Fundy, and occupied important harbours on the Atlantic side. The Irish spread from the centre eastward. The Scots had taken seizin of the Pictou district. The Island of Cape Breton was organized as a county. Even the Acadians had returned, to form a French ‘island’ in Clare. The Germans were already established in the town and county of Lunenburg. The eastern portion had yet to receive some important contributions; but practically all the territorial divisions were made and given the familiar names by which they are known to-day. Representative institutions were established and the regular administration of the law. The internal organization was fairly complete.

The period begins with one crisis, the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War, and ends with another, the American Revolution. For a time it looked as if British power had come to an end in America. All the colonies but two had rebelled against the mother country. In 1775 the newly won province of Canada was overrun by Montgomery in his swift daring raid. British authority hardly extended beyond the reach of Sir Guy Carleton’s voice; Nova Scotia was cajoled, threatened, attacked, harassed, but yet stood firm. The reasons why are interesting to explore and understand.

I
PIONEER DAYS

After the fall of Port Royal in 1710 the lilies of Old France were destined never again to wave over the ancient fortress. An English garrison was established there and public officers were appointed, who were supposed to have jurisdiction not only in the peninsula of Nova Scotia but also over the territory north of the Bay of Fundy, which is now the Province of New Brunswick.

Under the Treaty of Utrecht there was a nominal transfer of allegiance on the part of the Acadians, but it could not be expected that they would become British subjects in a day. No really serious attempt was made to induce English-speaking people to settle in the province until the lapse of half a century, and in the meanwhile Nova Scotia continued to be almost as much a French colony as it had been under the name of Acadia. As for the territory north of the Bay of Fundy, there was no attempt at British occupation. The French stoutly insisted that it had never been ceded to Great Britain and that it was not even a part of Acadia, but a part of the ‘Continent of Canada.’ They protested against any attempt on the part of the English to exercise jurisdiction in that quarter. The question of the limits of Acadia was for some years in dispute and was not finally settled until the conquest of Canada in 1759.

During the years the question was in dispute the French settlements north of the isthmus grew apace. The marsh-lands of Westmorland and Albert were gradually reclaimed and improved; a number of Acadians made a settlement on the River St John and others established themselves on the Miramichi. In the course of time we find them at various places along the eastern shore of New Brunswick as far north as Nipisiguit on Chaleur Bay. At the sorrowful period of the Expulsion not less than three thousand Acadians were living in what is now New Brunswick. Nearly one half of them were deported at different times. Some fled to Louisbourg and others to the Islands of St Pierre and Miquelon or to Quebec. But in the fastnesses of the wilderness there remained a remnant which, being joined by returning exiles from various quarters, became the progenitors of the large number of Acadians who now form an important element of the New Brunswick people.

The period of English occupation of Western New Brunswick dates from September 20, 1758, when Brigadier-General Monckton landed with two thousand troops at the mouth of the River St John and took possession of the old French fort on the west side of the harbour. Monckton’s soldiers subsequently went up the river and destroyed the Acadian settlements; they also destroyed a thriving settlement on the Petitcodiac. The fort at the mouth of the St John was rebuilt and called Fort Frederick. Under its protection English settlements were established a few years later, at Portland Point, just across the harbour, and at Maugerville, sixty-five miles up the river, by colonists from Massachusetts. Captain Francis Peabody was the leading man of the Maugerville colony, which was established in 1762. James Simonds and James White were the founders of the settlement made two years later at the mouth of the river.

The Indians accepted the new régime—not very cordially, it is true—and entered into a treaty under which trading posts were established for them at Fort Frederick and other convenient places. They did not seriously interfere with the occupation of the country by the English, and by the close of the year 1765 there were very promising settlements at Maugerville, Sackville, Chignecto and at the mouth of the River St John. Infant settlements began to spring up at Passamaquoddy and Miramichi. The townships along the Petitcodiac River—Hopewell, Hillsboro and Monckton—began to thrive; and the townships on the St John—Conway, Amesbury, Gage, Burton, Sunbury and Newtown—began to attract attention. Progress, however, was slow, and when Michael Francklin’s census was taken in 1766 hardly 1200 English-speaking people were to be found north of the Bay of Fundy.

Maugerville, Sackville and Cumberland were merely New England communities planted in Nova Scotia, with all the peculiarities, prejudices and opinions of the communities from which they had emigrated. This fact became of importance in the Revolutionary War.

In one respect the year 1765 was an unfortunate one. Excessively large grants of the best land on the St John, Miramichi and Petitcodiac Rivers and at Passamaquoddy were made to army and navy officers, Halifax merchants, government officials and others. The majority were speculators who made little attempt to settle their lands. Their patents, however, sufficed to lock up the lands, and when the loyalists arrived in 1783 a tedious process in the Court of Escheats was necessary before they could be obtained for settlement. In the end most of these grants reverted to the crown. The attempt to develop the country by granting large estates to promoters of settlement, from which so much was expected, almost always ended in failure. Captain Owen, it is true, was able to place some thirty-eight settlers on the Island of Campobello, and the companies that had grants of Hillsboro, Monckton and Hopewell brought a few Pennsylvanian German settlers to their lands. Captain Spry, Colonel Kemble and others did a little to promote the settlement of their lands on the River St John. But, on the whole, the policy of giving immense tracts to companies or individuals not only failed to accomplish what was expected, but also greatly impeded settlement at a later period.

The ‘North Shore’ was not entirely lost sight of. In 1765 William Davidson of Inverness, Scotland, settled at Wilson’s Point on the Miramichi, where he started a salmon fishery and engaged in trade and shipbuilding. He was joined by others of his countrymen, some directly from Scotland and some from Prince Edward Island, and ere long upwards of thirty families were settled along the river below Wilson’s Point. The settlement of Restigouche began about the year 1775, when Shoolbred and Smith, two English traders, established a salmon fishery at the head of the tide near the site of the modern town of Campbellton. Another trading post was established about the same time by Commodore Walker at Alston Point, near the present town of Bathurst.

But, after all, it cannot be claimed that the portion of Nova Scotia now known as the Province of New Brunswick made much of a figure in history in the years that preceded the American Revolution. Still, the settlements were slowly and steadily growing. In 1772, and the years immediately ensuing, the townships of Sackville and Cumberland received quite a notable addition in the arrival of some hundreds of English settlers, all of them from Yorkshire. These immigrants were a thoroughly loyal body of people and remained constant in their allegiance to the king at a time when many of the settlers from New England were seeking to subvert the authority that had granted them the lands on which they lived. The descendants of the Yorkshire settlers are numerous and influential in the county of Westmorland.

The western part of New Brunswick was erected into a county under the name of Sunbury in 1765. The name was selected as a compliment to ‘the father of the Colonies,’ the Earl of Halifax, president of the Lords of Trade and Plantations, whose second title was Viscount Sunbury. The county was allowed two members in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, and the townships of Sackville and Cumberland had each a representative. Township representation was abolished when the Province of New Brunswick was organized in 1784 and most of the townships became parishes.

We have no complete census of the New Brunswick settlements on the eve of the American Revolution, but the number of English-speaking people was little more than 2500 and that of the Acadians about 1500 souls. The country was very sparsely peopled, and the life of the inhabitants was very primitive. Educational and religious privileges were few. A uniform method of thinking and acting prevailed, and it was considered almost an impropriety for one man to assume to be more learned, religious or polite than his neighbour. The older people were tenacious of the customs of their ancestors. Every man planted, sowed, ploughed, hoed and gathered in his crops as his grandfather had done before him. He salted down the same quantity of beef and pork, wore the same kind of stockings, and at table said grace with his wife and children in accordance with the traditions of many generations.

There was an element among the loyalists that viewed the ‘old inhabitants’ with a supercilious eye, and even went so far as to intimate that they were of the ‘bow and arrow breed,’ an imputation that, needless to say, was warmly resented.

While the life of the pioneer settlers was primitive and narrow, they nevertheless enjoyed a fair measure of the comforts of life, and their outlook was by no means unpromising when the unhappy War of the Revolution threw the whole continent into confusion.

The close of the war with France had left the people of the English colonies in America free from the dangers that so long had menaced them. One thing, too, the war had accomplished: it had taught them how to fight. The colonial troops had served side by side with England’s veterans and knew both their strength and their weaknesses. When the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763, Vergennes, the sagacious French ambassador and diplomat, predicted that England would soon repent having removed the only check that would keep her colonies in awe. ‘They will stand no longer,’ he said, ‘in need of her protection; she will call upon them to contribute towards supporting the burden they have helped to place upon her, and they will answer by striking off all dependence.’

II
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Vergennes’ view is said to have been shared by Lord Hardwicke and others in England, but the tide of opinion ran strongly in the opposite direction. In America Benjamin Franklin ridiculed as a ‘visionary fear’ the idea that the colonies would ever combine against the mother country. Yet within a few years Franklin was probably quite as busily engaged as any other man living in promoting the ‘visionary fear’ which he had so lately ridiculed.

The Revolution successfully vindicated some correct principles of government, but it was attended by circumstances that have cast discredit upon its active promoters. Samuel Adams, ‘the father of the Revolution,’ was a good representative of the type of men who were chiefly responsible for fanning into a flame the spark of discord created by the imposition of the stamp duties. He was one who had an antipathy to British rule. A living United States writer says: ‘Adams was poor, simple, ostentatiously austere. The blended influence of Calvinistic theology and republican principles had indurated his whole character. He hated monarchy and the Episcopal Church, all privileged classes and all who were invested with dignity and rank, with a fierce hatred. He was the first to foresee and to desire an armed struggle.’

The irritation in America caused by the Navigation Act and the Stamp Act was perhaps not unnatural, but the irritation was fomented by interested parties until the voice of reason was lost in the voice of passion. The revenue laws were constantly violated by Hancock and his contemporaries. Smuggling was very lucrative and therefore popular, and any attempt to interfere with it was fiercely resented. Probably nine-tenths of all the tea, wine, fruit, sugar and molasses consumed in the colonies were smuggled. The English ministry made an attempt to check this well-nigh universal law-breaking and at the same time to help its own depleted treasury. The result was disastrous.

But there was a class of men in America who were proud of their citizenship in the British Empire and who had no desire to shrink from their share of the burden of maintaining it, who remembered with gratitude the sacrifices that England had made for her colonies and who realized the great advantage of race unity. These men were the United Empire Loyalists, and among them were the founders of New Brunswick. Adam Smith, writing in 1776, said that parliament in attempting to exercise its supposed right—whether well or ill grounded—of taxing the colonies had never up to that time demanded of them anything which even approached a just proportion of what was paid by their fellow-subjects at home. In the wars with France millions of pounds sterling were remitted to America to pay the men of the colonies for fighting in their own cause.

Most of the loyalists ended their days in poverty and exile, and, as is not unusual with the supporters of a beaten cause, history has paid but a scanty tribute to their memory. But they comprised some of the best and ablest men America has ever produced, and they contended for an ideal that is better appreciated as the years pass on. In the language of the late Professor Moses Coit Tyler of Cornell: ‘The side of the Loyalists in the Revolutionary contest was even in argument not a weak one, and in motive and sentiment not a base one, and in devotion and self-sacrifice not an unheroic one.’

Among the proscribed and banished loyalists who came to New Brunswick were members of old historic families—Winslow, Chipman, Sewell, Leonard, Coffin, Oliver, Putnam, Bliss and Upham—families of which the exiled members were not one whit behind those who remained in intelligence, social influence and moral worth. Harvard College at this period lost nearly all her leading men—more than two hundred of her graduates being numbered among the loyalists.

At a very early period in the contest riotous mobs, acting under the direction of unscrupulous leaders, laid violent hands upon the persons and property of their neighbours who remained loyal to the king. Not content with driving them from their homes, they were in many instances subjected to gross personal outrages and insults. Many of those who refused to join in rebellion were men of wealth and standing, and it was considered quite proper that they should be deprived of their possessions, banished and forbidden to return under penalty of death. They found a temporary asylum in New York and, at the close of the war, were crowded into ships, with the gates of their country barred for ever behind them.

These general observations are due to the founders of the Province of New Brunswick. This, however, is not the place to consider in detail the story of the Revolution, however congenial the task. It must suffice to say that royal folly in England and demagogic fanaticism in America joined hands to prevent a constitutional settlement of the matters in dispute, brought about a bloody civil war, and finally effected a termination of the quarrel unlooked for by either party at its commencement.

The majority of the people living on the St John River and in the vicinity of Fort Cumberland, at the head of the Bay of Fundy, sympathized with their kinsmen of Massachusetts, although there were notable exceptions. The province at the commencement of the war was in a particularly defenceless state, the garrisons having been withdrawn to reinforce the troops in Boston.

In August 1775 some Machias marauders entered St John Harbour, took possession of a vessel laden with provisions for the army in Boston, and burned the barracks and other buildings at Fort Frederick. From this time until the erection of Fort Howe, more than three years later, the settlers were exposed to the attacks of privateers and marauders. It was the same all around the shores of the Atlantic provinces. Even at Miramichi and Richibucto privateers robbed and plundered the isolated settlements. Their cruel depredations in the end provoked remonstrance on the part of some of the leaders of their own party. Colonel John Allan wrote to the authorities of Massachusetts that ‘such proceedings will occasion more Torys than 100 such expeditions will make good.’ Many of the settlers at the mouth of the St John abandoned their lands and moved up the river for greater security. James Simonds, the pioneer of the settlement, was one of these. For the same reason the settlement at Miramichi was temporarily abandoned by its founder, William Davidson, who with many of those in his employment sought refuge at Maugerville.

Another hostile act was attempted by the people of Machias of a more ambitious nature than the destruction of Fort Frederick. This was an attempt to take Fort Cumberland, where Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Goreham held command. The leader of the expedition, Jonathan Eddy, had represented Cumberland township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. An ardent sympathizer with the revolutionary party, he had retired to Machias and there conceived the design of bringing Nova Scotia into line with the other colonies. His unexpected attempt to capture Fort Cumberland created some consternation at the outset, but in the end proved a fiasco. His force only numbered about two hundred, including twenty-seven white men and sixteen Indians from the St John River. The principal achievement of the expedition was the capture of a provision sloop that had been left stranded on a mud flat by the ebbing tide. All attempts on the fort failed, and after nearly three weeks spent fruitlessly a British sloop-of-war arrived with succour for the garrison. Major Batt and Captain Studholme landed at the head of the relieving party and the next morning attacked Eddy’s position, completely routing his troops. Colonel Goreham, having learned that most of the people of the vicinity who had been in arms were now convinced of their error, issued a proclamation offering pardon to all who should surrender within four days, with the exception of Eddy, Allan and three others, for whose apprehension large rewards were offered. Upwards of one hundred persons took advantage of the offer of amnesty and surrendered within the time named. Eddy and the remainder fled to Maugerville by the old portage route from Chignecto to the St John. Their arrival in a very sorry plight had a wholesome effect on the people of that district, most of whom had signed a document to the effect that they were desirous of sharing with their kinsmen of Massachusetts the event of the ‘struggle for liberty.’

It would be a mistake to suppose that all the people on the St John were tainted with the spirit of rebellion. A considerable number held aloof and others actively opposed the revolutionary party. John Allan, who tried to stir up sedition on the river a little later, was obliged to admit that ‘some of the inhabitants were great zealots for Britain.’

The Bay of Fundy continued to be infested with pirates and picaroons to such an extent that the war vessels Vulture, Hope and Albany were sent there at various times to put a stop to their operations. They were not entirely successful, for the privateers were able to steal past the larger vessels in the night and in fogs and continue their depredations.

The next year John Allan again endeavoured to establish a post on the St John in order to gain over the Indians and stir up the sympathizers with the revolutionists to co-operate with their friends to the westward. Colonel Goold and Captain Studholme were sent with an armed party to counteract his design. Upon their arrival Allan promptly decamped. Goold told the Maugerville people very plainly that the tenure of their possessions depended upon their future conduct, and expressed his surprise that they should allow a few incendiaries, who had constituted themselves a committee, to disturb the public tranquillity. He hoped the word ‘committee’ had nothing so terrible in its sound as to frighten those who were loyal. ‘Why not,’ he said, ‘form a Committee in favour of Government and see which is strongest? I will throw myself into your scale, and make no doubt but we shall over-balance these mighty law-givers.’

Goold administered the oath of allegiance to the settlers and returned to Halifax. His mission was so far successful that the people, as a body, gave no more trouble during the war. John Allan, however, made an attempt to undo what had been accomplished, and soon after we find him again on the St John with an armed party, many of whom were refugees from the head of the Bay of Fundy. Their first act was to seize the leading men at St John—William Hazen, James Simonds and James White—and to post a guard of sixty men at the mouth of the river. As Allan’s mission was chiefly to the Indians, he made his headquarters at their village of Aukpaque—seven miles above Fredericton. By flattery, promises and presents he gained their confidence and goodwill. The white settlers living on the river, with the exception of three or four persons, held aloof, having learned wisdom by experience.

Captain Gilfred Studholme was once more sent to put a stop to Allan’s proceedings. He landed a party of one hundred and twenty of his men at a cove a little to the west of the harbour of St John, and proceeding through the woods attacked the enemy, under Captain West, near what is now Fairville, killing eight of their number and dispersing the rest. West and his men made all speed to Machias by way of the Oromocto and Magaguadavic waters. The pursuers turned their attention to Allan, who, warned in time, left Aukpaque in hot haste and escaped by way of Eel River and the St Croix lakes, arriving at Machias after a journey rendered intolerable by the summer heat, the lowness of the streams and the abundance of flies. He was accompanied by most of the Indians—nearly five hundred. It was his aim to keep them under his control and he encouraged the exodus all he could. The result, however, was a disappointment. The Indians achieved but little, and in the end they deserted him.

The depredations of the privateers continued and were extended to all parts of the coast. The extensive establishment of Hazen, Simonds and White at St John was repeatedly plundered. Late in the autumn of 1777 a sloop of eight guns entered the harbour. Her captain, who bore the singular name of A. Greene Crabtree, proved a particularly rapacious and unwelcome visitor and the settlers fled to the woods to escape the vandalism of his crew. From the store of Hazen, Simonds and White alone twenty-one boat-loads of valuable goods were taken.

The military authorities at Halifax were again appealed to, and a body of troops was sent to St John, under the command of Captain Studholme, with instructions to remain and repair Fort Frederick or build a new fort. Studholme brought with him the frame of a blockhouse and some six-pounders. It was late in November, but with the aid of the inhabitants a strong blockhouse was erected, defences were thrown up, and the garrison was snugly housed before the cold weather set in. The site chosen by Studholme for his post was a high, rocky hill on the east side of the harbour. The situation of Fort Frederick was low and commanded by higher ground, and it was not well adapted for the protection of the settlers, most of whom lived at Portland Point across the harbour. The new fortification was called Fort Howe, in honour of the commander-in-chief of the forces in America. The site still bears the name.

Studholme was an energetic and capable officer, and speedily made his post so secure that the settlers on the St John were not again molested. Crabtree, it is true, came once more, but the sight of the British flag waving over the ramparts of Fort Howe made him beat a hasty retreat. The following summer the Indians sent a letter to Studholme, which was virtually a declaration of war; but the danger of an Indian uprising was averted by the efforts of Michael Francklin, the Indian agent, and his deputy James White. They obtained the invaluable aid of Father Bourg, one of the French missionaries, and held a grand powwow with representatives of the various tribes at Fort Howe, and on September 24, 1778, a treaty was solemnly signed. The Micmacs as well as the Malecites were represented at the deliberations. A large sum was spent in entertaining the chiefs and captains and upwards of two thousand dollars’ worth of presents made to them on the occasion. From this time until the close of the war they remained quiet.

Whether so intended or not, the policy of the Indians during the war was rather clever. Inclining now to the one side and now to the other, they kept the contending parties constantly on the qui vive. They were capable of doing serious injury, and their attitude was so uncertain that unusual efforts were made by both parties to gain their support. In consequence favours were showered upon them, ornaments and trinkets, powder and shot, clothing and provisions; in fact, they may be said to have lived at the joint expense of the contestants until hostilities ended. They were distrusted, even after the treaty was signed, and to afford greater security to the settlers on the St John a blockhouse was built at the mouth of the Oromocto and a small garrison placed there under the command of Lieutenant Connor. This post was named Fort Hughes.

At this time dispatches were frequently sent from Halifax to Quebec by way of the St John River. This route had formerly been much used by the French. The Indians had used it from time immemorial. The portage route from the St Lawrence to the Madawaska was improved by General Haldimand. It is worthy of note that a message sent by Lieutenant Connor from Oromocto conveyed to Haldimand the first information of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, an event that was virtually the termination of the war.

An important industry had now sprung into being. This was the manufacture of masts for the royal navy. Not long before the war began Surveyor-General Morris had recommended a reservation of the timber lands on the River St John, above the settlements then existing, as a most suitable tract for supplying masts for the king’s ships. The pines of this region were in many cases very large, sound and good. There was also a black spruce, fit for yards and topmasts and other purposes. The importance to coming generations of the black spruce, Charles Morris little dreamed of. It was owing to his recommendation that the valley of the upper St John was ungranted when the loyalists arrived, and was thus available for settlement.

William Davidson may very fairly be considered as the pioneer lumberman of New Brunswick. Being in Halifax in October 1779, and finding that the English government was anxious to procure white pine masts, he offered to deliver them in such quantities as were desired. A contract was immediately entered into for a certain number of masts, yards, bowsprits and timber, to be delivered at Fort Howe. Scarcely had Davidson got to work when his mast-cutters were threatened by the Indians. It was found that the disturbing influence emanated, as usual, from Machias. Michael Francklin accordingly wrote to Pierre Thomas, the head chief of the Malecites: ‘My Brother—King George wants masts for his ships and has employed people to provide them on your river, depending on you to protect the workmen in cutting them down and conveying them to Fort Howe. The Governor sends you some presents which Major Studholme will deliver you. They are intended to bind fast the promise that you will protect the mast cutters.’ The presents included a goodly assortment of blankets, clothing, powder and shot, rings, ribbons, etc. etc., and finally, ‘one cask of wine sent by Mr Francklin for the squaws and such men as do not drink rum.’ There was no more trouble with the Indians.

Some of the white pines were as much as six feet in diameter, towering to an immense height above the surrounding forest. The business developed rapidly and ere long nearly every settler was more or less concerned in it. Captain John Munro wrote to General Haldimand in 1783 that the finest masts and spars he had ever seen were cut on the River St John, and that masts sufficient to load ten ships and valued at more than £6000 were stored in the mast dock near Fort Howe.

During the latter years of the Revolution a good many loyalists, who had been driven from their homes and subjected to personal violence, found their way to Nova Scotia. Those who came to Fort Howe were cordially received by the commanding officer.

The final outcome of the Revolution was that all the colonies that had been settled by the English were lost, while those they had wrested from France were preserved to the crown. This was certainly a singular thing. Another curious circumstance was that France should have been largely instrumental in enabling the colonies, which had so greatly injured her in the past, to achieve their independence, and on the other hand Canada proved loyal to England.

III
THE COMING OF THE LOYALISTS

Had the United States leaders been wise they would have encouraged those who had espoused the royal cause to remain and assist in building up the nation they had founded. Instead of this they drove the loyalists out, poor in purse but rich in experience, determination, energy, education, intellect and the other qualities that build up states. They drove them out, seventy thousand strong, to build up a rival nation at their very doors, which perhaps would never have had an existence but for the folly of those who persecuted the loyalists. Had it not been for their banishment, the part of Nova Scotia which is now New Brunswick would have long continued with a sparse population. Certainly it could never have hoped to obtain so excellent a body of settlers as the enterprising, energetic and intelligent people who were compelled to emigrate thither by the attitude of the people of the United States in 1783. There have been times when the hold of the English government upon British North America would have been slight but for the antipathy of the loyalists to their former fellow-countrymen.

There was undoubtedly a large number of loyalists who would gladly have returned to their former homes, but at the mention of such a thing such a storm of threats and menaces broke forth that it was seen to be impossible. The English plenipotentiaries had strongly insisted on the insertion of a clause for their protection in the treaty of peace, and it was agreed that Congress should earnestly recommend the legislatures of the respective states to provide for the restitution of estates, rights and properties in all instances where the owners had not borne arms against the United States. Congress made the recommendation, but it was entirely ignored by the individual states. The loyalists who attempted to return were treated with the utmost contumely and disdain, in some cases tarred and feathered or tied up and whipped in the most inhuman manner. Town meetings, held all over the country, passed resolutions couched in the most violent language, threatening with dire vengeance any who should venture to return. The town of Boston declared: ‘That after so wicked a conspiracy against the just rights and liberties of mankind by certain ingrates, natives of these States, who have been refugees and declared traitors to their country, it is the opinion of this town that they ought never to be suffered to return, but be excluded from having lot or portion among us.’ In the little State of Delaware a resolution was adopted: ‘To expel all refugees, and if any of those whom we are obliged to consider worse than robbers, or even common murderers, shall be found among us, we do pledge ourselves by the sacred ties of honour to be united and stand by each other in expelling them from among us by those powers which nature has given us.’

The vanguard of the ten thousand loyalists who settled on the St John River began to make its appearance early in 1782, when Captain Simon Baxter and others, who had been proscribed and banished, arrived at Fort Howe. Later in the year came Amos Botsford, Samuel Cummings and Frederick Hauser, the accredited agents of a large company of New York and Connecticut loyalists who desired to find a suitable place of settlement. Nova Scotia had been early fixed upon as the best place of refuge for the exiles, for it had abundance of good land, and its climate was not dissimilar to that of New England. Several associations were formed in New York to further the plans of those who desired to live under the British flag. Sir Guy Carleton (afterwards Lord Dorchester) informed them that ships would be provided to transport them to their destination, provisions furnished for the voyage, and necessary supplies provided after their arrival until they were fairly settled and able to do for themselves. Tracts of land conveniently situated were promised, together with necessary tools and implements for farming and boards and shingles for their dwellings. Free grants of lands were promised for the maintenance of their churches and schools. These and other like encouragements served to revive their drooping spirits.

At Sir Guy Carleton’s suggestion advance agents were sent to examine the vacant lands. The agents were instructed to ascertain the quality of the soil, to examine the rivers, bays, harbours, lakes and streams with regard to mills, fishing and trade; to note the variety of game, quality of the timber, existence of limestone and any other natural resources; also to ascertain what difficulties might be anticipated in forming settlements. They bore a letter from Sir Guy, commending them to the special consideration of the governor of Nova Scotia.

The governor, Colonel John Parr, was an elderly officer who had seen some service and had an honourable record. A little later Parr was the storm-centre of an outburst of angry remonstrance on account of unlooked-for delays in allotting the lands. There can be no doubt as to his honesty of purpose and sincere desire to help the newcomers, but he was lacking in forethought, not a good organizer, rather short in his temper, and wanting in several qualities that were needed for the critical period in which he presided over the affairs of the province. The task of settling thirty thousand loyalists in the course of a few months was an enormous one under the most favourable conditions, and rendered doubly difficult by the peculiar circumstances under which it was undertaken.

About one half of those who left New York for Nova Scotia settled in what is now New Brunswick, a part of his province upon which Colonel Parr never planted his foot. Travelling probably was not easy for him, for, although small of stature, he had need of a good strong horse, for he rode ‘better than seventeen stone.’

The agents, Botsford, Cummings and Hauser, visited the district about St Mary’s Bay and then explored the lower part of the St John River. Their report is still extant, and it undoubtedly had much to do with the large migration from New York to the River St John in the ensuing spring.

Sir Guy Carleton devoted all his energies to the work of embarkation, but was hampered at the outset by an insufficient number of transports. The United States authorities began to call for the speedy evacuation of New York. Sir Guy told them plainly that the violence of the Americans, since the cessation of active hostilities, had greatly increased the number of those who were obliged to look to him for safety. ‘I should,’ he said, ‘show an indifference to the feelings of humanity, as well as to the honour and interest of the nation whom I serve, to leave any of the Loyalists that are desirous to quit the country a prey to the violence they conceive they have so much cause to apprehend.’

While Sir Guy and his officers were working at New York with inadequate resources, Governor Parr and his surbordinates were face to face with even greater difficulties in Nova Scotia. The province was sparsely peopled, yet much of the best land was locked up in the prodigal grants made to a few individuals in the days of Governor Montagu Wilmot and his successors. On the St John River the lands from Fredericton to the sea were either occupied by settlers or squatters, or had been granted in large blocks to non-residents many years before. In many cases the lands were liable to forfeiture, but the grants could only be annulled by a tedious process in the Court of Escheats.

The first fleet for the St John River sailed from Sandy Hook on April 26, 1783, arriving at Fort Howe on May 11. The fleet comprised twenty transport ships under convoy. On board were three thousand passengers of all ages and conditions. Their possessions were few, for the great majority had lost their all and were ill-prepared for the hardships that awaited them. The season was cold and backward, and before the tired people could disembark it was necessary to clear away the brushwood near the shore and erect tents, hurricane houses of sails, and other kinds of shelter.

The narrative of Walter Bates, one of the passengers, seems to imply that there was no uniform plan of disembarkation. The people were ‘precipitated on shore’ by the less humane captains; in other instances they were permitted to stay on board until arrangements needed for their comfort were completed. However, there must have been a more or less general disembarkation on May 18, for that day has always been observed, by common consent, as the anniversary of the ‘Landing of the Loyalists,’ and is still recognized as a public holiday in the city of St John. The arrival of such a multitude completely altered the condition of things at the mouth of the St John.

Three centuries and more have passed since Champlain, the father of Canada, entered this harbour, and gave to it the name it bears, but in all these years the most notable fleet that has ever anchored in the port was the ‘Spring Fleet of 1783.’ We may well believe that when the ships came up the harbour with the ‘meteor flag of England’ at the masthead the guns of Fort Howe thundered a salute. Major Studholme gave the exiles a hearty welcome and did what he could for their comfort. The old soldier had held his post secure in the face of hostile savages and lawless marauders, and he was equally faithful in the discharge of his duty to the newcomers. He tried to cheer their drooping spirits and to provide them with habitations which they could once more call their own.

The City of the Loyalists was born in a day. At the time of the arrival of its founders its site was a dense wilderness. Masses of barren rock were interspersed with cedar swamps and there seemed little good soil anywhere. Those who came first fared best, because they had to some extent the choice of their locations, and were able to go upon their lots and build their little cabins. Every loyalist on his arrival received five hundred feet of boards and an allowance of bricks and shingles to assist in building his habitation. In the course of the first twelve months Major Studholme issued 1,731,289 feet of boards, 1,553,919 shingles and 7400 clapboards, all of which were manufactured in the country. The newcomers did not have to look far for the stones needed for their chimneys.

Two other considerable fleets arrived during the year: one on June 28 with about two thousand passengers, and one on September 27 with three thousand. Other ships arrived at intervals, bringing the number of those who came to the St John River up to about ten thousand souls.

About two thousand persons settled in the Passamaquoddy district, and more than eight hundred in the district of Cumberland, chiefly in what is now the county of Westmorland. Some also found their way to the Miramichi and the Richibucto.

During the first summer the settlement on the east side of the harbour of St John received the name of Parrtown. The governor himself suggested the name in a letter to Major Studholme, in which he naively admits that it had its origin in feminine vanity. The name was never very acceptable to the people, and when the city was incorporated on May 18, 1785, the time-honoured name of St John was restored. West St John was called Carleton in honour of Sir Guy Carleton, than whom the loyalists had no better friend.

During the autumn of 1783 and the following summer, Lieutenant-Colonel Morse, chief engineer in America, visited the principal places in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and made a report upon the condition of the country and the state of its defences. Morse was an eye-witness of the difficulties that confronted the loyalists and his observations are able and impartial. He expressed regret that, even when the second season was well advanced, only a small proportion of the exiles were settled upon their lands. This was due to the following reasons: first, their arriving very late in the season; secondly, timely provision not having been made by escheating and laying out lands; thirdly, a sufficient number of surveyors not having been employed; lastly and principally, the want of foresight and wisdom to make necessary arrangements and a lack of steadiness in carrying them into execution. ‘If these poor people,’ he adds, ‘are not fed by Government for a considerable time longer they must perish. They have no other country to go to, no other asylum. They have hitherto been mostly employed in building towns. At Port Roseway and the mouth of the River St John astonishing towns have risen in less time perhaps than was ever known in any country before. It is, however, much to be lamented such great exertions had not been directed to the cultivation of their lands, for besides the loss of time they have wasted their substance.’

Joseph Aplin, a lawyer, who was afterwards attorney-general of Prince Edward Island, describes the situation at the River St John with a vigorous pen. He had visited the place at the close of the first year and was astonished at what he saw. The settlers had built 1500 framed houses and 400 log-houses, but as yet they had no legal claim to the ground on which their houses stood. Most of them did not intend to remain at St John, but to settle on farms as soon as they could obtain them. Great loss had been incurred by their being compelled to establish themselves at Parrtown. This opinion was shared by Captain John Munro, who wrote to General Haldimand that it would be the ruin of the refugees for so many to settle at Fort Howe and on the sea-coast; they would have done better to have plunged into the woods at once.

The most unfortunate of the exiles were those who had served the king in arms during the war. The American Revolution was much more of a civil war than is commonly supposed. During its progress at least fifty distinct military organizations were raised in America to fight on the side of the king. In these corps at least twenty-five thousand natives of the old colonies saw service. After the surrender of Yorktown they were concentrated at Long Island and other places in the vicinity of New York. Their original strength had been diminished by losses in the field, many were absent on furlough, and little effort was made to restrain those who were disposed to do so from leaving the service and going to their friends. Eventually all who desired it were disbanded in New York. In consequence the regiments that sailed to the River St John had dwindled to about one-fourth of their former strength. Nevertheless, the number of those who remained to be cared for was considerable and included nearly all the officers and men of standing.

Early in 1783 the commanding officers of fourteen of the loyalist regiments united in a memorial to the commander-in-chief in which they expressed their conviction that whatever stipulations might be made at the peace for the restoration of the property of the loyalists or for their protection, it would be quite impossible for those who had served His Majesty in arms to remain in the country. The personal animosities aroused at the beginning of the strife had been so heightened by the blood that had been shed in the contest that the parties could never be reconciled. They therefore requested that grants of land should be made to them in some part of the British dominions in America, and that they might be assisted in making settlements where they might enjoy the benefit of British institutions and live under the old flag.

Sir Guy Carleton strongly endorsed the memorial, and, in consequence, royal instructions were issued on June 9, in which it was provided that all non-commissioned officers and soldiers who desired to go to Nova Scotia should receive free grants of lands—two hundred acres to each non-commissioned officer and one hundred to each private soldier, exclusive of what each man should be entitled to in right of his family. The commissioned officers were to have grants in proportion to their rank. The troops were to retain their arms and accoutrements and to receive a gratuity of fourteen days’ pay.

The royal instructions did not reach New York until August, but in the meantime Colonels Edward Winslow, Isaac Allen and Stephen de Lancey were sent to Nova Scotia to explore and locate lands for their comrades-in-arms. Sir Guy Carleton suggested that they should be settled along the frontier, like the cantonments of an army, to serve as a bulwark against any aggression, each corps to have its own particular grant. The suggestion was approved and incorporated in the instructions to Colonel Thomas Carleton, the first governor of New Brunswick. An extract from the instructions is here quoted:

In order to strengthen the proposed settlements, and that they may be in a state of security and defence, it is our will and pleasure that the allotments to non-commissioned officers and privates be by corps, and as contiguous as may be to each other, and that the allotments to the several commissioned officers shall be interspersed therein, that the same may be united and, in case of attack, be defended by those who have been accustomed to bear arms and serve together.

Sir Guy Carleton’s words to Winslow and his friends, when they left New York in the month of April, were brief: ‘You are to provide an asylum for your distressed countrymen. Your task is arduous; execute it as men of honour. The season for fighting is over, bury your animosities and persecute no man. Your ship is ready, and God bless you.’

The agents explored the valley of the St John River above the settlements and formed a favourable opinion of its natural resources. Allen and de Lancey, however, were disposed to press for the lands not already occupied in the townships below. This would have scattered the members of the disbanded regiments among the old inhabitants and prevented the contiguity of settlement desired by Sir Guy Carleton. It would also have interfered with the settlement of the loyalists who had already arrived in the country. The upper valley of the river was eventually selected as the only place where there was a vacant tract sufficient to settle the entire body of the troops in the manner desired by the commander-in-chief. The surveyor-general was instructed to lay out the lands in blocks in order that the various regiments might draw their locations by lot. These blocks were laid out on either side of the river, each with a frontage of about twelve miles, and were numbered in order ascending the stream, odd numbers on the east side and even numbers on the west. As there was not time to properly survey these twelve-mile tracts and divide them into lots, the troops were hampered in any immediate attempt at settlement. By the result of the draft they were placed in the following order—the locations extending from St Ann’s nearly to the Grand Falls: on the east side, the Maryland Loyalists, Royal Guides and Pioneers, Queen’s Rangers, Pennsylvania Loyalists, 2nd de Lancey’s, Prince of Wales American Regiment, Loyal American Regiment; on the west (or Fredericton side of the river), the 2nd New Jersey Volunteers, King’s American Dragoons, King’s American Regiment of Foot, 1st de Lancey’s, New York Volunteers, Arnold’s American Legion, 3rd New Jersey Volunteers, 1st New Jersey Volunteers.

General H. E. Fox, a brother of Charles James Fox, was in command of the troops in Nova Scotia. In the month of September the general and his secretary, Edward Winslow, visited the lands where the loyalist regiments were to be disbanded. The King’s American Dragoons were already on the ground. This regiment had arrived at St John early in July—for what reason it was sent in advance of the others we do not know. While on the river General Fox wrote to Haldimand that more than three thousand men of the loyalist corps were about to settle on the river above St Ann’s, and that this would facilitate the communication between Nova Scotia and Canada and greatly contribute to their mutual advantage. The regiments sailed from New York on September 15 under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Hewlett of de Lancey’s Brigade. They arrived at St John on September 27 and were disbanded about October 10. Some of them pushed up the river in boats as far as St Ann’s, but the majority spent their first winter at Parrtown. A very serious situation confronted them. Their lands had not been laid out, and even had they been ready for settlement, it was now too late to proceed a hundred miles or more into the unbroken wilderness and build log-huts before the winter came on.

Winslow, in his former capacity of muster-master-general, had so frequently mustered the loyalist regiments that he was personally known to almost every officer and man. He wrote at this juncture to his friend Chipman that he had been greatly worried at the sight of so many people landing in an inhospitable climate in the month of October without shelter and not knowing where to turn. The chagrin of the officers was not so truly affecting as the poignant distress of the men. Respectable sergeants of Robinson’s, Ludlow’s, Cruger’s and Fanning’s regiments, once hospitable yeomen in the old colonies, appealed to Winslow in such words as these: ‘Sir, we have served all the war, your honour is witness how faithfully. We were promised land; we expected you had obtained it for us. We like the country, only let us have a spot to call our own and laws for our protection.’

Many of the officers and men drew lots at Parrtown, where they spent the winter in rude huts, some of them in tents. Owing to cold and exposure and the coarseness of the food, the women and children suffered greatly and many died. Those who pushed up the river to St Ann’s, with the intention of getting speedily to their lands, suffered even more severely. Scarcely had they begun to build their cabins when the cold weather was upon them, and their habitations were enveloped in snow before they were tenantable. The privations and sufferings endured are yet spoken of by their descendants. Frequently in the piercing cold of mid-winter some members of the family had to remain up during the night to keep fire in their huts to prevent the others from freezing. Women, delicately reared, cared for their infants beneath canvas tents, rendered habitable only by the banks of snow which lay six feet deep in the open spaces of the forest. Men unaccustomed to toil looked with dismay at the prospect before them. The non-arrival of much needed supplies before the close of navigation added to their distress. There were days when strong proud men cried like children and, exhausted by cold and famine, lay down in their snow-bound tents to die.

There were many bitter complaints against Governor Parr and the Nova Scotia authorities, which were not really deserved. Great allowance, however, must be made in the case of men driven by the event of civil war from comfortable surroundings into an unknown wilderness, only to find that very inadequate preparations had been made for their reception. Their impatience grew daily. Committees were formed to promote the redress of grievances and were so pronounced in their criticism of the authorities that Governor Parr threatened the leaders with the suspension of their grants. Chief Justice Finucane was sent to inquire into the matters complained of, but his visit did little to allay the discontent. The loyalists demanded a rearrangement of the constituencies of the province, so that they might have their proper representation in the house of assembly. The governor felt that this was only reasonable, but did not see how it could be done without a large increase in the representation, which was already fixed by the royal instructions.

The scheme of settling the valley of the upper St John with disbanded troops was only moderately successful. The tracts assigned the de Lancey battalions were about one hundred and fifty miles from the sea, and the lands above were deemed too remote for settlement. One half of the regiments were unwilling to settle in a situation so difficult of access, or to risk the dangers to be apprehended from the Indians, who regarded the newcomers with a jealous eye. And so it came to pass that the military settlements, which Governor Parr had thought would people the river to its source, only extended a few miles above the present town of Woodstock.

The governor had shown a great desire to place disbanded soldiers on the eastern side of the River St Croix, this being the frontier where the aggressive people of Machias had given so much trouble during the war. The withdrawal of the garrison from Castine, on the Penobscot River, enabled him to do this about the end of the year. Governor Parr’s anxiety regarding the frontier was justified by later events, and the settlement in this neighbourhood of the Royal Fencible Americans and other disbanded soldiers was a wise measure.

IV
A NEW BRITISH PROVINCE

The difficulties connected with the settlement of the loyalists were not easily dealt with by a government so far away as Halifax, particularly at a time when the means of communication were very inadequate. In consequence an agitation was set on foot, looking to the formation of a new province. One of the most ardent promoters of the scheme was Edward Winslow, whose fertile brain and facile pen were constantly employed in its advocacy. He succeeded in convincing General Fox of the advantage of dividing the province, and from time to time wrote to his friends in England letters which were submitted to the secretary of state and other members of the imperial cabinet. These letters undoubtedly had not a little influence in the ultimate decision to divide the province at the isthmus, the part north of the Bay of Fundy to be called New Brunswick. The decision was communicated to Governor Parr by Lord Sydney on May 29, 1784. As the governor had reached an age when most men love tranquillity more than action, the abridgment of his responsibilities afforded him sensible relief.

The position of governor of New Brunswick was offered to General Fox, who felt compelled for personal and political reasons to decline it. Colonel Thomas Carleton, a younger brother of Sir Guy Carleton, was subsequently appointed. Though not possessing the capacity of his more distinguished brother, Colonel Carleton’s record as a soldier was an honourable one. He was born in 1735 at Newry, County Down, Ireland. At the age of eighteen he joined the 20th Regiment of Foot as a volunteer, and during the next seven years was present at various engagements, including the battle of Minden. When the War of the Revolution broke out he was appointed lieutenant-colonel in the 29th regiment and served under Sir Guy Carleton as quartermaster-general of the army in Canada. He was a man of superior education, being acquainted with the French, German, Italian and Spanish languages, and had travelled extensively. At the time of his appointment as governor ^[1] of New Brunswick he had seen more than thirty years’ continuous military service.

The English ministry decided, early in April, to create the new province, and during the summer most of the positions in the government were filled. The offices fell, as was natural, to men of merit who had filled official positions in the old colonies. If General Fox had accepted the office of governor, Edward Winslow would undoubtedly have been named as provincial secretary. This appointment went to Jonathan Odell, who was not an applicant, but having served acceptably as private secretary to Sir Guy Carleton at New York, the latter thought fit to recommend him for the position, and such a recommendation could not well be ignored. The appointment certainly was unusual, for Odell was in holy orders. After he became provincial secretary he continued occasionally to officiate as a clergyman and was addressed as the Honourable and Reverend Jonathan Odell. He filled his position for about thirty years and was the only member of the first council of the province to outlive the first governor. Upon his decease, at the age of eighty-one, he was succeeded by his son, William F. Odell, who was provincial secretary more than thirty years, so that this important office was held for about sixty years by father and son, a thing unparalleled in British colonial history.

George Duncan Ludlow was named chief justice of New Brunswick; James Putnam, Isaac Allen and Joshua Upham, puisne judges; Ward Chipman solicitor-general; Sampson Salter Blowers attorney-general; and George Sproule surveyor-general. Edward Winslow was appointed to the comparatively unimportant position of surrogate-general. Blowers relinquished the office of attorney-general a few weeks after his arrival and was appointed by Governor Parr to the same office in Nova Scotia. Jonathan Bliss succeeded him as attorney-general of New Brunswick.

Governor Carleton’s passage across the Atlantic occupied fifty-eight days, and it was not until November 21 that he reached Parrtown. He was accompanied by most of the members of his government. On his arrival he was received by the people with every demonstration of delight. An address was presented to him in which he was welcomed as the brother of their illustrious friend and patron, Sir Guy Carleton. The citizens referred to themselves as a number of oppressed and insulted loyalists, who were formerly freemen and hoped to be so again under his government. The governor replied to the address in moderate and modest terms.

Immediately after his arrival Colonel Carleton published his commission and issued a proclamation announcing the boundaries of the province: all civil and military officers were authorized to continue in the execution of their duties. Before leaving England he had been instructed to arrange for the calling of a house of assembly at an early date. The governor and council were in the meanwhile to make such regulations as were necessary.

V
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD OF NEW BRUNSWICK

The first council meeting was held on November 22, when George Duncan Ludlow, James Putnam, Abijah Willard, Gabriel G. Ludlow, Isaac Allen, William Hazen and Jonathan Odell were sworn in and took their seats. A little later Gilfred Studholme, Edward Winslow, Daniel Bliss and Joshua Upham were sworn in. Beverley Robinson, who was appointed a member of the council, remained in England and never took his seat at the council-board. The members of the council were men of merit. George Duncan Ludlow had been a judge prior to the Revolution. James Putnam had been attorney-general of Massachusetts and was reputed to be one of the ablest lawyers in America. Beverley Robinson, Isaac Allen and Gabriel G. Ludlow had served in the Revolution as colonels of loyalist regiments. Gilfred Studholme’s eminent services have been already mentioned in these pages. William Hazen had been a resident at St John throughout the war, and had remained loyal at a time when comparatively few persons on the river, besides his partners and himself, adhered to the cause of the crown. Daniel Bliss was a leading member of the bar of Massachusetts and during the war had been an officer in the commissariat department. Joshua Upham was a lawyer by profession and during the war had been a major in the King’s American Dragoons.

The events of the earlier years of Governor Carleton’s administration prove that he was not lacking in energy. During the first winter he visited the principal settlements and fixed upon St Ann’s as the most eligible situation for the capital of the province. It has been the fashion, with some later writers, to censure the governor for his choice. But, whatever may be said at the present time respecting the proper site of the capital of New Brunswick, it is only fair to add that Governor Carleton had many cogent reasons for his decision. It must be recollected that it had never been the intention of those who sent the loyalists to New Brunswick to establish them in a huge town at the mouth of the St John River. The folly of such a method of settlement was conspicuous in the case of Shelburne, which in the course of a few months grew to be more populous than Quebec, Montreal and Three Rivers combined, and was, in the United States, only exceeded in population by New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Yet in the course of a few years Shelburne sank into obscurity. Governor Carleton perceived that his immediate duty was to get the people upon their lands. Already the projected military settlements on the St John were in danger of falling to pieces. He decided to bring the seat of government near to them, and to encourage by personal example the settlement of the half-pay officers on the river. The proximity of the military headquarters at St Ann’s would naturally give a sense of security to the infant settlements, and the establishment in their vicinity of a depot for the supplies provided by government during the first three years could not but prove a great boon.

As the locating of the people on their farms seemed of all matters to be the most urgent, a proclamation was issued requiring all persons who had received grants from the government of Nova Scotia to register them within a limited time in the office of the provincial secretary, grants not so registered to be cancelled. This drastic measure served to get rid of a large number of ancient grants in which no attempt had been made to comply with the conditions laid down. To remove any doubts as to the validity of this proceeding, the house of assembly at its first session, in 1786, passed an act requiring registration of all Nova Scotia grants of lands in New Brunswick to be made in the provincial secretary’s office within one year, grants not so registered to be cancelled. This legislation saved much trouble and delay in the Court of Escheats and facilitated the settlement of the country.

Governor Carleton continued to visit the different settlements from time to time. His habits were active. A year or two later he walked on snow-shoes to Quebec to see his brother, Lord Dorchester, who was ill. He spoke of it as a pleasant excursion, although he was obliged to tramp over a vast uninhabited region and to camp eight nights in the woods.

Nor was the first governor of New Brunswick wanting in generosity. He declined all fees for land grants during his tenure of office. He provided his own residence and furnished it. He contributed liberally to the building of churches and other benevolent objects. And when, in 1798, the mother country made an appeal for a national contribution for defence, he headed the list for New Brunswick with a subscription of £500 sterling. He was a good entertainer and paid due attention to those social functions that pertain to the office of the king’s representative. The first impressions of all classes with regard to the governor were distinctly favourable. In the writings of his contemporaries we find laudatory observations. He is spoken of as one who displayed ‘a generous contempt of his own private wealth and an exact frugality in the management of that which belonged to the public’—as one ‘whose unexampled zeal for the welfare of the province entitled him to the love and gratitude of every inhabitant’—as a man ‘whose dignified and correct conduct discountenanced vice and rendered morality fashionable.’

The fact nevertheless remains that the first governor of New Brunswick was not a man of unusual abilities, and that he had many peculiarities of disposition. He was not always easy to approach, and had little of the tact and suavity of Sir John Wentworth or Sir Howard Douglas. When approached by his advisers with regard to matters of public policy his answers were usually ‘costive and guarded.’ He could be obstinate when he wished, and at all times cared little for expediency. He certainly was not an opportunist. An instance of his conduct will serve for illustration.

Upon the decease of Bartholomew Crannell, in 1790, there were two applicants for the position of Common Clerk of the City of St John, Gabriel V. Ludlow, a nephew of the chief justice, and Elias Hardy. The two men were representatives of the tory and whig elements of the day, and Hardy had on various occasions opposed the measures of the governor and his council. Carleton, to the surprise of the entire community, appointed Hardy. Stephen Sewell wrote to his brother Jonathan (afterwards chief justice of Quebec):

Gabriel Ludlow has lost the Clerk’s office in a strange manner. He had made application to the Chief Justice (his uncle) a long time ago, but, as the demon of ill-luck would have it, the Chief never mentioned it to the Governor till the latter showed him an application from Hardy, which was considered by the Governor as the first application. The Chief Justice was excessively urgent for Gab’l, the Governor was as strenuous for Hardy, and appointed him. It is supposed by some the whole is political business, but I am convinced what chiefly actuated the Governor was his strict adherence to his word, for I am told that he has declared that if the person applying is capable and not immoral he will give the preference to the prior application.

Again, in his decision to fix the headquarters of the province at Fredericton, Carleton adopted a course that was unpopular with the majority of the people. But he evidently believed it to be in the interests of the province. Fredericton could not for many years offer as great advantages as a place of residence as St John. If the governor was self-willed, and sometimes narrow-minded, it is only fair to credit him with honest intentions and the courage of his convictions. His moral character was unstained, and he was the friend of virtue and religion.

He had, however, been trained in a school the traditions of which have long been obsolete. He was a tory of the olden time, and dreaded all innovations. The members of his council were like-minded; consequently in the measures that were adopted, previous to the calling of a house of assembly, the rights of the crown were jealously guarded. Carleton wrote to the secretary of state, with evident satisfaction, that the new province had a better constitution than any of its neighbours. In Nova Scotia, as in New England, everything originated in the assembly, but in New Brunswick advantage had been taken of the ‘better habits’ of the people, a large proportion of whom had come from New York and the provinces to the southward, to strengthen the executive part of the government and discountenance its leaning so much upon the popular branch of the legislature.

Legislation was practically controlled by the governor and council, and the house of assembly filled quite a subordinate position. The centre and pivot of the whole system was the governor. His commission made him governor-in-chief and captain-general of the province with power to appoint all officers, subject to the veto of the crown. He had at his command a considerable revenue over which the legislature had no control. This included the ‘casual and territorial revenue’ arising from the sale or lease of the crown lands. The house of assembly had nothing to say about the salaries of the officers of government, nor had it anything to do with the receipts and expenditures of the customs or post office.

Vacancies that occurred in the council were filled by the governor, but the harmony of the governor and council was rarely marred on this account, since those who were appointed to vacancies were almost always friends or relatives of those who were already in the council. The reform party not inaptly applied to this system the name of the ‘Family Compact.’ For many years it served to retain in the possession of a few friends nearly all the important public positions. The system was not at first particularly distasteful to the majority of the loyalists. They had learned in the late war to look with horror upon everything that savoured of republicanism. The royal prerogative and the British constitution were so exalted in their eyes that any one who sought to modify or alter the accepted order of things was regarded as a dangerous innovator, or a ‘leveller,’ and even suspected of being a ‘democrat.’

The council exercised both executive and legislative functions. As an executive body it met frequently to advise the governor and assist in the transaction of business. As a legislative body it met when the house of assembly was in session to revise all bills passed by the house and also to send down to the house bills that had originated and been passed in the council. The first council included the four judges of the Supreme Court. The judges were also eligible for membership in the assembly. It is doubtful whether any young colony ever had in its first legislature so able and experienced a body of men as had the Province of New Brunswick. Many of them were men of university training, who had held important positions in the old colonies prior to the Revolution. Carleton was guided largely by the advice of his council.

The correspondence of Carleton and the secretary of state at this period is important. The governor was not himself gifted as a letter writer. His private letters are chiefly remarkable for their brevity. But he had in Jonathan Odell, his provincial secretary, and in Edward Winslow, his military secretary, a pair of accomplished scribes, and as a consequence he appears to advantage in his official correspondence.

The first meetings of the council were held in Parrtown, where the governor lived for a couple of years. Regulations were drawn up for the expeditious settlement of the province, and during the first few years a large portion of the time of the council was devoted to the consideration of memorials for lands. Farms were granted to all classes of settlers—loyal refugees, officers and soldiers of the disbanded regiments, negroes who came with the loyalists, Acadians who had been disturbed in their former locations, and old inhabitants who wished to make trial of some other field of promise. The ordinary farm lot comprised two hundred acres, but a double allowance was offered to settlers above the sixth and seventh military tracts on the upper St John. In order to expedite matters the governor sat in council at St John on the Tuesday and Friday of each week to deal with applications for lands.

Carleton informed Lord Sydney, on April 25, 1785, that he had fixed upon St Ann’s Point as the future seat of the provincial government, and had named it ‘Fredericktown’ in honour of the Duke of York. In June the province was divided into eight counties—Charlotte, St John and Westmorland along the Bay of Fundy; Kings, Queens, Sunbury and York up the St John; and Northumberland at Miramichi. The immense northern wilderness, two-thirds of the province, was included in the counties of Northumberland and York, each of which has since been subdivided into four counties.

The last post in the old colonies evacuated by the British was Castine, on the Penobscot River. The loyalists and the troops in garrison there, as already mentioned, came to the county of Charlotte and settled on the east side of the St Croix. They were notified by John Allan that they were trespassers on the territory of the United States. Allan asserted that the international boundary was at the River Magaguadavic, a good many miles to the eastward. The newcomers, however, on the advice of Charles Morris, the surveyor-general of Nova Scotia, disregarded the warning, and their settlements grew apace. The governor of Massachusetts requested Governor Parr to remove them. Parr referred the matter to Carleton, who declined to disturb them, insisting that the territory in dispute belonged to his province. Here the matter rested for some years.

An important step on the part of the governor in council was the granting of a charter of incorporation to the city of St John. In the absence of provincial laws or ordinances, which could not of course be passed until a house of assembly had been called, this step was necessary for the orderly government of the city. The charter was published on May 18, 1785, the second anniversary of the landing of the loyalists.

St John has the distinction of being the oldest incorporated city in the British colonies. The new city included Parrtown and Carleton. The draft of the charter was prepared by Ward Chipman, the city’s first recorder, on the lines of the charter of the city of New York. By its provisions the aldermen, assistants and constables were annually elected by the citizens in the respective wards, but the mayor, sheriff, recorder and common clerk were appointed by the governor in council. The incorporation of St John was in accord with the desire of the people and unanimously approved in council, but the governor seems to have feared criticism. In his letter to Lord Sydney he speaks apologetically of the confusion consequent upon the arrival of a mixed multitude in a wilderness country and the difficulty of maintaining orderly government when there was no legislature to frame laws for the regulation of trade and commerce or for internal police. Such things could now be regulated by civic ordinances and attended to by a corporation. By reserving to the crown the appointment of the mayor, sheriff and other chief officers a check had been provided against any radical proceedings on the part of the common council. One of the wards on the east side of the harbour had been named Sydney; the others were called King, Queen and Duke.

Carleton did not escape without being mildly censured by Lord Sydney for venturing to grant the charter without consulting the home government. Nevertheless the measure was a wise one, and for it the governor and council are to be praised. The charter remained in force for more than a century, but was amended from time to time in some material respects. In 1889 it was practically superseded by the Union Act, which took into the city the territory north of St John, which had also become a city under the name of Portland. The first mayor of the city, Colonel Gabriel G. Ludlow, held office for ten years, and his immediate successor, William Campbell, was in office twenty years, both appointments being made by the governor in council.

The division of the province into counties and parishes was the work of the governor in council. In the choice of names due regard was paid to those already in use, but many were new. The most prominent place in each county was selected as the shire-town, where the county buildings were to be located. The towns thus chosen were: St Andrews, for Charlotte; St John, for St John; Kingston (changed in 1871 to Hampton), for Kings; Gagetown, for Queens; Burton, for Sunbury; Fredericton, for York; Westmorland (changed in 1801 to Dorchester), for Westmorland; Newcastle, for Northumberland. By a happy conceit the names of the counties are repeated in the streets of Fredericton, which were laid out by Dugald Campbell at this time.

After the arrival of Governor Carleton the settlement of the country proceeded rapidly, and most of those who had arrived in the province were speedily placed upon their lands. In consequence the population of St John, which during the first winter must have been at least five or six thousand, was considerably reduced. The city, however, still contained a large proportion of the energy and intelligence of the province. It had also its turbulent element, the class that had acquired idle habits during the war and was addicted to rum-drinking.

It was not until more than a year after the arrival of Governor Carleton that the first house of assembly was convened. The governor had been instructed to call an assembly as soon as practicable, and in the meantime to make such rules and regulations, with the advice of his council, as were essential to peace and order. The delay in calling the assembly was due to his desire to complete the general organization in order that the representatives chosen by the people might adapt their legislation to a scheme of government already laid down. He was particularly anxious that ‘the American spirit of innovation’ should not be nursed among the loyal refugees. He feared that left to themselves the members of the assembly might ‘depart from the practice of the best regulated colonies.’ Clearly it was his wish that the house of assembly should be subservient to the governor in council.

It is not at all surprising that a conflict soon arose between the governor and the assembly, a conflict in which every successive lieutenant-governor became more or less involved for more than half a century. The franchise at the first election was of the most democratic order. All male persons of full age who had been residents of the province for three months were given the right to vote, the intention being to admit to the franchise all industrious and meritorious settlers who were improving their lands, even though they had not yet received their grants.

Townships had been abolished in New Brunswick and representation in the assembly was confined to the counties. St John was allotted six members; York, Westmorland and Charlotte, four each; and Kings, Queens, Sunbury and Northumberland, two each. Writs for the elections were issued on October 15, 1785. The elections extended over a period of fifteen days. Open voting prevailed, and the poll was shifted from place to place to accommodate the electors.

Elections in the early days of the province were not infrequently attended with disorder. The candidates kept open houses where food and drink were supplied to voters. There was commonly a good deal of drunkenness and sometimes rioting. The first New Brunswick election proved a much more exciting affair in several of the constituencies than the governor had anticipated. In Northumberland an attempt was made to secure the election of George Leonard and Stanton Hazard of St John. But the influence of William Davidson on the Miramichi was too powerful, and the election resulted in his return with Elias Hardy as his colleague. In Westmorland County the election was protested and the votes of the Acadians declared illegal. By this decision Charles Dickson, one of the pre-loyalist settlers, obtained his seat by a majority of one vote. In Sunbury County the election developed into a warm party contest between the old inhabitants and the loyalists in which William Hubbard and Richard Vanderburgh, the loyalist candidates, were victorious over James Simonds and Nehemiah Beckwith.

The storm-centre of the first provincial election, however, was the city and county of St John. Here there was a stand-up fight between the Upper and Lower Cove factions. These represented, in a general way, the aristocratic and democratic elements of the community. The leaders of the Lower Cove party were Elias Hardy, Tertullus Dickinson, Dr Peter Huggeford and others, who in 1783 had stoutly opposed the application of Abijah Williard and fifty-five other petitioners to Sir Guy Carleton for 275,000 acres of land as a reward for their services. The leader of the other party was Jonathan Bliss, the attorney-general. Old controversies that had existed in the days of Governor Parr were revived during the election campaign and culminated in a fierce riot at the Mallard House, the headquarters of the government candidates. This was quelled by the troops of the garrison, who dispersed the mob and arrested the ringleaders, some of whom were tried and punished by fine and imprisonment. When the polls closed the votes cast for the several candidates were found to be as follows:

Apparently the attorney-general and his colleagues were defeated. A scrutiny, however, was demanded. It was granted, and was conducted by Sheriff Oliver. For some reason the candidates who had received the majority of votes failed to attend at the scrutiny and defend the votes that were challenged by their opponents. In consequence the sheriff rejected a great many of the votes cast for them (chiefly on the question of residency) and declared the six government candidates elected. Dickinson and his friends appealed to the house of assembly against the sheriff’s return, but the house decided that the opposition candidates, having failed to appear before the sheriff in defence of the votes that had been disallowed, could not now be admitted to prove those votes good. The house further decided by a vote of ten to four, the St John members not voting, that Sheriff Oliver had conducted himself legally, fairly and with impartiality. Dickinson and his party then presented a memorial to Governor Carleton asking His Excellency to dissolve the house and to order a new election. This the governor declined to do, and his decision was upheld by the secretary of state, who intimated that the right to vote might have been confined to those who held lands or were entitled to grants, which would probably have prevented the disturbance.

It is impossible to arrive at any other conclusion than that an injustice was committed in counting out the six opposition candidates. The result was unfortunate in several ways. It shook the faith of a large number of the general body of the people in the governor and his advisers, and intensified party spirit at a time when all should have united for the common good. It is to be noted that Ward Chipman was never again able to secure his election in St John, and Jonathan Bliss only succeeded in doing so after the lapse of many years. Having said this much by way of criticism of the first St John election, it must, however, be admitted that no representative assembly could have had, in the drawing up of a code of laws to govern a new province, abler and more useful men than Attorney-General Bliss and Solicitor-General Chipman. Both were trained lawyers and graduates of Harvard.

The legislature met at the Mallard House in St John on January 3, 1786. Amos Botsford of Westmorland County was elected speaker, and continued in that office until his death in 1812. The governor in his opening speech referred to the liberality of the home government to the loyalists, and exhorted the members of the legislature to promote sobriety, industry and the practice of religion, to discourage all party distinctions, and to inculcate the utmost harmony between the new settlers and the old inhabitants of the country. There is a marked paternal tone throughout the address.

The legislature set to work industriously to pass the acts necessary for the province. As the four judges were members of the council and there were several eminent lawyers in the assembly, there was no lack of legal talent for the task. Sixty-one acts were passed, providing the province with a code of laws, both civil and criminal, sufficient for the time being. No rash experiments were attempted. Some of the acts were copied from the statutes of Nova Scotia, others from the laws of New York and Massachusetts. Most of the legislation was of a useful and creditable character and such as the needs of the country demanded. The session lasted fifty-six days and the members received no remuneration for their services.

The imperial parliament was at this time responsible for the salaries of the principal government officers in New Brunswick, the governor receiving an annual income of £1000 sterling, the chief justice £500, the provincial secretary £250, the attorney-general £150, the surveyor-general £150. The sum of £300 was also paid towards the support of four missionaries of the Church of England, who were to be stationed at such places as the governor might approve. This last item would seem to indicate that the close connection of church and state in the mother country was conceived to exist in New Brunswick. One of the acts passed at the first session of the legislature was entitled: ‘An Act for preserving the Church of England as by law established in this province, and for securing liberty of conscience in matters of religion.’ The title of this act is misleading. It did not establish the Church of England, but it established a system of universal toleration and liberty of conscience. The right of presentation to parishes of the clergy of the Church of England was, however, vested in the governor, and remained so down to the time of Confederation, although the appointments were made almost invariably on the recommendation of the bishop. It was not until 1869 that an act was passed relieving the lieutenant-governor from any further responsibility in regard to ecclesiastical appointments.

A majority of the loyalists were more or less pronounced adherents to the Church of England, and, although that church was never established in the province, it was for years favoured above all other religious bodies. Every member of the first council was a member of the Church of England, and this continued to be the case for more than thirty years. Every judge of the Supreme Court, until the appointment of Lemuel Allan Wilmot in 1851, was a member of the Church of England. All the high officials of the province for the first sixty years were members of the Church of England. The Bishop of Nova Scotia was a member of the council and on one occasion took his seat in it. The college at Fredericton was for years a Church of England institution; so also were the Madras Schools. Little wonder that the Church was regarded by many as the established church of the land.

With a governor taking his orders from England and a council composed as that of New Brunswick under its first governor, there was no executive responsibility to the people. The governor was responsible to the home authorities and the council was responsible to the governor. No vote of the legislature could bring about a change in the government, because the officials could only be removed by the governor. Officers such as the attorney-general, provincial secretary and surveyor-general held their positions for life or until they obtained higher offices. Jonathan Bliss was attorney-general from 1785 to 1809, when he was made chief justice. Thomas Wetmore and Charles J. Peters, who followed in order, held the office for nineteen and twenty years respectively. The Odells, father and son, as already stated, held the office of provincial secretary for about sixty years. George Sproule was surveyor-general for thirty-two years and Ward Chipman solicitor-general for twenty-five years. The members of the council grew old together. They sat with closed doors, and no journals were printed for forty-five years to convey to the public any information of their proceedings. It was not until 1830 that the journals were printed and the public learned for the first time what the council had been doing all these years.

Both the council and the assembly were very sensitive to public criticism, and free speech was suppressed. An instance of this occurred during the first session of the legislature. The house of assembly on January 24 declared by a majority vote that the sheriff of St John had conducted himself with impartiality in the recent election—the details of which we have already discussed. A very respectable citizen, George Handyside, publicly expressed his indignation at the sheriff’s conduct and his opinion of the vote of the assembly. Christopher Sower, the king’s printer, reported Handyside’s words to the house. A warrant was thereupon issued for his arrest, and he was brought before the house and compelled to ask pardon on his knees for his contempt and breach of privilege. He was then reprimanded by the speaker and discharged after paying a fine. Again, in 1818, an article, mildly criticizing the house of assembly, was published in a St John newspaper. The publisher was compelled to disclose the name of the writer, who was found to be Stephen Humbert, one of the members for St John. Humbert was forthwith expelled from the house and his seat declared vacant; but in the election to fill the vacancy he was again returned by his constituency.

One of the first things that claimed the attention of the legislature was the necessity of improving the means of communication between the various sections of the province. Commissioners were appointed to lay out roads and were empowered to solicit subscriptions to aid in road-making. Every subscriber of £5 was entitled to receive one hundred acres of land on the road to which he had subscribed. In 1786 the sum of £190 was thus obtained on the road from St John to Westmorland, of which £50 was subscribed by Benedict Arnold, who was then a resident of St John. But the country was so largely an unbroken wilderness and the people so poor that the work of road-making proceeded very slowly. It was well-nigh forty years before even the main lines of communication were in a condition to be of much service for summer travel. For a good while the roads were without bridges, so that the rivers had to be crossed by ferries or fords. In many cases the roads were only bridle-paths through the woods. To-day there are fifteen thousand miles of roads in New Brunswick and more than four thousand bridges, to say nothing of two thousand miles of railway. But the progress of road construction was so slow at the first that twenty years after the arrival of the loyalists the government surveyor, Dugald Campbell, reported that ten miles of road fit for any description of wheel carriage was not to be found in the province except on the east bank of the St John in Sunbury, where nature had chiefly performed the task. Campbell particularly urged the completion of the highway from St John to the River St Croix with the object of facilitating communication with Europe as well as connecting the prosperous settlements of the county of Charlotte with the rest of the province. New York had become ‘the focus of European intelligence in America,’ and a post route having been established from that city to the St Croix opposite St Andrews, a road thence to St John would of course greatly facilitate the conveyance of letters and dispatches. Campbell says: ‘We should then perhaps not be the last to hear from the Mother Country and the rest of Europe.’

Four great highways were proposed, one from St John to Charlotte County, one from St John to Westmorland, one from St John to Fredericton, and one from Fredericton to the Miramichi. But the task was great, and for at least twenty-five years the rivers continued to be the main routes of travel both in summer and winter. Even the members of the legislature drove in their sleighs upon the ice to attend the sessions at Fredericton. The first houses of the settlers usually stood on the bank of the river, and the roads in consequence in nearly all cases ran past the back doors of the farmhouses. A glance at the map of the province will show that every one of the fifteen counties has its commanding river. Indeed, the configuration of the counties has been very largely determined by the rivers. They were the earliest routes of travel.

In closing the first session of the legislature Governor Carleton complimented the council and assembly on their diligent application to business, and stated that the acts passed would prove a lasting monument of their zeal and attention to the interests of the province.

In the spring of 1786 Lord Dorchester arrived at Quebec as governor-general, and the governors of the provinces were in consequence made lieutenant-governors. Colonel Thomas Carleton was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general commanding His Majesty’s forces in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. He was offered the lieutenant-governorship of Quebec so that he might, if he so desired, be near his brother. It was stated, however, that the king believed he would be of greater service if he remained in his present position, and this he at once agreed to do. Three years later the offer of the lieutenant-governorship of Quebec was renewed, but Lord Sydney took occasion once more to add that the reasons for his remaining in New Brunswick still continued, and General Carleton again signified his acquiescence in the king’s wishes.

The revenue of the province at first was small. The greater part of it came from a duty of a penny a gallon on rum. The consumption of this article was almost universal. When the house of assembly met for the second time, the quantity reported as having been imported in ten months and a half was 97,990 gallons. As the population was less than twenty thousand, the quantity of rum consumed on an average was nearly half a pint daily for every male over sixteen years of age. The founders of the province had many virtues, but total abstinence was not one of them. The returns of the year 1824, when the first census was taken, show that after the lapse of nearly forty years there was little, if any, improvement. Tavern licences were granted by the justices of the general sessions of the peace according to their discretion—the cost of the licence not to be more than £4 or less than 10s. This system of granting licences continued for almost a century, that is until the municipal councils took the place of the sessions in the work of governing the counties.

As General Carleton was a military man he naturally called the attention of the legislature to the necessity of passing a militia act. Apparently a satisfactory militia bill was not easy to devise, for the act of 1787 was the first of a long series. No less than fifteen militia acts were passed in the next thirty years. The first provincial militia was not to be despised. It included many veterans of the Revolution, and would in case of need have done good service. All persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were enrolled, with the exception of clergymen, teachers, doctors, millers and ferrymen. The semi-annual training day after a short time degenerated into a farce, and was a day much better adapted to promote conviviality than military efficiency. The journals of the assembly show that in 1828 a motion was made in the house to insert a section in the militia act to abolish the practice of treating on muster or inspection days, as occasioning unnecessary expense to the officers and often riotous behaviour on the part of the men. After a somewhat hilarious debate the motion was lost by a vote of two to one.

In their everyday life the old soldiers found their muskets useful, and were frequently able to replenish their larders with game, as well as to shoot wolves and bears, which were rather abundant. Their firearms served also to awe the Indians, who were inclined to be insolent. The Indians could not be expected to view with complacency the rapid progress of the whites, for every tree that was cut in the forest restricted the area of their hunting grounds. Yet the instances in which they gave serious trouble were few in number.

In May 1786 two men, named David Nelson and William Harbord, formerly soldiers in the Queen’s Rangers, shot an Indian whom they believed to have stolen their hogs. The Indians of the neighbourhood were much incensed and demanded justice. Their principal settlement of Aukpaque was near Judge Allen’s house, and they camped around it and expressed their determination to remain until the case was decided. The white settlers, on the other hand, were not well pleased that any white man should be tried for his life for shooting an Indian. The authorities were placed in a difficult situation, but it was felt that the ends of justice would best be served by bringing the alleged murderers to a speedy trial. This was done on June 13, and both prisoners were found guilty. Nelson, who was the principal, was hanged ten days later, but Harbord was pardoned. The Indians were not entirely satisfied. The settlers up the river were alarmed by their menaces, and to quiet their fears a temporary depot of provisions and arms was established among them, so that in the event of the Indians attacking them they might keep together and defend themselves until help reached them.

At the outset the settlers were greatly encouraged by the bounty of the British government, which supplied them with full rations for the first year, two-thirds for the second year and one-third for the third year. Nevertheless the people were poor enough. Many were involved in debt, and a debtor was so largely at the mercy of his creditor that he could be kept in gaol for an indefinite period. Members of the council and of the assembly were protected in their persons, although many of them were equally involved with their humbler fellows.

It was therefore an inexpressible relief to receive the compensation money voted by the imperial parliament to reimburse those who had suffered loss by the Revolution. It was nearly six years before all the claims were adjusted. In the latter part of 1786 Colonel Dundas and Jeremiah Pemberton came to adjust the claims of the loyalists in New Brunswick, having spent the previous year in Nova Scotia. Dundas admired the loyalists, but was prejudiced against the old inhabitants, whom he characterized as ‘a despicable race, ready to sell their improvements as the Loyalists were able to purchase from them.’ The fact that the inhabitants of a country where there is plenty of land were ready to sell their improvements is no proof of inferiority. On the contrary, it shows that they had sufficient skill and energy to go into the wilderness and make for themselves even better homes than they had before. At the same time the loyalists, who were not familiar with clearing lands, were able to settle down at once upon improved farms.

The British government certainly treated the loyalists generously, for eventually a sum amounting to £3,292,452 sterling was divided among 4118 claimants, in various parts of the British dominions, in proportion to their individual losses. Many of those in New Brunswick were helped at a critical time. It must also be remembered that more than two hundred military officers who settled in the province received half-pay for the remainder of their lives.

Carleton, now designated lieutenant-governor, took up his residence at the provincial capital in October 1786, but the house of assembly did not meet there until July 18, 1788. That session was chiefly remarkable for the debate on the question of the payment of a small indemnity to the members in attendance. Chipman divided the house no less than twenty-three times on this question. He argued that the payment of members was contrary to the ancient and established usage of parliament and to the spirit of patriotism and magnanimity that should characterize the house and would introduce a precedent derogatory to its honour and dignity. Chipman was able to rally only four members to his support, all of them from his own constituency. Provision was made at this session for the maintenance of a lighthouse on Partridge Island, at the entrance of St John harbour, the first erected on the New Brunswick coast. The trade of St John had become quite important, particularly that with New York and the West Indies, and the protection of shipping began to be an object of consequence.

At the expiration of a few years the rancour displayed in the old colonies toward the loyalists in some measure subsided, and a considerable number of those who had become discouraged at the outlook in New Brunswick yielded to the solicitations of their relatives and returned to the United States. Among them were several members of the first house of assembly, namely: Dr William Paine, of Charlotte County; John Hamilton, of Kings County; Richard Vanderburgh, of Sunbury County; and Edward Stelle, of York County. This action did not fail to call forth sarcastic comments, and one of the writers of the day roundly abuses all such gentry

who, forgetting the favours which they received from Government, have made a voluntary sacrifice of their former honourable principles, have sold the lands that were granted them and meanly skulked into the United States, where, as an act of grace, they are permitted to eat, drink and vegetate, and in place of being buoyed up under affliction by the reflection of having done their duty as honest men are compelled to consider the most meritorious actions of their lives as the most atrocious offences which they ever committed.... I can only say that in my opinion the country which has adopted them will have but little reason to boast of the acquisition, and that which they have left will never lament their departure.

In the session of 1791 Judge Saunders and James Glenie were introduced as members of the assembly. As the three other judges were members of council, it was not deemed improper that Judge Saunders should be a member of the assembly. He was the only one of the Supreme Bench of New Brunswick who ever sat in the house, yet up to the year 1849 there was nothing to prevent a judge from being a member of the assembly. The other new member, James Glenie, was a radical reformer and a full half-century in advance of his time. In the Atlantic provinces Joseph Howe, Lemuel Allan Wilmot and Charles Fisher are regarded as the pioneers of responsible government, but Glenie was an ardent reformer before these men were born. He was a native of Scotland and had been an officer in the Royal Engineers. The Duke of Kent admired his abilities; Lieutenant-Governor Carleton did not. In fact the governor and his advisers detested him. This did not disturb Glenie in the least. He seemed rather to gloat over the annoyance he created, and was exceedingly free in his observations. He could be vulgarly abusive when he chose. In one of his letters the governor is referred to as ‘Tommy Carleton,’ George Duncan Ludlow is termed ‘the ignorant Chief Justice,’ Christopher Billopp, ‘an ignorant uncouth Dutch Boor,’ Samuel Denny Street, ‘the little Creeper Cock.’ Glenie was a veritable Ishmaelite in provincial politics. On one occasion he moved a resolution in the assembly charging the lieutenant-governor with interfering with the privileges of the house. The resolution was voted down, but Carleton was very indignant. On another occasion Glenie ran foul of the redoubtable General Coffin, member for Kings County. A duel followed and Glenie was wounded. His talents and dash, however, attracted a considerable following, and in the course of time he was a power to be reckoned with in the legislature. There were prolonged and heated controversies respecting questions of prerogative and privilege, and the principles of government were pretty thoroughly discussed. It was necessary these things should be settled sooner or later, and in working out the principle of responsible government Glenie, with all his extravagances and eccentricities, was a pioneer of reform.

In 1791 it had become evident that war with France was impending, and it became necessary that something should be done to put the province in a state of defence. As it was feared that the Indians of the upper St John might be disposed in the event of war to be hostile, fortified posts were established at Presqu’Ile and Grand Falls and three companies of the 6th regiment were sent to garrison them. This sufficed to overawe the Indians and to strengthen the communication with Quebec. Barracks were built at the same time for the troops in Fredericton. War, however, did not come until two years later.

Meanwhile there was a clash in the woods of New Brunswick of a different nature caused by disagreements between the settlers and the king’s surveyor of the woods. The export of timber did not at first appeal to the loyalists as an object of consequence. Much of the forest on the lower St John and near the coast had been destroyed by fire and little was known of the resources of the vast wilderness of Central and Northern New Brunswick. But it was not long before mills were built and the province began to export lumber of all kinds in considerable quantities, especially pine timber. There was in many of the land grants a reservation to the king of all white pine trees, and it was well understood that the acts passed in the reign of George I and George II prevented the cutting of pine timber, even by a proprietor on his own land. The contractors who were engaged in cutting masts for the navy did not hesitate to go on the lands of private owners and strip them of their pine timber. This led to lawsuits and finally to a petition to the lieutenant-governor, who supported the owners of the land and wrote to the secretary of state in their behalf. The restrictions that had caused so much irritation began gradually to be withdrawn, and in a few years the obnoxious clause reserving white pine trees to the crown was omitted in the grants. The ensuing war with France had the effect of closing the Baltic ports and caused a great demand for pine timber. The people of the province, finding that large profits were to be made, soon began to bend their energies to the business known as ‘masting.’ This was the real beginning of the New Brunswick timber trade, which afterwards assumed such enormous proportions.

For at least a decade the question of education did not seriously trouble the house of assembly, although the lack of schools and colleges was a reason why some of the most highly cultured loyalists left the province after a few years’ residence. It was not until 1792 that the house made a beginning by voting £100 for the support of a provincial seminary. The grant made by the assembly became an annual one, and in the course of time the Fredericton Academy has grown into the University of New Brunswick.

The first house of assembly was dissolved in 1792, and of its twenty-six members only twelve were re-elected. The lieutenant-governor found the new house little to his liking. Hitherto there had been no serious differences between the assembly and the lieutenant-governor in council, but the session of 1793 marks the beginning of a controversial period of which we shall hear more anon.

War was declared by France in 1793, and Lieutenant-Governor Carleton was directed to raise a regiment of six hundred men for service in the province; the lieutenant-governor was himself to be colonel, Beverley Robinson lieutenant-colonel, the other officers to be selected from those on half-pay who had served in the Revolutionary War. The corps was called the King’s New Brunswick Regiment. The principal object in raising it was to permit the regiments in garrison to serve elsewhere. Had the regiment been recruited to its full strength it would have required a large proportion of the active young men of the province, whose labours were greatly needed on the farms. It need not be a matter of wonder that recruiting proceeded rather slowly. In July 1794 the regiment numbered four hundred and fifty of all ranks, including many veterans of the late war. It was employed in garrison duty at Fredericton, St John, St Andrews and the military posts at Presqu’Ile and Grand Falls, and while not actively engaged it gave to the settlements and seaports a sense of security that would otherwise have been wanting. It was disbanded in August 1802 at the Peace of Amiens, after nine years’ service.

During the war there was not a little uneasiness along the coast at the prospect of a repetition of the filibustering raids that had marked the former war. At St John volunteer companies of militia were formed and new batteries constructed by the citizens at the south end of the city. Carleton fitted out an armed cruiser, which rendered important service in protecting the coast of the Bay of Fundy against the small piratical craft that were fitted out in New England by irresponsible parties, nominally under French commissions. The volunteers were always ready to stand to their arms, and they turned out on several occasions when there was an alarm that the enemy’s ships were cruising off the harbour.

Some excitement was caused on the upper St John in the spring of 1794 by the unexpected appearance of an American surveying party on the banks of the river, just below the old Indian village of Meductic. Their chief surveyor, Samuel G. Titcomb, planted a stake and informed the settlers that the line marked by this stake was the international boundary and all to the westward United States territory. Had the boundary been so established, New Brunswick would have been practically cut off from Canada and the Confederation of 1867 rendered impracticable. Lieutenant Adam Allan of the Presqu’Ile garrison promptly removed the surveyor’s landmark and reassured the inhabitants.

The military ardour of New Brunswick was stimulated not a little by the visit of the commander-in-chief, His Royal Highness Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, the father of Queen Victoria. During his stay in St John he made his residence at the house of Ward Chipman, where his grandson, the late King Edward vii, was entertained when he visited the city in 1860. Lieutenant-Governor Carleton was now major-general and in 1798 was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general.

The return of James Glenie to the province in 1795, after an absence of two years in England, was marked by stormy times in the legislature. Under his leadership a bill was passed in the assembly declaring that no law enacted by the British parliament subsequent to 1750 was to be held binding in New Brunswick unless it was so stated in the act, and also that no law enacted prior to 1750 was to be binding in New Brunswick (without express words to that effect) except acts for the regulation of commerce, for the imposition of taxes, and for the maintenance of an established clergy. It was further provided in the bill that no part of the canon law should extend to the province, or any penal statute respecting recusants and nonconformists, except as respects supremacy and allegiance. This bill, having been passed by a vote of fifteen to ten in the assembly, was stigmatized in council as practically a measure to declare independence of the mother country. The council would not even suffer it to be read, but rejected it the moment it was introduced.

In August 1795 another general election was held and resulted in the return of twelve new members; but the house was no more willing to subordinate itself to the governor and council than the previous one had been. The council had for several years assented to the payment of members of the assembly. It now refused to pass the annual appropriation bill with this item in it. The assembly would not withdraw the item. So determined were both parties that the deadlock continued until 1799. This was serious, for by that time the province had been four years without an appropriation act and three years without a revenue act. The treasury was empty; the debts of the province and salaries of all minor officials were unpaid. The situation was discreditable to both branches of the legislature. Underlying the deadlock there was an element of pique. The lieutenant-governor had expended, during the war, £50 for land on which to erect a battery at St John and nearly £75 for the defences at St Andrews, and now asked the assembly to provide for payment. This the house declined to do, on the plea that the British government had paid like expenditures in the other provinces. The lieutenant-governor insisted that the outlay should be included in the appropriation bill. There were several conferences between representatives of the council and the assembly, but the temper of the parties was such that all were fruitless. The assembly addressed the secretary of state, but Carleton in forwarding the address took care to accompany it with such observations as were calculated to prevent it meeting with a favourable reception, and probably led the secretary of state to regard the assembly of New Brunswick as a recalcitrant body that needed to be taught its duty. However, in 1798 the Duke of Portland intimated that, although he had objected to the payment of the members of the assembly, he was too anxious for the restoration of harmony to insist upon the point. It therefore became clear to the lieutenant-governor and council that they could no longer count on the support of the home authorities in their refusal to pass the revenue and appropriation acts. In conceding the point at issue the council were able to taunt the assembly with doubling the duty on rum in order to pay their own salaries. Needless to say, the increased duty was needed very much more to provide a revenue to pay the debts of the past four years than it was to pay the members the small sum of seven shillings and sixpence a day for their attendance at the annual session. Nevertheless, the doubling of the duty on rum was not regarded with complacency by the old-time electors.

An important event of the year 1798 was the decision of the Boundary Commission in favour of the British claim of the Schoodic River as the true and ancient River St Croix, and therefore the boundary river of the treaty of 1783. This set at rest the uneasiness of the settlers on the upper St John and discredited the assertion of James Glenie that the posts established by Carleton at Presqu’Ile and Grand Falls were within the limits of the United States.

Ever since the formation of the province the question of developing communication with Canada had been discussed, but uncertainty as to its limits had caused delay. The Duke of Kent became greatly interested in the matter, and had he remained in America there is every reason to believe that the construction of the road to the St Lawrence would have made rapid progress. The duke not only saw the importance of developing a route of communication between the provinces but also of their uniting for defence. At his desire Carleton assembled the King’s New Brunswick Regiment for the purpose of ascertaining if the officers and men were willing to serve in the common defence of British America instead of merely limiting their sphere of operations to the province in which they were enlisted. They unanimously agreed to extend their services to the other provinces if need should arise. Thus, by his endeavour to draw the provinces together and to induce them to co-operate for mutual defence, the Duke of Kent may be credited with a move in the direction of Confederation.

New Brunswick was for years beset with troublesome boundary questions. Nova Scotia made an attempt to regain the richest and most populous part of Westmorland County. Quebec claimed the greater part of the present counties of Restigouche and Madawaska. The United States claimed a considerable portion of Western New Brunswick. These claims were in every instance ably and successfully resisted, although in the case of the northern and western boundaries the questions at issue were not fully decided until long after Carleton’s day.

In the war with France the resources of the mother country were so severely taxed that an appeal was made for voluntary contributions to defend the homeland against threatened invasion. In response money was poured into the national treasury from all classes in sums ranging from thousands of pounds down to sixpences, and totalling more than £3,000,000 sterling. The infant colony of New Brunswick, with less than twenty thousand inhabitants, contributed £3000 to the fund, Lieutenant-Governor Carleton heading the list with £500 sterling. Such an offering, at a time when many of the people were struggling for the necessaries of life, sufficiently displays the patriotism of the founders of the province.

Owing to the war and other causes little was done for twenty years in the construction of roads. Nor do we find any legislation for the encouragement of the farmer unless it be the introduction of a bill to prevent the growth of thistles and a bill to encourage the killing of ‘luciffees’ and bears.

The meetings of the assembly had been held in a small building which is still standing in Fredericton, but on May 15, 1800, the cornerstone of a Province Hall for the accommodation of the legislature and courts of justice was laid. The building was never architecturally beautiful, but served its purpose until it was burned in 1880, when the present handsome parliament buildings were erected.

While Carleton had vigorous opponents in the assembly, he had friends and admirers, particularly among those who had been educated to believe that one class of the inhabitants had a hereditary right to govern the other, and who could not divest themselves of the idea that every reformer was to be suspected of having a predilection for the republican systems that had led the chartered colonies of New England into rebellion. In the earlier part of his term of office the lieutenant-governor was active and energetic, but opposition seemed to depress his ambition, and even before his retirement to England he had settled down to the quiet life of a very quiet town and had become largely interested in his farm and garden and quite content with the society of his immediate friends. Possibly his example was contagious, for Edward Winslow, who was one of his neighbours, writes at this period: ‘Activity is unfashionable, and a spirit of enterprise is either called by the name of enthusiasm or blasted in the bud by being imputed to a romantic disposition. Our gentlemen have all become potato planters, and our shoemakers are preparing to legislate. If the operations of the latter do not turn out more profitably than those of the former we shall certainly have a pretty bad system.’

Winslow, however, admitted that there had been a great improvement in the circumstances of the people, for he writes:

Enter the habitations of the farmers in almost every part of the province now and, with very few exceptions, you’ll find them tight, warm and comfortable, you’ll see the man and woman surrounded by a flock of children, robust, hearty and useful, clad in homespun, feeding upon their own mutton, with bread, butter and cheese in abundance. In many instances you may discover not only the comforts of life, but luxuries procured by their over-plus produce, or by their winter exertions in masting, getting timber, wood, etc., for which they receive liberal wages. Their barns contain a stock of cattle, horses, sheep and swine, of more value than their ancestors in New Jersey or New England possessed for three generations before they were born.

While there had been an increase in the comforts of life, there had been little increase in the number of the people. The idle, the improvident, the dissipated and the discontented had mostly left the country, and their going had been little loss. But others had gone who could not so well be spared, men of enterprise and education and of some means. Not a few of these were numbered among the founders of Ontario. A good many also went back to the United States, discouraged at their prospects, or intent upon securing the advantages of education for their children. Certainly, the lack of schools was a serious disadvantage to the rising generation, the greater part of which was growing up in ignorance. It was clear that the children of the loyalists were destined to be inferior to their parents in knowledge, if not in ability and force of character.

The industrial development of the first twenty years in the history of New Brunswick gave much promise of greater things in the future. Shipbuilding had been carried on in a small way before the coming of the loyalists, but rapidly increased after their arrival. At St Andrews and other places in the county of Charlotte, at St John and on the Miramichi, ships were built in large numbers. During the two or three years that preceded Carleton’s return to England ninety-three square-rigged vessels and seventy-one sloops and schooners were built, most of them for the West India trade.

The manufacture of lumber, too, had become an important industry in all parts of the country. Mills of small capacity were to be found in every county, and the settlers were enabled to replace their log-houses with comfortable and commodious dwellings, the mills at the same time affording employment to their owners.

The fisheries grew constantly in importance. The fish caught in the Bay of Fundy and in the Passamaquoddy waters were exported chiefly to the West Indies in brigs and schooners which returned with rum and molasses. The Island of Campobello, situated at the international boundary, became a rendezvous for vessels engaged in the plaster trade. The plaster (or gypsum) came from Hillsboro and Windsor, at the head of the Bay of Fundy, and was transferred at Campobello from British to United States vessels to be carried to New York and Philadelphia. In 1802 the export of gypsum from Campobello was 14,000 tons, but in the next fifteen years it had grown to 100,000 tons.

Agriculture was from the first the chief occupation of the people. The farmers grew wheat in considerable quantities, most of it winter wheat. Rye was grown in large quantities and potatoes were always an abundant crop. Indian corn was grown on the intervales of the St John in much the same fashion as it had been grown by the Indians from time immemorial. The livestock—cattle, sheep and swine—rapidly increased in numbers, but horses were few, most of the farm work being done by oxen.

Carleton and his family embarked for England on October 5, 1803. On the eve of their departure the lieutenant-governor was presented with a very cordial address by the people of St John. He had lived in the province nineteen years. It was his intention when leaving to come back again, but various circumstances led him to postpone his return and finally to abandon it altogether. On account of the important service he had rendered in the organization of the province the English government did not offer serious objection to his prolonged non-residence. But as a non-resident lieutenant-governor his influence with the home authorities was inconsiderable. It is probable that the state of inactivity into which he sank arose in a measure from the fact that his recommendations were not infrequently disregarded. Carleton was sensitive in such matters and resented having his opinions and suggestions ignored. In this he was but human. From the time he left the province until his death in 1817 the government was administered by eight different persons under the title of president and commander-in-chief. The stipend of £1500 sterling was equally divided between the non-resident lieutenant-governor and the president.

Colonel Gabriel G. Ludlow, the senior member of the council, a brother of the chief justice, was the first of the administrators. He was a loyalist, and in the Revolution raised and commanded the third battalion of General de Lancey’s brigade. He had been mayor of St John for ten years and was a judge of the court of vice-admiralty. During his term of office he lived a very quiet life at Carleton. The people seem to have quietly accepted the new arrangement, and Ward Chipman writes: ‘With regard to public affairs, we are really a self-governed people and get on just as well without a governor as with one.’ But he admits that the advent of a young, active, vigorous and enterprising governor was needed to bring forth the capabilities of the country. Winslow deplored the fact that £1500 sterling should be divided between a governor who, for his amusement, resided at Ramsgate, and a president who, for his convenience, lived eighty miles from the seat of government.

Upon the death of President Ludlow, in February 1808, Winslow himself succeeded to the office and displayed zeal and energy. His term, however, lasted only three months, the home government having decided that in view of the probability of war with the United States the administration should henceforth devolve upon the senior military officer. Under this system there were nine changes of administration in nine years, and it was ironically said: ‘Presidents are relieved with as little ceremony as an officer’s guard.’ In the course of this period Major-General Hunter was three times president and commander-in-chief and Major-General Smyth twice. Lieutenant-Colonel George Johnstone, Major-General William Balfour, Sir Thomas Saumarez and Lieutenant-Colonel Harris William Hailes filled the position for periods varying from two months to a year. The multiplicity of changes under the ‘military succession’ bewildered the under-secretaries in England and led to embarrassing complications. In New Brunswick no order could well have been more unpopular than that which transferred the right of succession to the presidency from the senior member of the council to the senior military officer.

When the war with France was resumed, in 1804, another regiment of Fencibles was raised to serve in New Brunswick. This regiment eventually became the 104th of the British line and rendered efficient service in Upper Canada in the War of 1812.

Premature frosts in the year 1804 were very disastrous for the farmers. Such frosts were not infrequent and were much dreaded in the early days of the province, but as the country was cleared they gradually became more unusual and at length almost entirely ceased.

Judge Edward Winslow, who succeeded Colonel Ludlow as president, was a man of ability and fine character. He might have sought a wider field than New Brunswick for the display of his talents, but was content to be one of its founders, and the province is greatly indebted to his zeal and self-sacrifice.

At this time many of the old ultra-tories had passed off the scene, including nine of the first council. A proof of the more liberal tendency of the times is seen in the act adopted in 1810, which enabled the Roman Catholics of the province to vote. Various evidences of material progress now began to appear. At the session of the legislature in 1812 an act was passed ‘to encourage the erection of a Passage-Boat to be worked by steam for facilitating communication between St John and Fredericton.’ The act was passed only three years after the first steamer was placed on the St Lawrence, but it was not until 1816 that the General Smyth, the pioneer boat, began to run between the two cities.

The War of 1812 did not retard the progress of New Brunswick, but rather served to stimulate it. The war was very unpopular in Maine and throughout New England, and this was the chief reason why the tranquillity of New Brunswick was so little disturbed. General Smyth issued a proclamation calling upon all His Majesty’s subjects to refrain from molesting the inhabitants of the United States so long as they refrained from molesting the inhabitants of New Brunswick. A similar proclamation was issued in Nova Scotia. Peace was thus ensured on the border and the people on both sides of the line were able to pursue their usual avocations. Some precautions, however, were taken. Orders were issued to have one-third of the militia ready for service at a moment’s notice, and it was decided that St John, which had lately been made a free port, should be put in a proper state of defence. The patriotism of the citizens led them to volunteer their services in the construction of fortifications, the members of the common council agreeing to personally direct and assist in the work. Guns arrived from Halifax to arm the defences. The Martello Tower on Carleton Heights still stands as a monument of the period. The defences of St Andrews were strengthened and a battery constructed up the St John River opposite Evandale. In the month of December the British brig-of-war Plumper was wrecked in a snowstorm near Dipper Harbour, a little to the west of St John, and forty-four persons, including the commander, were drowned. This was the most serious disaster that has ever occurred in the Bay of Fundy. The vessel had on board $70,000 in silver for the commissariat, most of which was lost. A good many prizes were brought into St John by the province cruiser Brunswicker during the war.

In the month of February 1813 the New Brunswick Regiment (the 104th) was ordered to Canada. Its mid-winter march to Quebec is justly deemed one of the most remarkable on record. The season was particularly severe, the snow deep, and nearly three hundred miles of unbroken wilderness had to be traversed on snow-shoes, there being no roads north of Fredericton worthy of the name. It is doubtful if any regiment in the king’s service could have performed such a march at such a season with less loss and discomfort. The hardy pioneers of a forest country were peculiarly adapted to the task. They set out in successive detachments, a day’s interval between, in order that the frost might harden the track made by the leaders for those who were to follow. And so in the course of a few days one thousand men were plying their snow-shoes up the frozen river on their way to the seat of war. The leading division, under Colonel Halkett, had four Indian guides to the St Lawrence. The distance of three hundred miles from Fredericton to Quebec was covered in thirteen days, probably the most remarkable snow-shoe march on record. Another Fencible regiment was raised by the efforts of General Coffin and was disbanded in the province at the close of the war.

During the year 1814 three successful military and naval expeditions gave the British troops possession of the whole of South-Eastern Maine, including Castine, Bangor, Machias and Eastport. These places were retained to the end of the war, and their possession should have proved a powerful lever in the readjustment of the north-western boundary of New Brunswick. The council and assembly at their session this year united in an address to the prince regent, praying that when a negotiation of peace should take place His Royal Highness would take measures to secure the adoption of a boundary that would not interfere with the important line of communication between New Brunswick and Lower Canada by the River St John.

The war came to an end in 1815, and for the next forty years Great Britain was at peace with every civilized nation. After twenty years of almost continuous conflict this was a welcome change. A generation had grown up that knew no other condition than that of war.

Lieutenant-Governor Carleton lived so quietly in England during his latter years that in the excitement of the war he was well-nigh forgotten, and his death at Ramsgate on February 2, 1817, excited little comment. He was interred beside his brother, Lord Dorchester, in the family vault at Nately Scures, in Hampshire. A handsome tablet, lately erected by the legislature of New Brunswick, marks his resting-place.

The summer of 1816 was the first of several extraordinary seasons, long known as ‘the cold years.’ On June 7 there was a fall of snow, which was general over the province, followed by severe frosts. For eleven days the cold was so severe that greatcoats were generally worn. The wheat was totally destroyed and all other crops seriously damaged; even the ‘never failing potato’ did not yield half a crop. In consequence the cost of provisions rose to famine prices. Wheat flour sold at $21 a barrel, rye flour at $17 and corn at $2½ a bushel. So widespread and so general was the distress that the legislature voted £6000 out of its small revenue to furnish seed and provisions to those in need of help. The year was long referred to by the old inhabitants as ‘the year without a summer.’

But the province had now come to its own, and a period of rapid development was at hand. Towns and cities began to rise into importance; immigration set in to help people the waste places; communication was improved by the construction of roads and bridges and by the building of steamboats; and the resources of the forest and fisheries were exploited as never before. The government offered bounties to encourage agriculture. They also voted £1000 to encourage immigration, and as a result a number of people came to the province from Greenock the same year.

Before we proceed to speak of the important immigration that now set in, some general observations must be made concerning the origin of the various settlements of the province. Those which were made by the people of New England and the old colonies, prior to 1783, were upon the Bay of Fundy and the rivers emptying into it. The settlements of Eastern New Brunswick, on the other hand, were of European origin. The explanation is, of course, a geographical one. It was merely a question of accessibility. Accessibility, too, had much to do with the origin of the Acadian settlements on the north shore of New Brunswick. For ten years after the Expulsion in 1755 the Acadians were an outlawed race. Some of them lived secluded on the Buctouche, Richibucto and Miramichi Rivers, but more sought refuge at Nipisiguit and at the head of Chaleur Bay. In the course of time many of them were driven from these remote situations, and those who remained were there only because the English were not able to remove them. However, by 1767 the rancour and distrust engendered by years of conflict had in a measure abated. The Acadians showed a readiness to adapt themselves to new conditions and were encouraged to take up lands in various places. This led to their establishment in Westmorland County and at several places on the north shore. Many families from St Pierre and Miquelon and from the Island of St John and Cape Breton came afterwards to strengthen these settlements.

During the long term of office of Lieutenant-Governor Carleton there was a considerable readjustment both of loyalist and Acadian settlements. Grants were in some cases abandoned, resettlement followed in other localities. Vacant lots, deserted by those to whom they were first granted, were taken up by others, and this helped to consolidate the settlements. The spirit of unrest, which kept people moving about in search of more convenient situations, better lands, mill sites and so forth, led to the extension of the original settlements and to the establishment of new ones. Already there was a marked expansion on the upper St John, where the settlements had been extended as far north as the Presqu’Ile garrison before the War of 1812. A large number of new settlements had been made in the county of Charlotte and on the tributary streams of the lower St John. A good many loyalists were attracted to the Miramichi valley, where they located themselves among the older residents in the parishes of Newcastle and Chatham, or formed new settlements on the lower parts of both branches of the Miramichi, in Derby, Nelson, Blackville, Northesk and Southesk, and they also settled Bay du Vin.

To the Restigouche valley there came in 1783 a few Scottish settlers, who located at Athol Point and were joined from time to time by others from Scotland and Prince Edward Island. A more considerable Scottish immigration came to the Miramichi, founding Doaktown and the settlements above and below. The Scots also contributed to the early settlements at Nipisiguit and Richibucto.

There was also an important emigration from Horton and Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, into Albert County during this period, and this greatly stimulated the development of the parishes of Harvey and Hopewell.

Readjustment affected materially the Acadian settlements. Many of those who had lived above St Ann’s on the River St John removed to Madawaska, others to Caraquet in the county of Gloucester. The Madawaska settlement was augmented by the arrival of a number of Acadians who formerly lived at French Village, in Kings County, and by the arrival of some families of French Canadians from Quebec. In the course of a century the Madawaska settlement, which had begun with twenty-four families, had grown into a community of twenty-four thousand people. It is noticeable that their family names are but few. In the county of Madawaska one-twelfth of the population bear the modest name of Cyr.

All candid writers speak of the Acadians as an inoffensive people. They were for half a century a very unfortunate people, and the way they have clung to their native country, in spite of expulsion, removal, and transfer of sovereignty, is indeed pathetic. One of the founders of Madawaska, who had experienced many vicissitudes, when called upon to abandon the fields his hands had tilled on the lower St John, exclaimed: ‘Can it be that the good God has no place on earth for the Acadians?’ Their settlement on the upper St John was a part of Haldimand’s plan of developing a route of communication between St John and Quebec. There was protracted litigation with Colonel des Barres and his heirs for the possession of the lands at Memramcook, in the county of Westmorland, on which the Acadians settled. Ultimately they obtained the lands, partly by possession and partly by purchase.

The Indians of New Brunswick, down to the year 1783, had lived pretty much where they liked, without interference from the whites and also without any formal recognition of their right to the soil. The only reserve made for them previous to that time consisted of five hundred acres at Aukpaque, a few miles above Fredericton. But in the course of time reserves were set apart for the Malecites at St Basil, Tobique, Woodstock, Kingsclear, St Marys and Oromocto—on the St John River; and for the Micmacs at Fort Folly, on the Petitcodiac; at Buctouche, Indian Island and Richibucto, in Kent County; at Red Bank, Eel Ground and Burnt Church, on the Miramichi; at Pabineau and Indian Island, on the Nipisiguit; at Eel River, near Dalhousie, and at the head of Chaleur Bay. The reserves were transferred at Confederation to the Dominion government.

The negro population of New Brunswick was never large. The loyalists brought with them several hundred slaves, many of whom afterwards sought a warmer climate. At the close of the War of 1812 about four hundred black people settled in the province, many of them at Loch Lomond, near St John. These were mostly slaves from the Southern States who had fled from their masters. At the present day there are not more than two thousand coloured people in New Brunswick.

The period of active emigration from Great Britain and Ireland began at the close of the war and continued during the next forty years. The efforts of the provincial government helped to direct a portion of the outflowing tide to New Brunswick, but the immigration was due mainly to hard times in the old country, the failure of the potato crop in Ireland being a not unimportant factor. The immigration, so far as New Brunswick is concerned, reached its culmination in the forties, when from six to eight thousand immigrants arrived annually. At least one hundred thousand people landed in the province in the fifteen years ending with 1848, and while many of them passed on to the United States a large number remained as settlers. This period of expansion was ushered in by the formation of military settlements on the St John River in the county of Victoria. A number of disbanded soldiers of the 8th, 98th and 104th regiments and of the New Brunswick Fencibles settled between the post at Presqu’Ile and the Indian reserve at the mouth of the Tobique. They were followed in June 1819 by the West India Rangers, who settled above the Indian reserve. The provincial government provided transportation, farming implements and a supply of provisions until they were fairly settled. Employment was furnished to many of them on the military road to Canada, the completion of which was then being urged by the Duke of Richmond, governor-in-chief of British North America. The arrival of the West India Rangers chanced to coincide with the arrival of two thousand Irish immigrants. St John at the time had only about eight thousand inhabitants, and some uneasiness was caused by the sudden accession of a body of people amounting to one-third of the city’s population, especially as the discharged soldiers were disposed to be hilarious. However, the arrival of a detachment from the garrison in Fredericton enabled the local authorities to maintain order. The Irish immigrants were in a condition of distress, and subscriptions were opened for their relief, Lieutenant-Governor Smyth heading the list with a contribution of £100. Nearly all who came subsequently were in a like condition and immigrant societies were formed for their assistance. It is to the credit of the great majority that, once given a fair start, they rapidly rose from want to comfort, and in not a few cases to affluence.

Limitations of space will not admit of any attempt to trace in detail the progress of the settlements established during this period. Their general location is shown in the accompanying plan. Much information on this head will be found in Dr W. F. Ganong’s valuable monograph on the ‘Origins of Settlements in New Brunswick.’^[1]

Many of the immigrants were not fitted for pioneer work. These settled chiefly among the inhabitants in the towns and older settlements, thus helping to consolidate and enlarge the communities already existing. Others, after a brief residence, joined with the inhabitants in opening up new lands in various parts of the province, thus forming settlements of mixed origin. Some, however, had the courage to take up blocks of wilderness land laid out for them, forming settlements of markedly national character. In not a few cases the name selected sufficiently indicated the nationality, as, for example, Hibernia, Cork, Inniskillen, Londonderry, Waterford, Shannon, Balmoral, Galloway, Kintore, Kincardine, Cardigan, New Denmark. There are at least three settlements in the province which bear the name of ‘English Settlement,’ and a like number known as ‘Irish Settlement,’ ‘Scotch Settlement’ and ‘Emigrant Settlement.’

After 1855 there was a marked decline in immigration, followed by a movement of the English-speaking people westward sufficiently extensive to check materially the growth of the province. A study of the census returns below will suffice to accentuate this fact. The province owes it to the French, who have as a rule clung tenaciously to their native soil, that its population has not fallen off in recent years.

Note.—Counties not marked are English; counties marked Fr. are almost wholly French; counties marked M. are mixed French and English, the latter somewhat in the majority.

VI
POLITICS AND INDUSTRY

Major-General George Stracey Smyth, who succeeded Lieutenant-Governor Carleton in 1817, was too much of a military man to be complaisant, and his term of office was rather a stormy one. He had been trained in the old-time political school and had strong opinions on questions of prerogative. A proposal made by the lieutenant-governor, and approved in council, to impose a tax of a shilling a ton on pine timber and to restrict the cutting to those licensed by the lieutenant-governor was very unpopular. Viewed in the light of history, the desire of the lieutenant-governor to conserve the forest resources has much in its favour, but people at the time regarded the proposed measure as both a hindrance to the clearing of the land and an injury to one of the chief industries of the country. Two hundred thousand tons of timber were shipped in 1817 to the United Kingdom alone and the trade was rapidly growing. The house of assembly pointedly condemned both the system of licensing and the timber tax. The lieutenant-governor retaliated by dissolving the house, but the new assembly was as little in accord with his policy as the old had been.

In the session of 1820 the Bank of New Brunswick was incorporated, the first financial institution established in the province. Smyth, though rather pedantic, was interested in the welfare of the rising generation and is to be remembered for his persevering endeavours to promote the cause of education. Chiefly through his efforts the Madras system was generally introduced. The system had its limitations and has been replaced by more modern and scientific methods, yet it was an improvement upon anything that had yet been attempted and in its day filled a public want. The lieutenant-governor was also a zealous patron of agriculture. Under his leadership societies were established all over the province, with the twofold object of improving agriculture and assisting the poor immigrants to settle on their farms.

The early trade on the Miramichi in square pine timber for the British market was largely controlled by Halifax and Scottish houses. In logging and rafting many people from the State of Maine found employment, and at the close of the season’s work returned to their homes. In 1822 a disagreement occurred between these people and some of the immigrant settlers on the river, which culminated in a riot so serious as to necessitate sending a part of the 74th regiment from Fredericton to quell the disturbance. Many arrests were made, and a special session of court was convened, presided over by Judge Saunders. Twenty prisoners were placed at the bar charged with riot, assault, the use of seditious words, forgery, highway robbery, and petit and grand larceny. Fifty-nine sentences were passed; a number received fifty lashes, and twelve were made to stand in the pillory. The province had never known a more exciting trial.

The pioneer steam saw-mill in New Brunswick was built on the ‘Straight Shore,’ at St John, by the firm of Otty and Crookshank. It was set in operation for the first time on July 29, 1822, in the presence of Sir James Kempt, Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, and General Smyth. The first shipment of deals was made from the port of St John the same year. The engine employed in the mill continued in use until 1894, when it was destroyed by fire. It was built by Boulton and Watt of Birmingham, the firm established by the famous engineer and inventor James Watt in 1775.

Lieutenant-Governor Smyth and his council continued to have serious disagreements with the house of assembly, and the situation had become very acute when, in the closing days of the session of 1823, the lieutenant-governor was stricken with sudden and fatal illness. On the morning of March 27 both houses were summoned to meet at seven o’clock. A commission under the great seal signed by the lieutenant-governor was read, authorizing the chief justice and two other judges of the Supreme Court to give the lieutenant-governor’s assent to the bills passed and prorogue the assembly. An hour later General Smyth was dead. His ashes repose in a vault under the south transept of the cathedral in Fredericton.

Judge Chipman succeeded to the administration, but was taken suddenly ill during the next session of the legislature and died on February 10. John Murray Bliss, one of the judges of the Supreme Court, succeeded him, and the legislature resumed business after a fortnight’s intermission.

During the year 1824 the first census of the province was taken. It was a very modest affair. No attempt was made to enumerate the industries, or to take account of the agricultural products, or even to distinguish the nationality or religion of the people. The enumeration showed that there were in the province 23,022 men, 17,054 women and 34,100 children. Immigration accounts for the fact that the number of women was only two-thirds that of the men. In the county of Northumberland there were 6221 men and only 3072 Women. The city of St John, including Portland, had a population of 11,531. Fredericton had 1849 inhabitants.

The administration of Judge Bliss had lasted six months when Sir Howard Douglas arrived to assume the government. Douglas was a man of different type from either of his predecessors. His genial nature, liberal mind and great energy made him one of the most popular lieutenant-governors the province has ever had. He displayed interest in agriculture, endeavoured to promote habits of thrift by establishing savings banks, stimulated the opening up of highways and reorganized the militia. But perhaps Sir Howard will be longest remembered for the establishment of the college at Fredericton, under a royal charter. Had the lieutenant-governor been able to establish the institution on the basis he wished, it would undoubtedly have been more acceptable to the general public, and several colleges, which to-day are its rivals, might perhaps not have come into existence. That the restrictions which made the college for forty years a Church of England institution undoubtedly arrested its development as a provincial university is shown by the great advance the university has made since they were removed. The handsome stone building now occupied by the university and the substantial edifice of Government House were both built under the supervision of Sir Howard Douglas.

In the summer of 1825 the lieutenant-governor visited the principal settlements of the province and made himself familiar with their circumstances. He was heartily received and had the opportunity of making the personal acquaintance of the leading men of the various communities. An appalling disaster in the autumn of this year called forth all the governor’s energies. This was the great Miramichi fire. The highly coloured description of the conflagration written by the Rev. Robert Cooney not long after it occurred is well known. His closing words may be quoted: ‘A greater calamity than the fire which happened in Miramichi never befell any forest country: and the general character of the scene was such that all it required to complete a picture of the General Judgment was the blast of a trumpet, the voice of the archangel and the resurrection of the dead!’

The season had been an unusually dry one and forest fires were prevalent. On October 7 fire from the neighbouring woods destroyed about eighty buildings in Fredericton, including the lieutenant-governor’s residence. This fire was an offshoot of a conflagration that was raging over a large forest area. On the same day that Fredericton was so severely scourged the fire began to menace the settlements on the Miramichi. Up and down this river the territory was covered by a magnificent pine forest, which held out the promise of great wealth in coming years and which even then was contributing nearly half the exports of the province. It is estimated that the area swept by the conflagration was not less in extent than six thousand square miles. Any one caught in the forest who could not reach the Miramichi was doomed to die. Most of the settlers’ houses between the Miramichi and Fredericton were burned and many lives lost. The comparatively small number of the inhabitants was the only thing that prevented the disaster from being even more appalling. Newcastle, with two hundred and sixty houses and nearly one thousand inhabitants, was almost totally destroyed; only twelve buildings escaped. Douglastown experienced a like fate, and of seventy buildings only six were left. Moorfields was left in ashes. The settlements of Ludlow were utterly destroyed. Bartibog, Napan and Black River were involved in the common ruin. Sparsely peopled as was the country, the loss of life and property was not inconsiderable. One hundred and sixty people perished, six hundred buildings were burned, eight hundred and seventy-five head of cattle were destroyed. The loss to the settlers was estimated at £227,714. But this was not all. Thousands of fur-bearing animals were destroyed. Even the fish were killed in large numbers by the fierce heat, or poisoned by the ashes that fell into the water. Next to human life, perhaps the most deplorable loss was the destruction of the forest which represented the growth of ages. The year before the fire the quantity of hewn timber exported from Miramichi was greater than that from St John. Thousands of destitute people were glad to share the relief provided by public generosity. The subscriptions amounted to £40,000, including a donation of £1400 from ‘His Most Gracious Majesty.’ The ashes of the conflagration were not cold when the lieutenant-governor appeared among the disconsolate sufferers. Unmindful of his own loss, he had come to them on horseback more than a hundred miles through the blackened and still smoking forest. His presence served to inspire them with renewed energy, and soon Newcastle and Douglastown began to rise from their ashes. The prosperity of Miramichi was checked but not destroyed, and in the course of succeeding years it became again, and still continues to be, one of the greatest lumber exporting districts of the world.

Two troublesome political matters were much debated while Sir Howard Douglas was lieutenant-governor. One of these was the arrangement whereby the imperial government retained the control of the customs. The salaries paid the collectors amounted to about forty per cent of the whole sum collected; that of the collector of St John was £1500 sterling, and the work by no means exacting. It was claimed that the legislature should have the right of disposing of the whole revenue contributed by the people of the province and that the salaries of the collectors should be controlled by the house of assembly. The question, having been laid before the home authorities, became a subject of considerable correspondence and inquiry, and finally, by order of the king in council in 1835, the right of the assembly to dispose of the entire revenue was confirmed and ratified. In 1848 the whole complicated system of collecting double duties by two sets of officers was swept away.

The other matter, which also formed the subject of numerous addresses to His Majesty, was the payment of quitrents. Most of the old grants were subject to quitrents, which were to be paid annually at the rate of two shillings for each hundred acres. They were never collected, and the people had grown to believe that the provision for quitrents amounted to nothing more than a nominal acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the crown. Consequently the announcement in 1827 that the quitrents were to be collected caused some consternation. After negotiations extending over seven or eight years, the home government agreed to accept the sum of £1200 annually from the legislature in commutation and full discharge of the quitrents, the money to be spent by His Majesty in improving the roads and bridges of the province. This curious solution of the difficulty was very much like taking money out of one pocket and putting it into the other.

After the erection of the district of Maine into a State in 1820 an attempt was made to assume jurisdiction over the Madawaska settlement, the inhabitants of which were included in the State census of that year. This attempt was resisted by New Brunswick, and there were frequent collisions along the border, which culminated in 1827, when John Baker hoisted the American flag, on July 4, within the bounds of the present county of Madawaska and frightened some of the simple-minded Acadians into signing a paper in which they declared themselves to be under the jurisdiction of the State of Maine. Baker was arrested, lodged in gaol at Fredericton and sentenced to fine and imprisonment. Great excitement ensued on both sides of the border, but Sir Howard Douglas acted with discretion and an armed conflict was avoided. The question in dispute was submitted to the king of the Netherlands, whose decision was rendered in January 1831 and afterwards rejected by the United States Senate. This was unfortunate for the people of Maine, for the boundary laid down by the king of the Netherlands gave them nine hundred square miles of territory more than they afterwards received by the Ashburton Treaty.

In consequence of the boundary arbitration Sir Howard Douglas proceeded to Europe in 1829, and the Hon. William Black filled the office of president and commander-in-chief until the arrival of Sir Archibald Campbell in 1831. Sir Howard’s departure was greatly lamented. He was undoubtedly one of the best lieutenant-governors the province ever had.

Sir Archibald Campbell was a distinguished army officer, but had none of the tact and suavity of his predecessor. His relations with the house of assembly during his term of office were far from cordial. Several important reforms were carried into effect during his term of office, it is true, but only after a hard fight. One of these was the Dissenters’ Marriage Act. For fifty years the only clergymen authorized to solemnize marriages in New Brunswick were those of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland and the priests of the Roman Catholic Church. As early as 1821 the house of assembly passed a bill authorizing the minister of any Christian denomination to solemnize marriage, but the council would not concur in its adoption. The bill was passed year after year, only to be rejected by the council. This aroused not a little irritation, and the assembly made a strong representation to the home authorities. The colonial secretary intervened and the council was forced to assent to the bill, which became law in 1835.

The members of the council suffered a rude shock in 1832, when their number was reduced to five and a separate body appointed as a legislative council. In the new upper house only one of the judges had a seat, namely, Chief Justice Saunders, who was the president. His successor, Ward Chipman, was the last of the judges to sit in legislative capacity, and he ceased to sit in 1842.

A number of able men now began to make their appearance in the house of assembly. Among them were James Brown and George S. Hill, of Charlotte County; Charles Simonds and John R. Partlow, of St John; Edward B. Chandler and Daniel L. Hanington, of Westmorland County; and L. A. Wilmot of York County. Wilmot was a young lawyer of twenty-five years of age, of loyalist ancestry. He possessed commanding eloquence. In parliamentary tactics and in debate he proved himself a master. He speedily became the acknowledged leader of the reform party and, with the notable assistance of Charles Fisher, was destined to do for his party in New Brunswick what Howe did for Nova Scotia.

The great political event of Sir Archibald Campbell’s day was that which resulted in placing the revenues of the crown lands and the customs under the control of the legislature. The assembly agreed that if this were done they would relieve His Majesty from the payment of the civil list of the province. As this list included the salaries of the lieutenant-governor, judges, attorney-general, provincial secretary and other officers of government, the proposal was stoutly opposed. Up to this time the people had no voice in the choice of those appointed to office or in the salaries they received. All that the assembly could do, if they deemed the salaries too high, was to complain to the colonial office in Downing Street. In connection with the reform now demanded, the house of assembly forwarded an address to His Majesty and sent no less than three successive delegations to England to present their grievances. Sir Archibald Campbell, backed by the council, did all in his power to thwart their wishes, the lieutenant-governor even going so far as to dissolve the house on a side-issue, but the new house was no more in accord with his wishes than the former had been. The home government eventually agreed that the revenues in dispute should be paid into the provincial treasury and that £14,500 should be provided out of the same for the civil list. Under this list the salaries were still generous. The lieutenant-governor received £3500 sterling—double the present salary—and the surveyor-general and the provincial secretary received three or four times as much as the present incumbents of those offices. To the very last the lieutenant-governor contended against this reform, and, having failed to thwart the purpose of the assembly, tendered his resignation. The transfer of the revenues placed the surplus of many years, amounting to £150,000, at the disposal of the legislature.

A second census was taken in 1834, which showed the population to be 119,457, an increase of 45,281 in the decade, more than half of it due to immigration. The city of St John (including Portland) had 18,000 people.

The construction of railways now began to be agitated. Two main lines were projected, one from St Andrews to Quebec, the other from St John to Shediac. The progress in each case was slow. The road from St John to Shediac (108 miles) was not entirely finished until 1860 and cost the province nearly $5,000,000. It must be regarded as a gigantic enterprise, considering the resources of New Brunswick at the time. By the terms of Confederation it passed into the hands of the government of Canada and is now part of the Intercolonial Railway. The railway from St Andrews to Quebec in the course of time was completed as far north as Woodstock. It has since been absorbed by the Canadian Pacific Railway system.

An important colonization company, known as the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company, was formed in London in 1831. The company purchased a tract of 589,000 acres in the county of York at three shillings an acre. Its object was to promote emigration from overcrowded districts in England, and to give employment to the poorest class in making roads, clearing land and building houses. It also held out inducements to officers retired from the military or civil services to settle on farms and increase their means by husbandry. The company has had a long and chequered history. It certainly did not accomplish all that its promoters hoped, but it was the means of founding more than twenty prosperous communities, the oldest of which is Stanley. In the course of time the provincial government sold lands at a lower rate than that originally paid by the company for its tract, and this naturally interfered much with its success. Eventually a large portion of the timber land was purchased from the company by Alexander Gibson, the founder of the town of Marysville.

Sir John Harvey became lieutenant-governor in 1837. He had distinguished himself as the hero of the fight at Stoney Creek, which resulted in a signal victory and the capture of the American generals Chandler and Winder. For four years he served the province with universal acceptance. During his term of office he visited all parts of New Brunswick, and no man ever left more kindly memories behind him. The rebellion in Canada in 1837 caused not a little agitation throughout the province. The 34th, 43rd, 65th and 85th regiments and a body of artillery proceeded to Quebec, over the route followed by the 104th a quarter of a century before. The spirit of the people was almost universally hostile to the rebellion. Their patriotism was even more strongly stirred a little later, when the State of Maine attempted to take possession of the disputed territory on the upper St John. Sir John Harvey made no mistakes in dealing with this difficult question. He sent a company of the 43rd regiment to Woodstock and another to Grand Falls to support the authorities against any lawless freebooters from across the line. At the same time he warned the people of New Brunswick against any hostile steps, assuring them that he would take measures for their protection. Nevertheless there was some clashing between the rival timber-cutters on the Aroostook. The governor of Maine sent six hundred militia to the border and obtained authority from the State to call out eight thousand men, and a vote of $800,000 was passed to assist in obtaining possession of the territory in dispute. The New Brunswick legislature responded by placing the entire resources of the province in the hands of Sir John Harvey for the purpose of resisting the threatened invasion, and a force of eight hundred and fifty militia was sent to Woodstock in readiness for any emergency. The sister province of Nova Scotia flamed with excitement. It voted the sum of £100,000 and authorized the calling out of eight thousand men, if necessary, for the defence of New Brunswick. The timely arrival of General Winfield Scott curbed the action of the Maine governor, Fairfield, who seemed bent on war. At one time the situation was extremely critical. The troops of either nationality stood facing each other, with guns on their shoulders, on opposite sides of a fordable river thirty yards wide. The discharge of a single musket might have precipitated a war the end of which no man could foresee. Fortunately, diplomacy was not one of the lost arts, and Lord Ashburton and Daniel Webster succeeded in solving the problem that had been a source of irritation for more than half a century by a compromise, commonly known as the Ashburton Treaty, which was signed on August 9, 1842. Lord Ashburton has been censured for making this treaty by persons who know nothing of the merits of the question. The treaty was certainly a favourable one from the British point of view. Lord Ashburton got the best boundary that was then possible, and it is safe to say that so good a settlement could not have been obtained at a later period. The bloodless campaign in the Aroostook region was facetiously spoken of by the Maine lumbermen as ‘the War of Pork and Beans.’

Disastrous fires in St John in 1837 and 1839 destroyed more than two hundred buildings, including the principal business part of the city, and entailed a loss of $2,000,000. But the trade of the city was flourishing and the spirit of the people soon retrieved the disaster. Shipbuilding was already an important industry and destined to attain still greater development—St John becoming in 1872 the fourth ship-owning port in the British Empire. The introduction of iron ships has since made the building of large wooden ships unprofitable. The census taken in 1840 showed that the population of New Brunswick was growing at the rate of five per cent yearly, a surprising rate of increase, due largely to immigration.

A dispatch from Lord Russell received at this time expressed the opinion that the offices under the crown should no longer be held for life, but should be vacated as often as any sufficient motive of public policy might render expedient. The same rule was to be applied to members of the executive council whenever the public good seemed to demand it.

The popularity of Sir John Harvey is seen in the fact that the legislature voluntarily increased his salary to the extent of £500 sterling, and on his departure from the province in 1841 voted the sum of £1500 for the purchase of a service of plate as a token of the general esteem.

The new lieutenant-governor, Sir William Colebrooke, like his predecessors, was an army officer. He filled the office for seven years and was a conscientious and worthy man. During his term the province had its battle over responsible government, and as it progressed the controversy waxed warm, but party spirit was never so rampant in New Brunswick as in the neighbouring provinces. Already much had been accomplished in the way of reform. The province had obtained the control of the crown lands and could appropriate as it liked the revenues arising from them. The control of the customs revenues had also been acquired and the salaries of the officials that collected them reduced to a more reasonable scale. The obnoxious laws that prevented persons of the Roman Catholic faith from filling public offices or holding seats in the legislature had been removed from the statute-books. The right had been given to all Christian ministers to solemnize marriages. The executive council had been separated from the legislative council and other reforms effected. But the executive was not yet responsible to the people; not one of the heads of departments had a seat in the house of assembly. Individual members had still the right to initiate money votes, and the idea that a government representing the wishes of the people and directly responsible to them should originate the principal measures of the session had not yet been approved. Another objectionable feature of the old régime was the necessity of referring almost every bill of importance to the home government. The control exercised by the colonial secretary, who might or might not be a man of discretion, and who, even with the best intentions, could hardly be expected to understand the situation of a province so far away, was unsatisfactory. It should not, however, be imagined that there were not under the old régime many able and upright men. The men of the ‘Family Compact’ should not be judged by modern standards. Many of them honestly thought that the popular leaders were pursuing the same course that had led to the loss of the older colonies, and that to give the chief control to the colonial assemblies would be a step towards separation from Great Britain. An incident that happened in 1843 gave a spur to the cause of the reformers. This incident was the appointment of the lieutenant-governor’s son-in-law, Alfred Reade, to the office of provincial secretary, which the Odells, father and son, had held for about sixty years, but which was now vacant. The appointment was made by Sir William Colebrooke without consulting his council. This was too much even for the staunchest upholder of the lieutenant-governor’s prerogative, and so emphatic a protest was sent home that the appointment was cancelled. The tories said that the lieutenant-governor had no right to appoint an outsider; the reformers said that he had no right to appoint any one.

The year 1847 saw an immense emigration from Ireland on account of the failure of the potato crop. So destitute were the people on their arrival that the legislature voted £1500 sterling to alleviate the distress, and a further sum of £1500 was collected for the same purpose in St John. The victims of the famine were crowded into emigrant ships while in a low state of health and suffered from typhus fever on the voyage. On their arrival at the port of St John the fever-infected ships were placed in quarantine at Partridge Island, but the buildings proved inadequate for the accommodation of the stricken ones, and the overflow had to be cared for in temporary hospitals and sheds. In the month of June thirty-five vessels arrived with 5800 passengers and during the summer about 15,000 Irish immigrants were landed at Partridge Island. The total mortality was upwards of two thousand persons. Their bodies lie in nameless graves and their story is indeed a sad one. The ‘year of the fever’ was only surpassed, as a tragic landmark in the annals of New Brunswick, by the ‘year of the cholera.’

The struggle for responsible government in Nova Scotia had drawn from Earl Grey the opinion that the colonies should follow the example of the mother country, and that heads of departments should be members of the legislature and hold their offices only so long as they enjoyed the confidence of parliament. Fisher’s motion that the house of assembly approves of the principles of colonial government contained in the dispatch was carried by a vote of twenty-five to eleven.

Sir William Colebrooke was succeeded in 1848 by Sir Edmund Walker Head, who was more of a student and more far-sighted than his predecessors. He expressed regret that municipal institutions had not been established throughout the province. The delay had been due chiefly to the influence of the magistrates in the sessions. These gentlemen did not relish the idea of being deprived of their power and dignity in regulating the affairs of the counties. The magistrates were almost as jealous of innovation as the council of the province had been. Municipal institutions came in the course of years, but were not generally adopted until long after Sir Edmund Head’s term of office had ended. An act of the legislature was, however, passed in 1851 under which counties were given the right to adopt the municipal system if they should think fit. Carleton County in 1852 was the first to avail itself of the privilege of electing a municipal council. York County followed in 1855 and Sunbury in 1856. The other counties did not adopt the municipal form of government until after Confederation.

In the general election of 1851 Samuel Leonard (afterwards Sir Leonard) Tilley, a man destined to attain the highest honours both in his native province and in the Dominion of Canada, was returned for the city of St John. At this period much interest began to be shown in the question of reciprocity with the United States. The people of New Brunswick were willing enough to exchange commodities with their neighbours, but not so willing to throw open their fisheries to them; consequently the treaty of 1854 was not unanimously approved. The Civil War in the United States, during the period the treaty was in operation, made large demands on the British provinces for food and other commodities. This made the treaty more advantageous to New Brunswick than it would have been under ordinary conditions, and produced a strong desire for its renewal when the period for which it was made expired.

The year 1854 will always be notable in the annals of New Brunswick for the outbreak of Asiatic cholera. Numbers died of the dread disease in Fredericton, Miramichi, St Andrews and Woodstock, but these visitations were slight in comparison with the terrible epidemic that raged in St John. No city was ever worse prepared to meet cholera than was St John, and probably no city in America, in proportion to its size, ever experienced a more deadly pestilence. During the whole summer the epidemic raged with unparalleled severity and the people succumbed so fast that it was found difficult to bury the dead. The disease was so virulent as frequently to prove fatal in a few hours. When the epidemic was at its worst there were more than forty deaths daily in a community that had less than thirty thousand people. The shipyards, where two thousand workmen found employment, were deserted, although twenty large ships were in course of construction on the stocks. In several of the principal business thoroughfares scarcely a human being could be seen. The air was full of smoke and tar fumes and the vapour of chloride of lime. There were in all more than five thousand cases of cholera, of which over two thousand proved fatal. The dead were buried in trenches side by side. Had not half the population fled from the plague-stricken city the results would have been even more frightful.

The year was notable not only for the epidemic of Asiatic cholera. It proved a very disastrous one for the commercial interests of New Brunswick. A panic in the lumber business brought to bankruptcy many of the oldest and best established houses in the province. Business of every kind was very seriously affected. Many of the farmers who had engaged in the lumbering business were obliged to mortgage their farms to pay for their supplies, and some were utterly ruined. The year was long and sorrowfully remembered throughout the province.

Sir John H. T. Manners-Sutton succeeded Sir Edmund Head as lieutenant-governor in 1854, and in the next year the persevering efforts of Charles Fisher and his fellow-reformers were crowned with success. The old administration was defeated by a vote of twenty-seven to twelve and a system of responsible government inaugurated. Lemuel Allan Wilmot, the former eloquent leader of the reformers, had ere this become a judge of the Supreme Court. In the first administration under the new order of things Charles Fisher was premier and attorney-general and S. L. Tilley provincial secretary. One of their first measures vested in the government the initiation of money grants, so that no private member could thereafter move the appropriation of money for public purposes.

Lieutenant-Governor Manners-Sutton, though not a man of marked ability, succeeded in creating more excitement during his term of office than any of his predecessors. The story briefly told is as follows: Tilley, as a private member, introduced a bill to prohibit the importation, manufacture and sale of liquor, which was adopted by a vote of twenty-one to eighteen. The closeness of the vote should have warned the advocates of the measure that it was likely to cause difficulty, since experience shows that all sumptuary laws are ineffective unless they have the support of a large majority of the people. After the act had been in operation a few months the lieutenant-governor expressed to the executive council his opinion that it was an absolute failure. If it were capable of enforcement, he said, the government was bound to enforce it; if it could not be enforced, it ought not to continue on the statute-book. He thought that there should be a dissolution of the assembly and an immediate appeal to the people on the question. The executive council refused to advise a dissolution and the lieutenant-governor dissolved the house on his own responsibility. The election that followed was perhaps the most hotly contested that has ever been held in the province. The friends of the lieutenant-governor and the friends of the liquor interest united in declaring that His Excellency’s action was quite right, and the cry ‘Support the Governor’ was raised in every county. The reform party denounced the lieutenant-governor’s action in dissolving the house against the will of his advisers as contrary to the principles of responsible government. The battle was especially fierce in St John, where the liquor interest was strong and there were not less than two hundred taverns. In the election Tilley lost his seat and the friends of prohibition found themselves in a minority. The Gray-Wilmot administration, which followed, had a precarious existence and was known as ‘the Speaker’s Government.’ The number of the supporters of either party was exactly equal when the speaker was in the chair and the government’s existence depended upon his casting vote. Another election was soon found to be absolutely necessary, and in this Tilley and his party were victorious.

The decade beginning with 1860 was destined to be a momentous one in America. It opened with the visit of the Prince of Wales to the British possessions in North America. He received a loyal welcome in New Brunswick, visiting St John and Fredericton. While in St John he was entertained, as already stated, at the historic Chipman house, where his grandfather the Duke of Kent had been entertained in 1794.

The outbreak of the Civil War in the United States did not injure the prosperity of New Brunswick, but rather stimulated it. The policy of the provincial government from now until Confederation was essentially a railway policy, and numberless communications were exchanged with the imperial government and the neighbouring provinces respecting the construction of an intercolonial railway. All parties interested had an object-lesson as to the necessity of the railway at the time of the ‘Trent affair’ in December 1861, when some thousands of British troops were hurriedly sent to Quebec in sleds over the winter road from Fredericton to the St Lawrence, a very difficult and costly undertaking.

The next great question to engage the attention of the people of New Brunswick was that of Confederation, an event of such importance that it overshadows almost every other in the political history of the province. It changed indeed the whole aspect of affairs in the British possessions in America, and substituted for a few weak and scattered colonies a strong Dominion, able to speak with united voice and stand as helpmate to the nation from which most of its people had sprung.

I
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Outbreak of War

The American leaders intended to carry the two most northerly colonies along with the other thirteen. They tried fair speech, and, when persuasion failed, they tried the strong hand. After protesting vehemently against the Quebec Act as ‘abolishing the equitable system of English laws and erecting a tyranny there,’ they essayed to win over the Catholic colony by means of political emissaries and plausible manifestoes. When these were disregarded, they employed the stronger argument of arms. The end of 1775 saw Montreal in the hands of the Revolutionists and the British governor pent within the walls of Quebec by a small American force which was still superior to his own. With the two chief places of strength in their grasp, the Americans had every prospect of bringing Canada into the Union.

In Nova Scotia, also, British authority was apparently in its last ditch. Britain was completely unprepared for the outbreak of war at home and overseas. The provincial government was in the hands of a violent, quarrelsome, suspicious man who had alienated almost every important official in the province. Major Francis Legge is supposed to have owed his appointment as governor to his kinsman the amiable and pious Earl of Dartmouth, the original of Sir Charles Grandison. He is described as ‘grotesque and brutal’ in appearance; and tradition avers that he was hissed by the Halifax mob on his departure from the city, and, when last seen, was shaking his fists at his insulters from the deck of the frigate which was to carry him away. The colony was never ruled by a more unpopular governor. From every post and fort the troops had been withdrawn in order to swell the British garrison which was to overawe rebellious Boston. The capital was defended by just thirty-six effective regulars; even the details for the town guard-house had to be supplied by the militia. The whole province lay open and naked to attack.

Nor was the temper of the people to be trusted. It is the fashion of local historians to represent Nova Scotia as unswervingly ‘loyal’ throughout the dreary, dragging civil war which was just beginning; but the truth is the inhabitants were divided in their allegiance.

It could hardly be otherwise. The majority came from New England, to which they were still closely attached by many ties of blood and interest. Now, after an interval of fifteen years at the utmost, they found themselves, by the mere accident of residence, forced into an attitude of hostility to friends and kindred. By the irony of fate they were now placed in the dilemma of the unfortunate Acadians in 1755; only the plight of the New Englanders was crueller still, for by their new citizenship they were required, in reality and not in a figure of speech, to bear arms against their old home and their own flesh and blood. Naturally they did everything that men in such a situation would do. They protested openly; they plotted secretly; in one county they rose in rebellion. They evinced their sympathy with the American cause in many ways. Children were given the names of Revolutionary heroes. Escaping prisoners of war, a stream that never ceased to flow, were concealed, fed and carried out of the province. Not a few of the settlers left Nova Scotia and returned to the ‘Continent.’

At the same time the official attitude of Nova Scotia towards her sister colonies was from first to last hostile and uncompromising. The overtures of Massachusetts and of Congress were met by contemptuous silence; and this treatment aroused in Americans a bitter dislike for Nova Scotia which was slow to die out. The threat of non-intercourse was at once put into effect, thus shutting the provincials from their natural market and causing much suffering. Invasion was repeatedly threatened and once attempted. The province was cruelly harried by piratical privateers. And yet Nova Scotia remained outside the Union.

An Alarming Situation

The situation that Legge had to cope with in 1775 was difficult and alarming. Rebellion had flamed out along the whole Atlantic seaboard. The British army was cooped up in Boston by Washington’s superior forces and had won a Pyrrhic victory over the despised ‘buckskins’ at the terrible cost of a thousand of their best men. Rumours of impending invasion were constantly coming in from the various counties along with petitions for warlike stores and ammunition. The ‘rebels’ of the adjoining state had taken a king’s ship within Nova Scotia bounds and killed several men who resisted. Signs of disaffection in the capital itself were not wanting. A supply of hay intended for the cavalry horses in Boston was burned. Buildings in the Dock Yard had also been fired. The governor’s own private desk was broken up, supposedly in search for papers. In spite of huge rewards offered, the culprits were never discovered. According to a letter in Poole’s Annals of Yarmouth the ‘liberty boys’ of Halifax had thrown a cargo of tea from Bristol into the harbour. Even members of the house were known to be in sympathy with the ‘rebels.’ Later, two joined them. To crown all, Halifax was smitten with a plague of smallpox.

To meet disaffection within and the menace of assault from without, Legge had nothing but his own bull-dog determination. Halifax was defenceless. As usual after a peace, the neglected batteries were dismantled, the carriages rotted and the guns lying on the ground. His handful of regulars he termed ‘insignificant and disobedient.’ Legge had none of Carleton’s fine humanity; he was a bad governor, but a good officer, and in this emergency he displayed energy, resource and sagacity. The three dozen regulars he set to guard the Dock Yard with its powder magazine and stores estimated by a ‘rebel’ leader to be worth half a million sterling. Although he knew that American privateersmen threatened to capture him as they had captured the administrator of Prince Edward Island, Phillips Callbeck, at Charlottetown, he did not even retain a sentry before Government House. Ordnance and other government stores were placed in a receiving ship. The militia were called into requisition. In addition, he proceeded to raise a local regiment of a thousand men from the Germans, Neutrals and Irish, on whom he thought he could rely; not, it will be observed, from the New England settlers. The official Gazette is filled with his proclamations. He ordered that every person coming into the province should take the oath of allegiance, and that disloyal persons should be arrested. Halifax was threatened with a shortage of bread; there was not flour enough to last three weeks; Legge impressed a vessel and sent to Quebec for a cargo. The king’s ships Tartar and Senegal and an armed schooner were dispatched against Machias, Maine, where preparations for invasion were being made. Other war vessels were set to guard strategic points. In response to his urgent request for reinforcements, Gage let him have some 350 men; but they must have been the dregs of his command, for in November 1775 only 126 were returned as fit for duty. When the news of Montgomery’s raid reached Nova Scotia, Legge put the province under martial law. He had every reason to believe that he would have to face a similar danger, for he was informed that Congress had embodied a force of 13,000 men for the capture of Nova Scotia, and that the expedition was only delayed by the epidemic of smallpox at Halifax. That the expedition never arrived takes nothing from the credit due to Legge for the measures he took to meet it. As the winter of 1775-76 set in ‘very severely,’ the danger of invasion became less imminent, but Legge expected Canada to be lost. In fact, he found himself, like many another British officer, absolutely alone, cut off from all aid, and he did everything in his power ‘to safeguard His Majesty’s interest in this part of the world.’ Whatever his faults as a civil administrator, he manifested every quality of a capable commander in a crisis for which he was totally unprepared.

The governor’s measures proved effective. Some curious documents printed by Poole show how two American spies duly authorized by Congress tried to get into the province. They bore the suggestive names of Moses Child and Aaron Willard, and when they reached Campobello they found one of Legge’s truculent proclamations ‘forbidding any person being in Halifax more than two hours without making his business known to a Justice of the Peace upon pain and penalty of being treated as a Spy.’ It proved a strong deterrent to Moses and Aaron. They found it impossible to get even a boat to ferry them over Fundy, and had to turn back with meagre and incorrect information.

The ‘Cumberland Rebels’

Disaffection within the province came to a head in Cumberland County, which bestrides the Isthmus of Chignecto. It was settled by people from Rhode Island, from the north of Ireland and from Yorkshire. The Americans were naturally in strong sympathy with the friends they had left behind; and the Irish had no reason to love any English government. From these two elements the ‘Cumberland rebels’ were drawn, while the Yorkshire men remained unshaken in their allegiance. Legge soon heard of ‘treasonable associations’ being formed in that district. Four delegates had actually gone to the Congress at Philadelphia with a list of six hundred persons ready to join the American cause. Memorials protesting against the militia law as ‘the greatest piece of cruelty—to march against their friends and relations’ were presented by the people of Cumberland, Truro and Onslow. The official answer was to dispatch Lieutenant-Governor Francklin, who had many tenants on his estates in Cumberland, in March 1776, to arrest all persons guilty of rebellious and treasonable transactions. In the following November a body of local ‘rebels,’ supported by an American force from Machias, laid siege to Fort Cumberland. Two of the leaders, Jonathan Eddy and John Allan, a renegade Scot, a soldier’s son born in Edinburgh Castle, had been members of the general assembly. On the approach of two companies of marines from Windsor the insurgents fled to the woods. Only three men were killed. Four, however, who had been concerned in the rising were arrested, and brought to Halifax to answer the charge of treason. Only three were tried; two pleaded the king’s pardon, and one escaped. The fourth, a talented young Irishman of huge stature, Richard John Uniacke by name, became afterwards attorney-general and chief justice of the province. In 1805 he issued an excellent edition of Statutes at Large, furnished with a striking preface replete with anti-revolutionary sentiments.

War at the Gates

But it must not be supposed that the settlers were all of one mind. In November 1775 Legge reported to the secretary of state that ‘Upwards of 700 of the principal inhabitants of the county of Halifax, King’s county and Annapolis have not only taken the oaths, but entered into an association, acknowledging their duty and fidelity to his majesty, the supremacy of parliament, etc.’ The house of assembly had likewise entered into such an association. It is interesting to note the reliance placed upon the Acadians only twenty years after the Expulsion. In the regiment Legge proposed to raise, nearly a third of the total number (300 out of 1010) was to consist of Acadians from Argyle, Clare, Cumberland, Cape Breton, Halifax and Isle Madame. The whole force was never raised; the arrival of regular soldiers made it unnecessary; but in St Mary’s Bay one hundred Acadians actually volunteered to serve in the militia. Lieutenant-Governor Francklin, although not well treated by Legge, performed valuable services at this time by keeping the Indians quiet. It seems probable that he could have raised a separate regiment for the defence of the province if he had been let alone.

The close proximity of Nova Scotia to the rebellious colonies affected the province in many ways. The closing of the natural market dislocated business and raised the cost of living. Many of the settlers were reduced to misery. In 1779 Henry, the printer of the Gazette in Halifax, had to raise the subscription price of his paper from ten to fifteen shillings on account of the ‘extraordinary high price of every necessary of life’ for the last three years. When Howe evacuated Boston in March 1776 he brought his whole force to Halifax, to the serious embarrassment of that town; prices doubled and trebled; and when he shifted it to New York in the same summer he left over two thousand camp-followers behind. They could not have been desirable citizens. At the same time a number of Boston loyalists came to the province.

Non-intercourse was followed up by privateer raids all along the exposed coast. While Legge and Francklin were taking measures to defend the province, Allan, the former member for Cumberland, was laying before the Council of Massachusetts a well-considered plan for its conquest. Amongst other details he pointed out the ease with which vessels of small tonnage could evade the king’s ships by running up the many tidal rivers and so plunder the unprotected settlements. On this principle, whether due to Allan or not, the Americans acted. The war was no sooner begun than Nova Scotia began to feel this policy of pin-pricks. Private vessels of war seem to have been hovering about the coast awaiting the outbreak of hostilities and ready to pounce upon their prey. Single ships were captured at Merigomish, Pictou and Canso. Four were taken at Cape Forchu, and the people of the hamlet were made prisoners. The privateersmen made war both by land and sea. At Cornwallis thirty or forty armed men came up the river in whale-boats and plundered the house of Stephen Best, carrying off property valued at £1000. The pettiness of this warfare is amazing. When a commissioned vessel of war overhauls a solitary fisherman and takes a bolt and a half of Russia duck from his chest, the line between privateering and piracy has been crossed. During the war almost every accessible settlement in Nova Scotia suffered from these marauders. Lunenburg was surprised on July 1, 1782, by the crews of six privateers. They carried off plunder and did damage to the extent of £8000. The invaders also compelled the local authorities to sign a bond for £1000 as ransom for not burning the town, a mortgage which has never been either paid or foreclosed. Annapolis Royal also was taken off its guard. On August 28, 1781, eighty men from two schooners got possession of the fort in the dark, surrounded every dwelling-house and confined the inhabitants in the fort ditch. They plundered every house, store, shop, of goods, provisions, plate, bedding, clothing. They even took the buckles out of the ladies’ shoes, and sailed away unmolested. Nor were they always careful to discriminate between friends and foes. Numerous ill-spelt papers in the Massachusetts archives bear witness that American sympathizers in Nova Scotia who had entertained or lodged escaping prisoners, or wrecked crews, or aided them to return to their own place, were plundered, in spite of their ‘protections,’ as remorselessly as any loyal tory. In the first year of the war the American privateers made 350 captures. In 1779 Lieutenant-Governor Sir Richard Hughes states in a dispatch to Lord Germaine that the rebel cruisers have destroyed the Canso fisheries, worth £50,000 a year to England.

Naturally, Nova Scotia undertook to make reprisals. The Halifax merchants clamoured for protection; their vessels were being snapped up at the very harbour mouth. The king’s ships did what they could, patrolling the coast, but the light marauding craft could slip in between them and the shore, as Allan had pointed out. The provincial government therefore organized a tiny navy of its own, to cope with the American mosquito fleet. The first commissioned was a fifty-ton schooner, the Loyal Nova Scotian, which cost £125 a month to maintain. She was followed by the Revenge, the Buckram and the Insulter, all acting under the orders of the government. In 1779 the general assembly voted £5000 for armed vessels to protect the coast. In addition, numerous privateers were fitted out by speculative merchants, as in the previous war. This seems to have always been a profitable form of investment. In a single year, 1778, no fewer than forty-eight prizes and four recaptures were brought into Halifax, and privateering became more and more active as the war went on. The vice-admiralty court was in constant session. The prizes, once condemned, were sold by auction at the wharf, the same person often buying both ship and cargo, at very low figures, and selling again at immense profit. A small sloop, the William and Barbara, was thus sold for £270; her cargo of 216 hogsheads of salt, 16-7/8 casks of sherry, one barrel of oatmeal, two barrels of damaged beef and part of a sound barrel, realized £604, 16s. 1½d. To sell the cargo of the brig Elizabeth in small lots took a whole month, for there was no manifest, and every bale and package had to be opened separately, a laborious task for the auctioneer. His itemized account occupies twelve large folio pages. The total amount realized on the cargo was £4954, 11s. 6¾d., the brig herself brought £750: but both amounts are far below the true values. When the judges’, appraisers’, auctioneers’ and other fees were deducted, the balance went to the captors. Halifax was not alone in this business: other towns took it up. Liverpool’s first privateer was called the Enterprise, and she justified her name. On her first cruise, which lasted twelve days, she captured no fewer than seven prizes. One owner was recouped by this single trip for the loss of his own vessel, the Bouncing Polly, captured by an American privateer, and he disposed of his share in the Enterprise for £147. Encouraged by the marked success of the Liverpool privateersmen, neighbouring ports followed their example. Chester fitted out the Hero to carry one hundred men and mount sixteen nine-pounders, a formidable armament for those days.

Although a merchantman seldom offered any resistance to a privateer beyond running for it, there was not a little hard fighting when two privateers met. On July 10, 1780, the privateer brig Resolution, of 120 tons burden, mounting 16 carriage guns, four- and nine-pounders, and 6 swivels, with a crew of 80 men commanded by Thomas Ross of Halifax, fell in with the ‘rebel’ ship Viper, of 22 guns and 130 men, off Sambro Lighthouse. The ships engaged, and, true to her name, the Resolution only struck her flag after she had eighteen men killed and wounded, and had inflicted a loss of thirty-three upon her big antagonist. Both vessels were badly crippled. Ross himself survived and was soon exchanged, for the following year he was in command of the Lord Cornwallis, a larger and finer ship than the Resolution, and justifying his appointment by his captures.

The one general naval engagement in Nova Scotian waters during this war occurred near the present city of Sydney. In July 1781 a small fleet of sixteen vessels was sent from Halifax to Spanish River to load with coal, as wood fuel was almost impossible to obtain. For guard the convoy had the frigate Charlestown, 28 guns, the sloops-of-war Allegiance and Vulture, 14 guns each, and the armed ship Vernon with men of the 70th regiment on board who were going to the mines to dig coal. There was also an armed provincial ship, the Jack, belonging to Quebec but recommissioned by the government of Nova Scotia. She was a small craft of 160 tons mounting fourteen nine- and six-pounders, and navigated by sixty-seven men. Her captain was Richard Peter Tonge. The squadron had almost reached its destination in safety when it was discovered and chased by two French frigates of the largest size, the Astrée and the Hermione. Their armament and crews are variously given by different authorities: W. Laird Clowes gives them 32 guns and 255 men each, but Tonge, who was a prisoner on board, reports them as forty-four and forty-two gun ships. Their commanders were the famous La Pérouse, who was destined, like Cook, to find death in the islands of the Pacific, and Latouche-Tréville, who rose to the rank of admiral, and whose name is borne by a vessel in the present French navy. Captain Evans of the Charlestown signalled his convoy to make for the harbour while, forming his five ships in line ahead, with his own in the centre, he bore down on the enemy. The fight began in the evening between seven and eight and lasted for an hour till nightfall. In the darkness and confusion the Jack became separated from her consorts and, after losing three men, was forced to surrender. The French assert that the Charlestown, having lost her maintopmast, also surrendered; and they claim a victory against superior force. But it was an indecisive battle. The French were unable to pursue or take possession of the Charlestown, if she really did surrender, and they made their way to Boston with their prize. The British made sail to the eastward. In the morning the Frenchmen were not to be seen; because, say the British, their rigging was so badly injured that they could not pursue; and, in a sorely battered condition, the little squadron reached the port of Halifax safely. Their loss was heavy, sixty-three killed and wounded, more than half of which was borne by the Charlestown. The death of Captain Evans, a young and popular officer, early in the action was deeply lamented in Halifax. He was buried under historic St Paul’s, where a mural tablet still preserves his memory.

The sequel of this fight is interesting. Tonge was soon exchanged, for, in October of the same year, he was in command of a six-gun cutter, apparently named after his former ship the Little Jack, on his way from Halifax to Quebec. Just as he was entering the eastern end of the Gut of Canso he met, coming out, two Marblehead privateers, both more heavily armed than his own craft. There was nothing to do but run for it, so the Little Jack turned and fled eastward some twelve miles to the narrow inlet between Petit de Grat and Isle Madame, her captain evidently forming his plan as he ran. In this inlet Tonge anchored with a spring on his cable so as to bring his broadside to bear. He also managed to land a nine-pounder on shore and mount it on a rocky eminence. Evidently he did not intend to strike his flag a second time without the best of reasons. The Marbleheaders followed him in, but he worked his guns to such purpose that one surrendered and the other made off. Tonge paroled all his prisoners but one, and continued his voyage in triumph to Quebec with his prize.

The fate of the Jack is also known. She did not remain long in the enemy’s hands. After being taken to Boston she was sold to a firm in Salem, who fitted her out as a privateer, with fifteen guns, nine- and six-pounders. She carried a crew of fifty-eight men commanded by David Ropes. On May 28, 1782, she fell in with the armed brig Observer, Captain John Crymes, just outside Halifax harbour. After an obstinate fight of two hours, in which she lost twenty-one men killed and wounded, or more than a third of her crew, she lowered her flag. Two days later the case came up in the vice-admiralty court and the Jack was decreed lawful prize to be sold for the benefit of her captors.

The career of the Revenge is perhaps the longest of them all. She is described as a square-sterned schooner of 75 tons mounting 10 carriage guns and 8 swivels, with a crew of 50 men. The memo of her commission, dated September 7, 1777, states that the Halifax merchants had asked for protection, having suffered from piracies, and further requested that Jones Fawson, a former naval officer, be made captain. Two years later she is commanded by Captain James Gandy, who advertised in the Nova Scotia Gazette for ‘seamen and able-bodied landsmen who wish to acquire riches and honour’ to join his crew. It is stated that he has been on several cruises and met with great success. If she is the same ship, she is much more heavily armed. Soon after, she put to sea in company with another privateer, Halifax Bob, and returned in May with rich prizes. One of these, the Good Intent, was the cause of a complicated suit in the vice-admiralty court, but in the end she was condemned to be sold for the benefit of her captors. Apparently the Revenge was taken on her very next cruise, June 6, 1779, but she succumbed only to vastly superior force. Attacked by three American privateers, the Sally of eighteen six- and nine-pounders, the Minerva and the Hancock of twenty nine-pounders each, the Revenge fought till she had not a shroud standing and a great number of men were killed and wounded on both sides; then she hauled down her flag. Her three antagonists, bound out on a cruise, were so badly disabled that they had to return to port and abandon their cruise. Many such duels must have taken place and gone unrecorded except in lost and forgotten log-books.

A pleasing incident in this tale of petty warfare is the rescue of the shipwrecked crew of the frigate Blonde, in May 1782, from the desolate Seal Islands by the American privateers, Lively and Scammel. The British sailors were kindly treated by their foes and furnished with passes for Halifax, though the Blonde had been very active against the Americans. In June the Scammel aided in the sack of Lunenburg.

The failure of Montgomery’s expedition relieved for a time the governor’s anxiety for the safety of his province; and the presence of Howe’s army for a few months in 1776 must have been reassuring. In the following year the lieutenant-governor had managed to collect an effective force of 1300 men. Six hundred marines had been landed from the ships and organized as a battalion for shore duty. Howe left him the second battalion of Small’s Highland Emigrants to eke out the small local levies. Such a force was quite inadequate for the protection of the whole province. In addition to their ordinary duties these troops had five hundred prisoners to guard in Halifax. The people of Machias in this year again made extensive preparations for an invasion of Nova Scotia. What success they might have had is doubtful; but the danger was imminent. Sir George Collier, commanding the North Atlantic squadron, descended on the hostile port with what ships he could collect, destroyed transports, magazines and stores and ravaged the coast. For this prompt and decisive action, by which the danger was averted, he received the official thanks of the governor and council, August 24, 1777. The next year Great Britain poured in heavy reinforcements, sending a whole brigade of newly raised Scottish troops from the Clyde. These consisted of the 70th, Tryon’s, the 74th, Campbell’s Highlanders and the 82nd, a Lowland regiment raised by the Duke of Hamilton. The latter was commanded by Colonel Francis M^cLean, who had been the head of the Portuguese army, and included among its officers a certain lieutenant-captain, a very handsome, zealous and accomplished boy of seventeen, John Moore, who was destined to introduce modern training and discipline into the British army, to checkmate Napoleon himself in Spain, and to find a hero’s death outside the ramparts of Corunna. Between him and his commanding officer there existed a sincere friendship, and the studious colonel, who had a small library of French and German works on military subjects, was the first to introduce his eager subaltern to the literature of his profession. The commander-in-chief was General Massey, who had seen service at Cartagena, Niagara, Martinique and Havana. His name is borne by the military burying-ground in Halifax and by an adjoining church. The presence of such a body of troops not only secured the province against attack, but made possible offensive operations against the Americans.

In June 1779 M^cLean, acting under the orders of Sir Henry Clinton, sailed from Halifax with about six hundred and fifty men for the Penobscot in order to establish a fort at Majebigwaduce.^[1] The object of this expedition was to establish a settlement for loyalist refugees then in New York, to protect Nova Scotia and to harass the commerce of Boston. The object was accomplished, though not without difficulty. Over six hundred of the inhabitants came in at once to take the oath of allegiance, captured vessels were taken to this post, and by the end of the war a small hamlet had grown up round the fort. M^cLean had hardly set well to work when six large frigates, thirteen privateers and twenty-four transports carrying three thousand men with siege material, under Lovell and Saltonstall, arrived from Boston to prevent him. In this forgotten campaign Moore first showed the qualities that made him famous. He was on outpost duty when the Americans landed, and at their first fire the unseasoned recruits of the right picket fell back. Moore’s twenty men on the left also wavered, but the boy officer rallied them and held his ground stubbornly, although losing heavily, until his colonel, Dunlop, arrived with reinforcements.

Instead of rushing the half-finished works, the Americans opened a regular siege, and for a time the small British force was in the utmost danger. An attempt to relieve it from Halifax failed, the squadron being badly damaged in a storm and compelled to return; but once more Collier brought help in the very nick of time. On the day the Continental leaders had appointed for a general assault he reached Penobscot with four frigates and a 64-gun ship. He was compelled to anchor at the mouth of the bay, but his arrival raised the siege. The Americans at once re-embarked their men and a large part of their stores. On Collier’s advance the next day they fled up the river, set fire to their vessels and took to the woods. This zealous and capable officer was soon after superseded by Mariot Arbuthnot. His popularity in the province is attested by the fact that a remarkably successful Halifax privateer was named for him. Colonel M^cLean returned to Halifax and died there in May 1781, but the establishment of the fort at Majebigwaduce put an end to all danger to Nova Scotia and the superfluous troops in garrison were drafted to New York.

The tedious and inglorious struggle was drawing to a close. Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 19, 1781; and on November 30, 1782, the treaty of peace was signed at Paris by which Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States. The immediate consequences of this peace to Nova Scotia were important and far-reaching.

The reasons why Nova Scotia remained outside the Union are easy to understand. Its geographical position rendered it almost inaccessible to attack. Practically it was an island; the rest of America is often distinguished from it as the ‘Continent.’ All hostile expeditions must run the gauntlet of the British cruisers and Britain had control of the sea. When the people of Machias laid before Washington their plan of invasion in 1775 he wrote from his camp at Cambridge dissuading them. He pointed out his own weakness, and the enemy’s ‘strength at sea,’ and also that, although Nova Scotia had not joined Congress, neither had it begun hostilities. ‘To attack it therefore is a measure of conquest rather than defence.’ The patriots of Machias disregarded both the temperate wisdom and the magnanimity of their great leader, and they suffered in consequence. The promptness and energy of Legge in the first critical months, the loyalty of part of the settlers, the correctness of the assembly’s attitude were all important factors in the problem; but the province was really saved by British soldiers and British officers operating in accordance with a large plan of campaign, in which the province played a passive part.

[1]

This extraordinary name beclouds the identity of a famous spot. It is a small and easily defensible peninsula, which was early recognized as the strategic key of the surrounding region. Here Charles de la Tour built a fort in 1613-14, and the last of the French fortifications were destroyed in 1744 to prevent them falling into the hands of the English. In the old records it is known as Pentagoet. As Castine it was once more the scene of a British occupation in the War of 1812.

Nova Scotia’s Long Parliament

During the war there was no further development of the provincial constitution. From 1770 to 1785 no elections were held. The same general assembly, the fifth, sat for fourteen years, holding in all seventeen sessions; it is Nova Scotia’s Long Parliament. An appeal to the people was evidently not desired by the authorities. The legislation of this period was generally intended to meet the exigencies of war, such as preventing the exportation of arms, warlike stores and provisions. During the time of greatest danger at the opening of the war, the council attempted to force the oath of allegiance upon all the inhabitants of the disaffected districts. In Truro, Onslow and Londonderry all but five persons refused to take it. With unconscious irony the sapient council resolved to punish as ‘Popish recusants’ these stiff-necked Presbyterians from Ulster; but apparently no further action was taken. The temper of the house may be judged from the fact that it refused to admit Samuel Archibald as member for Truro, on the ground that his constituents by refusing the oath had forfeited their right to representation. Among its final acts are found one designed to relieve those who had suffered by the war and another to grant the king’s free pardon to all his subjects for all treasons, misprision of treason or treasonable correspondence. By itself such a measure of amnesty would prove how divided was the allegiance of Nova Scotia.

One piece of legislation which does lasting honour to Nova Scotia’s Long Parliament dates from 1783. This was nothing less than the repeal of former acts which laid ‘His Majesty’s subjects professing the Popish religion under heavy disabilities.’ These penal laws made it impossible for Catholics to hold land except by grant from the crown, to deed or will property to a Catholic, or to hold lands or tenements in trust for a Catholic. Furthermore, the Catholic religion was proscribed, priests found within the province were liable to imprisonment, and harbouring a priest was a punishable offence. The act of 1783 repealed these obnoxious statutes on condition that all who wished to benefit by it should take a modified oath of allegiance. This substitute for the old impossible test a Catholic might accept without violating his conscience. In 1785 the act which made it impossible for a Catholic to set up a school was also repealed. It is more than a coincidence that on Monday, July 19, 1785, the frame of a small Catholic chapel was raised near the site of the present cathedral of St Mary’s ‘in presence of a great concourse of gentlemen, and other people.’ Thus Nova Scotia anticipated the mother country in removing a great injustice; and the liberal spirit thus early manifested has continued to the present time.

Nova Scotia suffered for her loyalty. Non-intercourse was a heavy blow. In November 1775 Legge writes: ‘The trade with the colonies is entirely put an end to, and the inhabitants of this town as well as all other towns on the sea-coast are almost entirely destitute of provisions, nor can any provisions of bread kind be expected from Canada till June next, if that province should then be in possession of the Crown.’ The effect of the war was to raise the prices of all foodstuffs, especially when heavy garrisons lay at Halifax. There was a great demand for timber. Wages rose. The total stock of cattle in the province was diminished, being slaughtered to meet the needs of the troops. The maintenance of the garrison set large quantities of money circulating in the capital which filtered into the country. Privateering was profitable and was pursued from various ports; but this corsair policy on both sides had no effect upon the main issue of the war.

The Partition of Nova Scotia

One dire result of the peace, which advocates of Maritime union might note, was the partition of Nova Scotia. Instead of one government, it was split into three, thus reducing the territory of historical Acadia more than one half and narrowing the ancient bounds to the limits of the peninsula. The year 1784 saw the creation of two new provinces, Cape Breton and New Brunswick.

The reasons for erecting the small and scantly populated island of Cape Breton into a separate government remain obscure. Its organization as a county of Nova Scotia, with representation in the assembly and with an inferior court of its own, surely met all pressing needs of the case. It may have been a typical eighteenth-century political job, designed to provide offices for placemen. Apparently the idea originated with the secretary of state for the Colonies, the ‘Tommy Townshend’ of Goldsmith’s Retaliation. Some curious provisions occur in the articles of the new constitution. In a way, both the new provinces were to be subordinate to the old one. The head of the Cape Breton government was merely a lieutenant-governor, and Colonel John Parr, who succeeded Legge, was to retain the ancient style of Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief over the three provinces. He also was to nominate the nine members of the council and he was given authority to hear appeals from the Courts of Common Law; but interference by the general assembly of Nova Scotia was expressly forbidden. The lieutenant-governor and council were to carry on the government until such time as circumstances warranted the calling of a general assembly. That time never came. Since the destruction of the fortifications of Louisbourg by Pitt’s sappers and miners, that city, which once had ten thousand inhabitants, had become a desert. The terror of its name had passed away; but another era, not of warfare, but of commercial expansion, had in a feeble way begun. The marvellous coal beds of the island had been opened. Mines had been dug at Spanish River and Cow Bay to supply fuel for the Halifax garrison and also for ordinary commerce. In the Halifax Chronicle of 1769, Spanish River coals are advertised for sale at thirty shillings the chaldron.

The first lieutenant-governor of Cape Breton was one of the most remarkable personalities ever concerned with the history of British North America. Joseph Frederic Wallet Des Barres was, like Mascarene, of Huguenot descent. Born in 1721, he was educated at Basel, entered the army, and first came to America at the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War. He was present at the operations about Lake George in 1757 and at the disaster of Ticonderoga. He also saw service at Louisbourg, at Quebec and in Canada. During the peace which ensued, he spent ten years from 1763 to 1773 in surveying the coast of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. Sable Island, ‘the graveyard of the Atlantic,’ he charted at the risk of his life. The result of his surveys he published in four huge folios, which are described by the Dictionary of National Biography as ‘the most splendid collection of charts, plans and views ever published.’ A copy of that part known as ‘The North Atlantic Neptune,’ once owned and used by Nelson, is preserved in the Province Building, Halifax. While Des Barres was performing this important service his promotion in the army ceased, and, in order to compensate him, he was given the headship of the newly organized province.

Of its possibilities he seems to have formed the most extravagant ideas. Provision was to be made for growth which would soon outrival Halifax, and some of his statements are to be regarded rather as what he wished than as what was the fact. Louisbourg had been the seat of government in the days of French occupation; but now it was a waste. Des Barres established a new capital on the banks of Spanish River, and named it Sydney in compliment to the secretary of state for the Colonies. His account of its population is hardly to be taken literally. Besides the lieutenant-governor and council, the island, to maintain its dignity, must have a number of other officials, chief justice, attorney-general, and so on, supported by grants from the British parliament. In 1809 the civil list amounted to £3475. Saddled with a burden of useless, quarrelsome officials, the colony could not prosper. The whole population was only between four thousand and five thousand. The total revenue barely met the official salaries; nothing was left over to develop the island’s great resources or even to make the necessary roads. Des Barres’ reign came to an end after three years. In 1787 he was succeeded by Lieutenant-Colonel Macormick, and, believing himself wronged, he went to England to obtain justice. He succeeded Fanning as lieutenant-governor of Prince Edward Island, and finally retired to Halifax, where he died in 1824 in the 103rd year of his age.

During the war with France, Cape Breton languished. In 1795 an official return for Sydney showed only twenty-seven inhabited houses and fourteen public buildings, which certainly does not square with the optimistic statistics of Des Barres ten years previously. The history of Cape Breton is a monotonous tale of petty squabbles among officials, in which one incident was that of a councillor sending a challenge to the chief justice. The efforts of various peacemakers sent from England to compose these quarrels were unavailing. The public business was neglected. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Cape Breton shared in the benefit of the great immigration from Scotland. Between the years 1802 and 1827, Brown estimates the influx at twenty-five thousand persons. They were Gaelic-speaking Highlanders, both Catholic and Protestant, and their coming has determined the character of that island. They still live much as their ancestors did in Scotland, retaining their language and much of their primitive customs to the present day. In 1820, against the wishes of the people, Cape Breton was reannexed to Nova Scotia by the British government, and the episode was closed. One result of this brief period of separate existence was to create a distinct local feeling, which still manifests itself in various ways upon occasion.

The origin of New Brunswick as a separate province is well known and is told elsewhere in detail. It is pre-eminently the loyalist province by reason of its first settlers and constitution: and it was organized on the model of New York, as was Nova Scotia on that of Massachusetts.

The Loyalists

The first effect of the Peace of Paris upon Nova Scotia was the sudden pouring in of twenty-five thousand persons within a few months, thus more than doubling the population. The influx was caused by the peculiar character of the Revolutionary War. It is now recognized to be a civil war which was waged with special rancour, and it is a striking contrast to the War of Secession in that no amnesty was extended to the vanquished. Thousands whose only fault was fidelity to a lost cause were proscribed, despoiled and exiled. New York, long the British headquarters, was the natural city of refuge for the hunted tories from all parts of the thirteen states. They were of all sorts and conditions, from men of position and wealth, professional men, and men of the official class to mechanics and labourers. Some of the sturdiest upholders of the king were such men as John Nutting, master carpenter, from Cambridge. No doubt they were actuated by diverse motives, but, in general, they gave up everything for the sake of principle; and it is doubtful if any concessions on their part would have been accepted by the victors. They had no choice. The Americans were eager to see the last of the redcoats and the tories, and Nova Scotia as the nearest and most accessible colony was naturally chosen in which to settle them. This immigration was directed mainly to Halifax, Port Roseway and River St John, but about three thousand exiles came to Annapolis Royal. Fleets were needed to transport them to their destination.

To find homes for this multitude, to feed, shelter and settle it, to transact the necessary business of escheating, surveying and assigning lands, to handle and apportion the supplies, and, in general, to assimilate the newcomers into the life of the sparsely settled province was no easy problem. It was the old problem with which Cornwallis had to deal; but where Cornwallis had hundreds to provide for, Parr had thousands. The personality of this governor was not particularly strong or striking. John Parr came of a good Irish family; he was born in 1725; he had entered as a boy of nineteen the famous 20th Foot, the regiment of Cornwallis and Wolfe, and he had risen to its command. He had seen much service, having come through the bloody defeat of Fontenoy and the equally bloody victory of Minden. In person he was below medium height; now he was old and fat. The Halifax people called him ‘Our Cock Robin.’ He did his best to cope with the emergency; indeed, it is difficult to see, what more he could have done; but the task was beyond him. The three thousand loyalists who reached the mouth of the St John on May 18, 1783, set to work with characteristic energy to clear the land and build a new city, which they named at first Parrtown in honour of the governor. But soon they were in no mood for compliments. There was delay in the granting their lands, although the government displayed great energy in the work of surveying and making out the necessary papers. Chief Justice Finucane visited the new settlement to appease the discontented, but without success. Better grounded was the loyalists’ discontent with their constitutional position. As freemen and British subjects, accustomed to the fullest exercise of political rights, they found themselves debarred from representation in the general assembly by the thirteenth royal instruction, which strictly forbade increase or diminution in the number of members. The intention of this ukase was to prevent the popular assembly from gaining too much power, and to grant the immigrants their political right would add twenty members to the existing thirty-six. The loyalists were not patient; indeed, the situation was intolerable; and the demand for a separate government was granted. In 1784 the new province set up for itself with Colonel Thomas Carleton as governor. Phrases in the address presented to him are significant. The memorialists term themselves ‘a number of oppressed and insulted loyalists,’ and express the hope that his safe arrival will ‘check the arrogance of tyranny’ and ‘crush the growth of injustice.’ Thenceforward New Brunswick has an independent existence as a distinct political entity. Thus was Nova Scotia dismembered as a direct result of the Treaty of Paris.

Annapolis Royal is at the present day an exquisitely beautiful but little town. In 1783 it was a tiny hamlet of one hundred and twenty persons. Even to shelter the three thousand loyalists who poured into it between October 1782 and November 1783 was impossible. The Rev. Jacob Bailey, whose sense of humour sustained him in his many trials, tells how ‘several hundred are stowed in our church,’ and how this increase in the number of his flock, instead of increasing his paltry stipend, reduced it by the urgency of their daily needs. ‘Many of these distressed people,’ he writes, ‘left large possessions in the rebellious colonies, and their sufferings on account of their loyalty and their present uncertain and destitute condition render them very affecting objects of compassion.’ Of the last comers he remarks their ‘affecting circumstances, fatigued after a long and stormy passage, sickly and destitute of shelter from the advance of winter.’ As soon as possible they moved out and settled in the surrounding townships.

In October 1782 refugees began also to arrive in Halifax. Three hundred came along with the ordnance from Charlestown, South Carolina. The long process of transferring the British garrison and the loyalists from New York, which began early in January and ended on November 25, swelled the city’s population with refugees and soldiers, both regulars and disbanded provincials. All values rose at once: bare shelter was hardly to be obtained; provisions reached famine prices, £3, 10s. being charged for one hundredweight of flour, nearly seventeen cents a pound. Relief had to be found by exchanging British goods for foodstuffs with the Americans, a violation of the Trade laws. The Rev. Jacob Bailey’s humorous account of the rags and tatters in which he, his wife, niece and servant landed in Halifax from Kennebec in 1779 would doubtless serve for many another loyalist. He shuffled along in shoes ‘which sustained the marks of sedition and independence.’ His thick blue woollen stockings ‘had been so often mended and darned by the fingers of frugality that scarce an atom of the original remained.’ His black breeches were worn in holes and turned ‘a rusty grey bespattered with lint and bedaubed with pitch.’ Over his homespun shirt, to cover ‘the innumerable rents, holes and deformities’ of his coat and waistcoat, he wore ‘a blue surtout fretted at the elbows, worn at the button-holes’; ‘the waist descended below my knees and the skirts hung dangling about my heels.’ A ‘rusty beaver’ and a ‘jaundice-colored wig ... obscured a face meagre with famine and wrinkled with solicitude.’ The array of his womankind was most unbecoming. It is doubtful if many others beside the good parson could see the ridiculous side of such a situation.

In the transport Sally, which reached Halifax by way of London, one out of every six passengers died on the voyage or shortly after landing. They came ashore almost destitute of clothes and provisions. The Martha, with a corps of the Maryland loyalists and a detachment of the 2nd de Lanceys, was wrecked near Cape Sable and 99 out of the 174 persons on board perished. In staid, official language Parr tells the plight of probably the last shipload of women and children from New York which had been tossing on the wintry sea for nearly six weeks. ‘I cannot better describe the wretched situation of these people than by enclosing your lordship a list of those just arrived in the Clinton, transport, destitute of almost everything, chiefly women and children, all still on board, as I have not yet been able to find any sort of place for them and the cold setting in severe.’ Tradition has it that in order to shelter previous arrivals, the cabooses were taken from the transports and ranged along Granville Street in the rear of Government House; but the unfortunate women and children of the Clinton had not even this poor accommodation. After the horrors of the voyage they reached port ‘destitute of almost everything,’ only to find that there was no roof to receive them, and ‘the cold setting in severe.’

The exiled tories were pursued to their new home by the hatred of the victorious Americans. Their sufferings were a constant theme for the jeers and gibes of the whig journalists. With bitter truth the province was dubbed ‘Nova Scarcity,’ and the nickname ‘Bluenose,’ in allusion to the supposed effects of the climate on the provincials, was invented about this time. An American novelist writing in 1841 expresses accurately this traditional dislike. ‘Nova Scotia ... a place which the ignorant of every country seem to consider as the extremity of the north pole, and hence the saying “cold as Nova Scotia,” “barren as Nova Scotia”; and when some poor houseless vagabond is seen to pass, that “he looks as though he were bound to Nova Scotia”; or of some hardened villain who is a nuisance to the community, that “he ought to be sent to Nova Scotia.” ’ The writer suggests one reason for this prejudice. ‘The memory of the thousands of our brave countrymen who have perished in the dungeons and prison-ships at Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, during the war of the Revolution is yet rife in the memory of every American; and there is nothing in prison discipline remembered with so much abhorrence, unless it is the aceldama of Dartmoor or the black-hole of Calcutta.’ Allowance must be made for some exaggeration in ‘thousands’; but the lot of prisoners of war in the eighteenth century everywhere was unenviable—witness the notorious Simsburg mine in Connecticut where the Americans confined their prisoners. Murdoch notes how the easy conditions of the French prisoners in Melville Island were changed by the coming of the Americans; and records how in 1781 a guard of the King’s Rangers was ‘punished,’ which means flogged with the cat-o’-nine-tails, under sentence of a garrison court-martial, for having maltreated American prisoners on board a prison-ship.

The most picturesque and pathetic episode in the coming of the loyalists was the founding of Shelburne. At the mouth of the St John the exiles built a city which has endured and has a future, but Shelburne has only a past; it is the history of a failure. On the shores of Port Roseway, anglicized from Razoir, MacNutt the visionary had secured a grant of a hundred thousand acres to be the site of a city, ‘New Jerusalem.’ Here at the head of the long and beautiful harbour, ten thousand loyalists, many of whom had fought for their king, laid out a city in the year 1783, which they fondly hoped would eclipse both Halifax and Parrtown.

The spirit of the ‘True Blues,’ as they called themselves, may be gathered from this extract from the Rev. Jonathan Beecher’s journal: ‘As soon as we had set up a kind of tent, we knelt down, my wife and I and our two boys, and kissed the dear ground and thanked God that the flag of England floated there, and resolved that we would work with the rest to become again prosperous and happy.’

A great clearing was soon made in the primeval forest; tents were pitched, huts were built and stores landed. Eleven long parallel streets cut by others crossing at right angles were marked by the surveyors, and a suburb called Burchtown was added to accommodate four thousand negroes, ‘Black Pioneers’ and fugitive slaves. Amid his countless cares and concerns the aged Wesley had a place for the spiritual needs of Burchtown. Governor Parr came in state from the capital to christen the new city. It was a grand occasion. On Tuesday, July 22, His Excellency, saluted by all the ships, put off from the Sophie, sloop-of-war, and landed to the booming of other cannon on shore. In state he proceeded up King Street, through a lane of armed men who lined both sides of the way. At the place appointed for his reception he was met by the justices of the peace and others of the principal citizens and presented with the inevitable address. The governor made a brief reply, signified his intention of naming the new settlement Shelburne in honour of the secretary of state for the Colonies, and drank the king’s health, prosperity to the town and district of Shelburne and a third to the loyalists themselves. Each toast was accompanied by three British cheers and, as at the rouses of King Claudius, by a general discharge of cannon. In the evening Captain Mowat gave an elegant dinner on board the Sophie, after which many loyal toasts were drunk, each accompanied by royal salutes from the Sophie’s guns. His Excellency was entertained next day at another grand dinner at the house of Justice Robertson, which was followed by a supper and ball given by the citizens. It was ‘conducted with the greatest festivity and decorum’ and ‘did not break up till five the next morning.’ At that cheerful hour of the summer day the governor returned on board the Sophie, ‘as highly pleased with the entertainment as the company appeared gratified and delighted by his presence.’ It was a grand occasion; only some remembered as an ill omen, that when the old flag was raised, it was hoisted union down.

For a few years Shelburne flourished. It was a place of business and fashion, with shops and taverns and churches and coffee-houses and three newspapers. The first ship built in Nova Scotia after British occupation, the Roseway, of 250 tons, was launched from a Shelburne shipyard on December 22, 1786. There was for a time an extensive trade in fish and lumber with Great Britain and the West Indies. The exports for 1788 were 13,141 quintals of dry codfish, 4192 casks of pickled fish, 61 casks of smoked salmon, 149 barrels of fish oil and 14,798 gallons of sperm oil, for the enterprising merchants of Shelburne had begun the whale fishery. It was a garrison town with extensive barracks, and works at Point Carleton. The military band used to play on summer evenings on the promenade near the bridge. On election day King Street was so crowded with ‘Blues’ and ‘Greens’ that ‘one might have walked on the heads of the people.’

And then it passed away like a gipsy encampment. The harbour was ice-bound in winter; the surrounding country was ill-adapted to support and feed so large a community; the merchants and military men were not fitted to succeed in commerce. Ill-luck haunted the place and soon the glory of Shelburne departed. Haliburton as an eye-witness has described its ruin with sincere emotion. ‘The houses were still standing though untenanted. It had all the stillness and quiet of a moonlight scene. It was difficult to imagine it was deserted. The idea of repose more readily suggested itself than decay. All was new and recent. Seclusion, and not death or removal, appeared to be the cause of the absence of inhabitants.’ The same hand penned the picture of its later desolation.

The houses, which had been originally built of wood, had severally disappeared. Some had been taken to pieces and removed to Halifax or St John; others had been converted into fuel, and the rest had fallen a prey to neglect and decomposition. The chimneys stood up erect, and marked the spot around which the social circle had assembled; and the blackened fire-places, ranged one above another, bespoke the size of the tenement and the means of its owner. In some places they had sunk with the edifice, leaving a heap of ruins, while not a few were inclining to their fall, and awaiting the first storm to repose again in the dust that now covered those who had constructed them. Hundreds of cellars with their stone walls and granite partitions were everywhere to be seen like uncovered monuments of the dead. Time and decay had done their work. All that was perishable had perished, and those numerous vaults spoke of a generation that had passed away for ever, and without the aid of an inscription, told a tale of sorrow and of sadness that overpowered the heart.

If men remembered their comrades drowning, after all their battles, almost within sight of port, the hopeless misery between decks of the crowded transports through long weeks at sea, the sickness that lacked every comfort and alleviation and ended in shrouded corpses committed to the deep, their half-fed wives and little ones shivering in huts or tents through the driving snows and icy rains and hard frosts of the northern winter; if they remembered all they had left behind, their attempts to begin life anew as pioneers in the wilderness, and, after all their sacrifices and bitter toil, to have their hopes blighted; if they recalled all this and handed on the tale of suffering and persecution and loyalty to their children’s children and left them a legacy of hatred and prejudice, the fault lies with those who in the hour of triumph did not remember mercy.

This tidal wave of immigration raised by war, which swept over Nova Scotia, rose and fell and eddied and recoiled restlessly hither and thither for some time before it finally settled and calm could come again. Half the old province was carried clean away by it, and on the history of the other half, the peninsula, it left three enduring marks.

The Church of England in Nova Scotia

The first was the erection of Nova Scotia into a bishop’s see. Ever since Englishmen assumed the government of the province, they had striven to model all its institutions, political, social and religious, on those of England. They had no better model; theirs was the one country of Europe in the eighteenth century where political freedom and religious tolerance prevailed. As the colony was settled by Englishmen, ruled by Englishmen and maintained by English money, it seemed only right and logical to establish the national church by law. That their ideals were not those of modern democrats and latitudinarians can hardly be imputed to them as a fault. The Church of England being established by law, it was only a matter of time for the province to undergo further ecclesiastical development. This natural expansion came with the loyalists. In March 1783 a committee of eighteen tory clergymen met in New York amid all the excitement and confusion of the great exodus to consider the best method of securing the historic episcopate for America. The outcome of their deliberations was that the Rev. Charles Inglis, who came to Nova Scotia with the other loyalists, was consecrated as the first colonial bishop at Lambeth in 1787. He came of a line of clergymen of the Church in Ireland. As a young man he had emigrated to America, and for some time before securing ordination he had been a teacher in the free school at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At the end of the Revolutionary War he was rector of the historical Trinity Church, New York. Four years prior to Inglis’s consecration Seabury was made the first American bishop. Thus the expansion of the two branches of the Church of England in America dates from the independence of the Thirteen Colonies. Bishop Inglis ruled his see acceptably until his death in 1816. He was succeeded by Bishop Stanser; the third bishop of Nova Scotia was his son, the Right Rev. John Inglis; and his grandson, Colonel John Inglis of the Rifle Brigade, conducted the heroic defence of Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny after the death of Lawrence.

The natural corollary to the establishment of the episcopate in Nova Scotia was the establishment there of a ‘Religious and Literary Institution’—that is, a seminary for the training of a native clergy. Bishop Inglis writes in 1787: ‘One great object of my appointment is to ordain candidates for holy orders, to supply vacant churches with clergymen, who cannot be supplied from Europe. But if there is no seminary we cannot expect any to be duly educated and qualified for orders.’ These two institutions arose from the same source. The New York committee of eighteen outlined a plan for the school, and five of their number met again in October of the same year to work out the details. On the strength of a resolution passed by the general assembly in 1787, the school was formally opened by the bishop, on November 1, 1788, with seventeen pupils in attendance. It was charmingly situated on the outskirts of Windsor, forty miles away from the temptations of the capital. The next year an act of the assembly arranged for its organization and maintenance. A sum not exceeding £400 sterling, to be paid from the duties on brown, loaf and refined sugars, was voted for its annual income. Bishop Inglis was highly pleased with this result. In April 1789 he writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘The legislature has great merit in this business. No other British colony in North America ever did so much to promote literature. The province has gone to the utmost of its ability.’ The president was ‘always to be a clergyman of the established Church of England, duly qualified for that office’; and he was expected to be ‘well skilled in classical learning, divinity and the belles lettres.’ By the same act the Board of Governors was incorporated and given extensive powers. By it also the institution got its name, ‘King’s College of Nova Scotia.’ The act also suggested the obtaining of a royal charter, which was done in 1802. The charter granted the college university powers and was accompanied by an imperial grant of £1000 per annum, which continued until 1834. The provincial grant continued until 1851. Such was the origin of the oldest university in the British dominions overseas.

The first head of the ‘college’ as distinguished from the ‘school’ was William Cochran, an Irish gentleman and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. His official rank was vice-president; for the governors desired an Oxford man for president. He had been professor of Greek and Latin in another ‘King’s College,’ in New York, which now, as Columbia University, proclaims its royal origin from the entablature of its imposing library. King’s (Nova Scotia) was first lodged in the house of Lieutenant-Governor Francklin, who had served the province so well in the late war. Many distinguished Nova Scotians, Haliburton among the number, have been educated at King’s, which, through many vicissitudes of fortune, has always been true to its admirable tradition of ‘classical learning, divinity and the belles lettres.’

The Beginning of Literature

The third distinctive mark set upon the history of the province by the loyalists was the establishment of a literary journal. Although Canada may or may not have a ‘literature,’ she has experienced five distinct literary movements; and the first began in 1789 with the publication in Halifax of the Nova Scotia Magazine and Comprehensive Review of Literature, Politics and News. This was a monthly magazine of eighty pages and double columns, well printed on good paper if with rather small type. The printer was a loyalist, young John Howe from Boston, who was to beget a famous son. A loyalist was also the editor, Vice-President Cochran of King’s College. In the list of subscribers appear the names of several families that have been prominent in the city from that day to this. The contents were necessarily compiled from various sources, as the editor’s preface declares; but they reflect accurately the taste of the time. The very first article is historical and appeals to a local patriotism which was evidently even then clearly defined. It is a reprint of the life of Sir William Alexander, poet, colonizer and favourite of James i, the original grantee of Nova Scotia, taken from the Biographia Britannica; for the editor is certain that ‘Everything that is connected with the history of the Province must be interesting to the people who inhabit it.’ A long list of new books is taken, with due acknowledgments, from the Analytical Review. There are extracts from du Paty and from Mr Edward Gibbon’s new history of Rome. Collins’s Ode on Highland Superstitions is printed in full. Much space is devoted to the debates of the British House of Commons. There are echoes of notable happenings in France and England; for this is the year of the Rights of Man; the appeal of the Duke of Orleans to representatives in his bailiwicks finds a place beside the protest of Warren Hastings. Ten pages are filled with foreign, and perhaps a column and a half with local, news. In a note to the second volume the editor hopes that the magazine ‘may long continue as evidence of the literary taste of the Province and a record of its prosperity and happiness.’ The evidence of taste is undeniable; but the pious wish for length of days was not granted. Nova Scotia’s pioneer magazine came to an end in 1791, when the loyalist population ebbed from Halifax. It was followed by other periodicals equally ambitious and shortlived.

After two negligible ventures in 1806 and 1809 came the Acadian Magazine, or Literary Mirror, consisting of Original and Selected Matter on Literary and other Subjects in 1826. This was a large double-column monthly, apparently modelled on Blackwood’s and boldly venturing upon illustrations. ‘Embellishments’ appear, to lighten the letterpress, such as home-made views of the Province Building and of Windsor from the west, and excellent imported engravings of Canning and the Duke of York. Since 1789 local patriotism has grown apace. This is no longer a pure compilation, like its predecessor, but a magazine in the modern sense. A corps of contributors from all parts of the province, and beyond it, furnish articles, sketches, letters, poems, signed with pseudonyms or initials. One mathematical genius offers a method (with diagram) of squaring the circle, and a lively discussion follows, Pictou and Musquodoboit joining merrily in the fray. Between 1789 and 1826, when the Acadian began its all too brief career, a new generation had grown up, proud of their little sea-girt province and the things that were theirs by right of birth. In the first volume a series of articles appears, called ‘Characteristics of Nova Scotia,’ with Scott’s vibrating line for motto, ‘This is my own, my native land.’ The mental attitude may be inferred from a single sentence: ‘We ... without assumed ostentation or empty arrogance must declare that Nova Scotia possesses many legitimate sources of pride.’ Two poems are then mentioned with approval as seeming to herald the coming of a nativist literature. The first is The Rising Village, by Oliver Goldsmith, a grand-nephew of his great namesake. With many allusions to ‘sweet Auburn,’ it tells how a local Edwin jilted Angelina and sketches the growth of a backwoods settlement. The second, Melville Island, was the first attempt of the young printer boy, Joseph Howe, to express his love for the natural beauty of his province, and particularly for the incomparable ‘North-West Arm,’ on whose shores he was born. The Acadian was avowedly ‘literary’; its title says so twice over; and it soon ceased to publish local news. In its pages are found such caviare to the general as a translation of one of Michael Angelo’s madrigals, inserted evidently for the gratification of such readers as founded the old Halifax Library and purchased for it first editions of Landor’s Imaginary Conversations.

To the Acadian succeeded the Halifax Monthly Magazine (1830-32), a most interesting and lively periodical, invaluable as an index to the taste of bygone Haligonians. The appeal is exclusively to the educated and the refined. Choice bits from Praed, Scott, Macaulay, D’Israeli are printed. Notice is taken of the great lights going out—‘Lacon’ Colton, Bentham, Cuvier, Goethe. The editor has a keen eye for local talent; he reviews Cooney’s History of New Brunswick and criticizes at length the annual exhibition of the Halifax painting club. Great questions are discussed, such as a railway to connect the colonies. In aim and scope these three early Halifax magazines were both more ambitious and more successful than any periodical in Canada to-day, with one single exception. Besides these three there were six other literary ventures between 1789 and 1873, which makes a new magazine for every ten years. That all ran a brief course is nothing against them; their constituency was too small to support them. Their cultural significance is very great; they furnish indisputable proofs of an ever-growing local patriotism and of an atmosphere in which letters would flourish. This literary movement in Nova Scotia culminated in the activity of Thomas Chandler Haliburton, a Halifax lawyer of Scottish descent, whose entire education was obtained in his native province. His sketches of provincial life and character first saw the light in Howe’s paper the Novascotian (1835-36). Collected and published in London as The Clockmaker, they made the author famous. In creating Sam Slick, the Yankee pedlar, he had uncovered the rich mine of American humour.

The Birth of Provincial Sentiment

The Revolutionary War and the settlement of Nova Scotia by exiles of the defeated party completely changed the orientation of the province. For more than seventy years her policy had been determined by her neighbourhood to Canada and the constant menace of the ‘French and Indians.’ That menace had now passed away for ever. Her whole relation to the rest of America was also changed. From this time on, Nova Scotia, instead of being in friendly relations with her near neighbour, Massachusetts, must treat her ancient ally as a stranger and as a possible foe. In the old days Boston had often sent timely aid; now she sent picaroons. Those who came to settle after the war sacrificed everything for British connection, and now, cut off from their old home, they turned their eyes across the sea to the motherland, who had done what she could for her loyal children. As for those in the province, ‘the old-comers’ of Lawrence’s planting, who had sympathized openly or secretly with the Revolutionists, they, too, found themselves cut off from their friends, their old relationships destroyed, and they had to make the best of the new status. A new nation had come into being in America, which soon began to affect the politics of the world. No political prophet was so daring as to forecast that out of the scattered and paltry remnants of British empire in this continent a second new nation was to arise within a century. The political isolation of Nova Scotia after the war, the coming of the loyalists, the continued reminder of Britain’s protection by the presence of a British garrison, all tended to give the province the strong tory cast of character it has ever since retained. The capital was in many respects simply an English garrison town on this side of the Atlantic.

Of the moral quality of the loyalist immigrants there is only one view. Unlike the disbanded soldiers and sailors who formed the original settlement of Halifax, they were pre-eminently law-abiding. Their coming meant no increase of disorder or crime. The only undesirable citizens were the dependent negroes and fugitive slaves, for whom England had to pay their American owners. Many of these were later shipped off to Sierra Leone, twelve hundred being deported in 1792. The white population brought with them their love of order, their religion, their class distinctions. Among them were many old soldiers from the disbanded provincial regiments; and in those days, when ‘soldier’ meant ‘ruffian,’ no word of complaint is brought against them. Among them also were not a few men of birth and education, who at once took a leading part in public affairs or attained to distinction in professional life. Indeed, there was for a time some jealousy of the ‘old-comers’ towards the ‘new-comers’ on account of the royal favour bestowed upon them; but the antagonism led to nothing more serious than some broken heads in an old-time Halifax election.

Those who lived nearest to this time are unanimous in their testimony. In one of the charming, casual notes that diversify his invaluable annals, Murdoch says:

In our legislative body much talent had been displayed. The flowing sentences and racy humour of Uniacke—the elegance, astuteness and vigor of Barclay—the earnest and skilled arguments of Isaac Wilkins and colonel Millidge, and the ready powers of debate evinced by Charles Hill, Pyke, Crane, Freke Bulkeley and others, gave to the house of representatives a weight and charm in 1789-90 that has been only twice or thrice repeated in the succeeding years.... Of the distinguished men of the assembly, Crane, F. Bulkeley and Pyke were native Novascotians—certainly the last two were. Crane I can remember as he appeared in the house 20 years later—a tall handsome man, with fluent speech, and an amazing readiness of natural wit and illustrative power. In short, I think this was one of the happy and halcyon periods of Nova Scotia.

And again, the strong local patriotism which must ever be reckoned with in Nova Scotia shines out in expressions of personal opinion such as this:

I feel it a privilege to have seen men who governed the province 77 years since, and a still greater to have received much valuable instruction from some of the above named, as well as others of their contemporaries. I feel linked, as it were, with the early settlers of Halifax, not only by descent but much more by the oral traditions of their sufferings, their principles and conduct. They have left us patterns of simplicity of character, of candor, humanity, loyalty and generosity.

The Epitome of 1842 is almost as emphatic. ‘From the period of the accession of settlers, many of them intelligent and educated men in the year 1783, the Province rapidly advanced in population and prosperity.’ Official utterances, dispatches, addresses of the governors to the assembly, all furnish concurrent testimony. Nova Scotia had entered upon a period of peaceful expansion.

When Burke attacked the Lords of Trade in 1780 for incompetence, he denounced the whole establishment of Nova Scotia as a ‘job,’ which ‘does not even support those offices of expense which are miscalled its government.’ The nursing of this ‘ill-thriven, hard-visaged and ill-favoured brat has cost this wittol nation’ £700,000. But soon the ill-thriven brat began notably to thrive. The provincial accounts show a growing balance against the province until 1795. In this year the debt is reported as £11,998, 12s. 3½d. Next year it had dropped to £2082, 16s. 7d. In the following year, for the first time, there is a balance of £7600 in favour of the province, which is nearly doubled in 1798. By 1815 it had grown, in spite of increased expenditures, to £60,000. The more liberal salaries to officials, the granting of bounties for shipbuilding, the generous establishment of the college at Windsor, the presentation of a star costing £400 to Prince Edward, the first of several like gifts to other conspicuous public figures, the sums spent on roads and bridges, the undertaking of such costly works as Government House and the Province Building—all tell the same tale of growing prosperity. In 1800 application was made to the legislature for a bank charter, which was refused because the petitioners desired a monopoly. The province had money for charity. In 1814 the assembly voted £2500 for the relief of the inhabitants of Canada who had suffered by the war, but indeed the province had long before opened its purse for the benefit of those in distress. As early as 1760 Nova Scotia sent aid to the sufferers by the great fire in Boston, and again in 1765 to the sufferers by fire in Montreal. Beginning in 1798, Halifax subscribed large sums annually for the prosecution of the war, the first donation being nearly £4000. The officers and men of the Royal Nova Scotia regiment offered a week’s pay, £199, 12s. 10d., ‘towards the public service, now menaced by bitter, cruel and wicked enemies.’ In the great excitement which followed Waterloo, not only the little capital, but Liverpool, Chester, Onslow, Truro, Londonderry, Wilmot, Clements, rebellious Cumberland and thrifty Lunenburg gave generously to the humane and patriotic fund being raised to provide for the families of those who had fallen in the ‘world’s earthquake.’ The contribution of Halifax was above £3800. Wentworth could boast in 1793 that among the privates of the Halifax militia artillery ‘are men of from £100 to £600 per annum, clear estate, who, from a declared principle of loyalty and utter abhorrence of French democratic tyranny, have voluntarily offered their services.’ Fortunes were rapidly made. M^cGregor, writing in 1828, says: ‘At this period money was exceedingly abundant; every one who possessed common sagacity accumulated considerable sums, and Halifax became the theatre of incessantly active enterprise and commercial speculation’; and Murdoch thus sums up: ‘While war raged elsewhere, Nova Scotia was peaceful, busy and prosperous (on a limited scale) and free from disturbance, agitation and crime.’

Governor Parr died at Halifax in 1791 and was buried beneath St Paul’s, where his hatchment still hangs. He seems to have been an honest old regimental officer, who did his duty by the province to the best of his mediocre ability. His successor, John Wentworth, had been governor of New Hampshire and was later created a baronet. From his term of office dates what may be called the Government House tradition. From the first, Halifax was a place notable for its social gaiety. Lawrence gave balls in his old wooden Government House; but wars and rumours of war had limited official hospitality. Now peace, or, at least, remoteness from danger, and very marked prosperity, removed such restraints. Wentworth apparently loved splendour, and almost ruined himself by his expenditure as governor. The long residence of the Duke of Kent in Halifax had an important influence on social life. He came here first in 1794 as colonel of the 7th Fusiliers and commander-in-chief of the forces from the campaign in Martinique, where he first smelt powder. One official address of welcome hailed him as a second Cæsar. He was soon joined by a charming French lady, Madame de St Laurent, who has been described as his morganatic wife, and who was certainly never Duchess of Kent. Apparently he was keenly interested in his profession, and a strict disciplinarian, having been trained in the stern Prussian school. The presence in Halifax of a young Prince of the Blood naturally aroused the warmest tory enthusiasm, and added impetus to social life. The time of the Duke of Kent is regarded as Nova Scotia’s Age of Gold. In 1800 the present dignified Government House was begun; and its stately rooms and ample proportions testify to the generous provision made for the official head of the province and his guests. The ‘royal governors’ were usually men of high rank, of personal distinction and private means. They were not mere figure-heads; they took themselves seriously and desired to rule as well as govern. The original theory of the governors’ great personal authority was still accepted without question and their personal influence was immense. They held a little court in Government House with a finely graded table of precedence. Levées, balls, dinners there were magnificent functions. To Nova Scotians, Government House was almost what St James’s is to Londoners. Admission to Government House conferred social distinction; exclusion was social death. Hartshorne, the sturdy old Quaker who would not let his wife call on the Duke’s friend, was black-listed for all invitations and the ban extended to his descendants. The officers of the garrison and of the fleet entertained lavishly, and the wealth of the Halifax merchants enabled them to compete with their visitors in luxury. The fame of Halifax hospitality is of long standing and well deserved.

The Wars with the French Republic and Napoleon

The peaceful breathing-space between war and war lasted only nine years. Then Britain entered upon the long life-and-death struggle with France which ended only at Waterloo. The supremacy of the fleet and the remoteness of Nova Scotia from the seat of war combined to foster the rapid growth of the province in wealth. Thanks to the ubiquitous British cruisers, trade was fairly safe, cargoes could come and go uncaptured, and emigration proceed without interruption at the very height of the war. The business of supplying troops and ships with all necessities, the sale of numberless prizes, for twenty years enriched the city and the province.

Otherwise, the outbreak of hostilities in 1792 led to the same measures of defence as in 1776. Three militia regiments were enrolled by Governor Wentworth, fortifications were strengthened or renewed, and strong reinforcements, three regiments, were promptly sent in by the mother country. The importance of Halifax as a base for naval operations in the North Atlantic was clearly recognized, and it was to be put beyond the danger of attack. In strong contrast with local conditions in the previous war, Nova Scotia was from the first used as a base for offensive operations. News had come to Governor Wentworth in 1792 of the defenceless state of St Pierre and Miquelon. To these remote islands the Revolution had spread; they had a tree of liberty; and the new tricolour of the Republic floated above them instead of the old Bourbon lilies. A small expedition was organized in Halifax, which captured this remote French possession without firing a shot. The only trouble was the transportation of the many prisoners, ‘violent democrats to a man,’ first to Halifax and then to Guernsey. In Halifax they were well treated, being furnished with the same rations and fuel as the troops, and also with bedding and clothing. They were able to sell forty barrels of choice pork every day to one shopkeeper, as well as bread at the barrack-gate to those Haligonians who wanted to get the best quality. They were also allowed to work in the town, and when they embarked for Guernsey every man had from five to fifty dollars in his possession—surely a unique experience for prisoners of war.

The capture of these little islands off Newfoundland was the only exploit of importance touching the defence of the province for nineteen years. Its success was due to the ubiquity and crushing superiority of the royal navy. From this time until the outbreak of the War of 1812 the province flourished peacefully behind the broad buckler of the invincible fleet. Early in the war the news of square sails in the offing might give the capital a sudden alert, but at no time was it in real danger. The ease with which the three battalions of militia were enrolled forms a striking contrast to the protests, reluctance and failures of Legge’s time. The old loyalist soldiers who had fought for their king rallied to the colours once more under their old officers. Noteworthy is the fact that one whole battalion was composed of Acadians. When 1050 men were mustered at Halifax in October 1793, seventy-five Acadians marched two hundred miles to join the English. Of this battalion the governor wrote: ‘Perhaps a finer body of athletic healthy young men were never assembled in any country, nor men more determined to do their duty.’ During the deceptive lull in the storm called the Peace of Amiens, which was hailed with great delight in Halifax, the militia was disbanded and dispersed quietly throughout the province. In a little more than a year the work of organizing defence had all to be done again. Wentworth was very proud of his provincial forces, their loyalty and soldierly spirit.

As a maritime province Nova Scotia must always be deeply concerned in a naval war; she had already borne her part in two wars; she was now to profit by a third. As usual, letters of marque were issued to trading vessels authorizing them to proceed in a warlike manner to their destination, and also to private vessels of war which scoured the seas in quest of lawful prize. In 1793, while Citizen Genet was trying to drag the United States into an alliance with the new French Republic, French vessels made use of American ports, and succeeded in capturing a number of Nova Scotia vessels. The captures were burned at sea, and the unfortunate masters and crews sent to prison in Brest or St Malo or deadly Guadeloupe. But the balance was soon redressed. The king’s ships were everywhere and were superior in force and morale. As early as April 1793 H.M.S. Alligator brought into Halifax two French privateers and two West Indiamen worth £40,000 which she had captured on the way out. This was only the beginning. The mere catalogue of ships, prizes and values would fill pages. Never was privateering so active or so lucrative as in this long war.

The prominence of Liverpool in this enterprise is noteworthy. Many vessels sailed from that port under daring and successful captains who came back with rich booty. On her first cruise the schooner Charles Mary Wentworth brought in four valuable Spanish prizes, including a brig, letter of marque, which fought for an hour before hauling down her flag. Her next cruise was not so lucky. In her sailed Enos Collins as first lieutenant, a noted character, who by privateering and other speculations acquired a fortune of one and a half million pounds. The Liverpool Packet, a fierce little wasp of sixty-seven tons, commanded by Joseph Barss, took nineteen prizes in two cruises. On her third cruise she was forced to strike to an American privateer, the Thomas, of twice her size. In one year the Retaliation took fourteen prizes; in her one and only cruise the Sir John Sherbrooke took sixteen. But of all Nova Scotia privateers the most famous is the Rover of Liverpool; for she fought a good fight. She was a brig of one hundred tons, mounting fourteen four-pounders and carrying a crew of fifty-five men and boys picked up in the home port. Her captain was Alexander Godfrey, a big, quiet man, whose descendants are still to be found in Queens County. At the end of a successful cruise in 1800 he was attacked by a vastly superior force. A Spanish schooner, the Santa Ritta, of more than double the Rover’s strength in men and guns, supported by three gunboats, attacked her off Cape Blanco. By consummate seamanship Godfrey managed to rake first the schooner approaching on the one hand and then the gunboats on the other, as they ranged alongside within a biscuit-toss intending to board. Then after a close action of an hour and a half with the Santa Ritta, the ‘Rovers’ boarded and made her a prize, while the gunboats sheered off, apparently in a shattered condition. The total Spanish loss amounted to more than the Rover’s crew, not a man of whom was hurt. Godfrey brought his prizes in safely. For this brilliant little fight he was offered a commission in the royal navy, but he declined the honour. During the peace he returned to his avocation of trader, and died in 1803 of yellow fever in Jamaica.

In the early years of the nineteenth century Nova Scotia received large accessions to her population which filled up the eastern portion of the province. This wave of immigration proceeded from Scotland, where the landlords were turning their estates into sheep-walks. In 1802, during the brief peace following the Treaty of Amiens, 370 Scottish Catholics arrived from Barra and settled in Antigonish, which has ever since been a stronghold of their faith. In the same year 845 Presbyterians arrived in Pictou County, to swell a population estimated at 5000. Between 1801 and 1805 the flood of immigration ran strong, as many as 1300 persons coming in a single season. Pictou County enjoys unique distinction in the number of notable men it has given to the public life of Canada, such as Principal Grant and Sir William Dawson.

These Scots brought with them their zeal for education and religion; but, unfortunately, they imported also the old-country feuds of Kirk, Seceder, Burgher and Anti-Burgher, which were long in dying out.

From the war with the French Republic also dates the era of shipbuilding. England had entered upon the most critical struggle in her long history. It was not a war like other wars, but a desperate fight for bare life. At times she had all Europe against her and the greatest military genius since Cæsar. She was saved by her fleet. At the end of the struggle she had over seven hundred ships in commission out of a total of 1022, and for more than a generation she had been building incessantly to repair the wastage of war and the toll of the sea. Timber she must have, and, especially after the Baltic was closed, timber from her provinces in America. In Nova Scotia hardwood of the finest quality—white pine, pitch pine, oak, black birch—abounded and commanded high prices. In return for the labour of felling, squaring and rafting his timber, the farmer received cash on the nail. Naturally he neglected agriculture for the quick returns of the more profitable industry. An excuse for any extravagance was ‘a stick of timber pays for this.’ As early as 1774 a cargo of squared timber was shipped to Britain from Pictou harbour. In 1803 no fewer than fifty vessels loaded timber at this port; and it has been calculated that for twenty years, from 1800 to 1820, the average annual value of timber shipments from Pictou alone was £100,000 sterling. This activity in lumbering was typical. The whole province was engaged in it.

Soon it was found profitable to build ships for the lumbering trade. In 1785 the house voted a bounty of ten shillings per ton on province-built vessels measuring over forty tons. Shelburne led the way in this industry, but in 1788 a ‘snow,’ an obsolete three-masted rig, was built at Pictou. Ten years later that port could boast of a full-rigged ship of six hundred tons. For nearly a century this industry flourished in Nova Scotia. What is true of Pictou is true of every county. A whole volume is needed to register the shipping of Yarmouth, long famous for its tonnage per head of population. The record extends from 1761 to 1874 and includes vessels of almost every type and size—ships, barques, brigs, brigantines, schooners—ranging from ninety-ton fishing-boats to deep-sea craft of fifteen hundred tons. One mournful chapter gives the list of those that found the port of missing ships, a bare suggestion of the adventurous unwritten story of Nova Scotia’s mercantile marine. So also of Kings County. ‘At one time,’ says an eye-witness, ‘a man standing on the hill at Windsor might see fifteen square-rigged vessels building at once.’ Province-built vessels increased in size and adopted each improvement in gear and construction. They carried the flag over the world, from the Clyde to Rio and the Hooghly. The business of building and owning ships yielded handsome dividends for a hundred years. One shipowner, who died recently at Hantsport, left a fortune of a million dollars.

At first the regular procedure was to load the vessel with timber, sail her to some port in the United Kingdom, sell both ship and cargo and return with the cash to repeat the process. Often the same men felled the trees, squared the timber, hauled or rafted it to the shipyard, returned to their farms to sow their crops, then built the ship, manned and sailed her to her destination. Sometimes the whole crew would be all of one family connection or clan. So this industry has reacted on the character of the people, breeding sailors and travellers and a type of resourceful handy-man peculiar to the province. The outlook of seafaring peoples who visit foreign places must necessarily be broader than that of inland populations, whose longest excursion is from the farm to the county town. But the industry is dead. By the opening of the twentieth century the busy ports were idle and the shipyards silent and decayed.

Perhaps nowhere outside of Great Britain was the course of the Great War followed with more intense interest and warmer sympathy than in Nova Scotia. In the capital the feeling was naturally strongest, from the familiarity of Haligonians with the army and navy. Ships destined to win fame at the Nile or Copenhagen had been seen in the harbour; historic regiments had lain here in garrison. Murdoch records how, on the news of Wellington’s victories, the merchants of Halifax were accustomed to engage a military band, which, mounted on the flat roof of the market-house, played marches and loyal tunes throughout the evening. They themselves assembled across the square, in their reading-room upstairs, and poured libations in honour of the victory. The joy of the town was manifested by the simple process of putting extra candles in the windows; and the young people strolled about paying visits or admiring the illuminations.

The War of 1812

The climax was reached in 1812, when, after menacing England with an army of a hundred and fifty thousand men encamped at Boulogne, Napoleon suddenly undertook his disastrous expedition into Russia. Then the United States declared war with Britain; in Howe’s words, ‘jumped on her back.’ On Saturday, June 27, the crippled Belvidera came into Halifax harbour with tidings of having been fired into by an American squadron. Two men had been killed and twenty-three wounded, including Captain Richard Byron. On Sunday, Governor Sherbrooke learned of the declaration of war by an express from General Hunter, commanding in New Brunswick. The news was given to the public the next morning. At once measures were taken to embody the militia, to obtain reinforcements of troops, and to strengthen the North Atlantic squadron. As soon as possible the house was convened. It met on July 21 and voted lavishly for the support of the war: £8000 for blockhouses, arming boats, etc., £12,000 for extra pay for the militia, and £10,000 for additional pay, if additional force were needed. It further resolved to borrow £30,000 for defences. The expenses of war were to be met by increased duties on wine, rum and spirits. In brief, the province displayed once more its old enthusiastic loyalty.

At first the unexpected occurred. The last months of 1812 were filled with tales of disaster. Since Trafalgar the British navy was held everywhere to be invincible. But early in October, Captain Dacres was court-martialled on board H.M.S. Africa, a Trafalgar ship in Halifax harbour, for losing his vessel the Guerrière to the American frigate Constitution. It seemed incredible that a British captain should lower the flag to the despised Yankees. Dacres, a young and inexperienced officer, was freely blamed for striking too soon; but the published finding of the court-martial laid the blame on the condition of the masts. Then came worse news: the Frolic, the Macedonian, the Java had been also beaten by the Americans. England was unduly depressed and the United States unduly exalted by the outcome of these single-ship actions, although, as Captain Mahan points out, they had no effect upon the war. England immediately dispatched overwhelming reinforcements to avenge the shame of these defeats. In 1813 the vessels on the North Atlantic station numbered 106, of which thirteen were seventy-fours. To oppose such force the Americans had absolutely nothing; their ports were blockaded and their commerce was swept from the seas. At Bermuda there were lying 172 prize vessels at one time. The Halifax newspapers record the coming of captures almost every day. On March 17, 1813, a Halifax auctioneer advertised the sale of twenty-three vessels by order of the court of vice-admiralty. The fees of one judge in that court during the scant three years of the war amounted, it is said, to £10,000, while those of Richard John Uniacke, as advocate-general, amounted to £50,000. Privateering flourished, and both the privateers and the king’s ships were richly repaid for their constant cruises. Money was extraordinarily abundant. In 1814 the provincial revenue jumped to nearly £115,000. How to guard the numerous French and American prisoners was a problem, although cartel ships plied between Halifax and Boston, effecting exchanges.

Among the captains composing the court-martial that tried the unlucky commander of the Guerrière was P. B. V. Broke of the 38-gun frigate, Shannon. In March 1813 she left Halifax with the Tenedos on a cruise, as ships were constantly doing. On Sunday, June 6, as the Halifax people were in church, news came that two ships were proceeding up the harbour, and the congregation speedily deserted the service. The Shannon was bringing in her prize the Chesapeake, which had been taken on June 1, in the most deadly sea-fight that ever lasted only a quarter of an hour. The jubilation of Halifax was unbounded. John Howe’s paper, the Journal, published on the Monday, begins the account of the fight thus: ‘Ours is the pleasing task—the heart-enrapturing, animating task—to publish to our Countrymen and to the World a Noble Deed of Heroism.’ The Halifax merchants presented Broke with an address and a piece of plate. If the old city was constant in the mother country’s woe, she was also joyous in her joy. Though this battle belongs to the naval history of Great Britain, Halifax has her share in the glory. The first lieutenant, Watt, of the Shannon, who was killed while running up the flag in the moment of victory, was a Halifax boy; as was also the second lieutenant, Provo Wallis, who brought the ships in and rose to be admiral of the fleet. Haliburton, a boy of seventeen, visited the Shannon and has left a realistic picture of the gruesome sights he saw.

In August 1814 a strong squadron under Vice-Admiral Cochrane left Halifax with a large body of troops commanded by Major-General Robert Ross to operate in the region of the Chesapeake. This expedition is noted for the rare harmony with which the two branches of the service worked together, a result largely due to the fine character of General Ross. After winning the battle of Bladensburg, and burning Washington in retaliation for the destruction of York in Upper Canada, he was killed in the battle near Baltimore. His death put an end to the operations. His body was brought back to Halifax for burial and lies forgotten in a corner of St Paul’s cemetery.

A more fortunate expedition was that organized by Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, the distinguished Peninsular officer, who succeeded the incompetent Prevost as lieutenant-governor of the province in 1811. It consisted of one line-of-battle ship, two frigates, a sloop, together with the transports carrying details of three regiments, the 29th, 62nd and 98th, with two companies of the 60th and detachments of Royal Artillery and Engineers—in all about one thousand eight hundred rank and file. The objective was Castine in Penobscot Bay, which M^cLean had taken in the Revolutionary War. The British force was so strong that resistance was impossible. All the Americans could do was to destroy fortifications, vessels, etc., so as to make the captured position as valueless as possible to the captors. So Castine was occupied by a British force some seven months until the close of the war. The expedition had an important if indirect effect upon the history of Nova Scotia by creating the Castine Fund, a term which requires explanation.

As is well known, the War of 1812 was very unpopular in New England. Governor Sherbrooke learned on good information that when it was declared all the ships in Boston harbour hung their flags at half-mast. It is noteworthy that while the upper provinces were assailed again and again, no invasion of the Maritime Provinces was attempted. Indeed, the attempt to compel Massachusetts to take part almost drove the old Bay State into secession. On the other hand, the Governor of Nova Scotia issued a proclamation forbidding all persons under his command offering any molestation to the Americans on the frontier of New Brunswick or interfering with their goods or coasting vessels. This neighbourly arrangement remained undisturbed throughout the war and led to much trade in the coveted British goods. The capture of Castine opened a wider market, and enterprising Halifax merchants promptly took advantage of it. The goods entered at Castine to be sold to the Americans paid duties, and these duties, which amounted to some £13,000, formed the Castine Fund. It was brought back to Halifax and regarded as the property of the province.

In all the excitement which marked the closing scenes of the great drama—‘the abdication of the tyrant Bonaparte,’ the escape from Elba, the Hundred Days and Waterloo—the province eagerly shared, with alternations of joy and grief. Then came a final peace, and Nova Scotia entered upon a new phase of development.

II
FROM WATERLOO TO CONFEDERATION, 1815-67

A Period of Depression

‘King-Making Waterloo’ was celebrated by a famous dinner at Halifax. The toast list afforded one hundred separate and distinct opportunities for pouring libations and uttering patriotic sentiments. It began one afternoon at the fashionable hour of five and continued until broad daylight next morning, but the jubilations might have been more moderate if the revellers could have foreseen the immediate effect of peace upon the city and the province. To keep the British army and navy upon a permanent war footing was impossible. Regiments were at once disbanded and ships went out of commission. The forces at Halifax were reduced, and, with their departure, reaction set in. Business was violently dislocated, inflated prices came back to normal, rents fell, money grew scarce, and speculators who had built on the indefinite continuance of the war were brought to poverty. Waterloo year was the year of mice which came in myriads and ate the standing crops in the field. The year following was remembered as the year without summer, when the sun’s rays seemed to give no heat. Halifax was distressed in 1819 by the removal of the dockyard to Bermuda, by which many hands were thrown out of work. This depression reached its lowest depth in 1822, after which improvement is visible.

Sir John Sherbrooke

In June 1816 Sir John Sherbrooke embarked at Halifax for Quebec amid the booming of cannon and the cheers of the crowds on the wharves. More tangible evidence of his popularity was the vote of £1000 by the assembly to purchase him a piece of plate. His successor, the Earl of Dalhousie, arrived at Halifax in the following October. Dalhousie’s fame has been overshadowed by that of his son, the great viceroy of India, the conqueror of the Sikhs, but he was a man of mark in his time. Entering the army at the age of eighteen, he had seen much active service—in Martinique, where he was severely wounded, in Ireland, in the Walcheren expedition, in Egypt. In the Peninsula he commanded the seventh division and won the rare praise of Wellington for his decisive action along with Picton at Vittoria. For his services at Waterloo he received the thanks of both houses of parliament. He had risen to field rank and obtained the closely guarded honour of the Bath. Like his predecessor, he was not only the civil head of the province, but also the commander-in-chief of the forces. He was the schoolmate and lifelong friend of Sir Walter Scott, who found the man as ‘steady, wise and generous’ as the boy promised to be. ‘Lord Dalhousie,’ he confides to his journal, ‘has more of the Caledonian prisca fides than any man now alive.’ His brief administration of four years had important results to Nova Scotia.

Educational Development

The first result is seen in the higher education of the province. When King’s College was founded, the population was largely of English stock and adhered to the national church; and no objection was raised to establishing and supporting that institution from the public funds. The case was altered by the large Scottish immigration. Soon Pictou was heard protesting against the anomaly of an institution supported by taxpayers of whom four-fifths were debarred from its advantages by the canon laws of its foundation. One object in founding King’s was to preserve the youth of the province from the contamination of republican principles, which they would certainly contract if educated in the United States. As early as 1768 Francklin refers to the necessity of establishing Anglican clergymen to prevent the spread of republican ideas, and the belief was general ‘that in exact proportion to the influence of the established religion will be the immovable loyalty of the inhabitants of the province.’ The church was to support the state, and King’s was the nurseling of the church. When the governors framed the statutes of the new university, they took as their model those of Oxford, which had remained unchanged since the days of Laud. These required, as a matter of course, subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles at matriculation and also upon taking the Bachelor’s degree. Against the requirement Bishop Inglis, to his honour, protested, because, he contended, it would exclude the dissenters, but his objections were overridden by the strong will of Alexander Croke, judge of vice-admiralty. Himself a graduate of Oriel, an ‘ultra’ tory of the deepest dye such as supported the reactionary policy of Castlereagh, Croke was determined to make of King’s a little Oxford. Even the natural claims of Cochran, a mere Trinity College, Dublin, man, for the headship of the college were disregarded in favour of Oxford graduates. A still more objectionable statute forbade King’s men to ‘frequent the Romish mass or the meetinghouses of Presbyterians, Baptists or Methodists, or the conventicles or places of worship of any other dissenters from the Church of England, or where divine service should not be performed according to the liturgy of the Church of England, or be present at any seditious or rebellious meetings.’ The governors did indeed modify the first regulation so far as to permit students to attend King’s without subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles, but such students could not obtain a degree. According to Akins, a copy of the original unmodified statutes fell into Lord Dalhousie’s hands and led him to plan ‘a Seminary for the higher branches of Learning’ on more liberal lines.

In this case Edinburgh was the model, as Oxford had been the model of King’s. The second college was to be founded, not in the country, but in the capital, so as to bring its advantages within the reach of as many as possible. Residence was not provided for students. Single classes might be taken without incurring any obligation beyond payment of a fee. But the most surprising feature of the new establishment was the abolition of all tests, religious and political. The new college embodied a new idea in education, the principle of toleration. To erect the necessary building and endow the necessary chairs, part of the Castine Fund was used. As this proved inadequate, the assembly voted in all about £3000 for its support, and advanced a further £5000 as a loan, which was, in the end, a gift. A simple, sightly stone building in the prevailing Georgian style was erected on the northern end of the Grand Parade, and the earl’s last official act before leaving the province for Quebec in 1820 was laying the cornerstone with imposing ceremonies. From the first there was a strong desire to unite the two colleges, but although four separate attempts have been made to effect such a union, King’s and Dalhousie still remain apart.

After five years of activity as a college, from 1838 to 1843, Dalhousie College was operated as a school or lay inert. In the year 1863, however, the various Presbyterian bodies, under the able leadership of such men as the Rev. G. M. Grant and the Rev. Allan Pollok, united with the Congregationalists, who had founded Gorham College at Liverpool, in the worthy aim of setting the institution on its feet. They succeeded, and since that date the progress of Dalhousie has been uninterrupted. The munificence of George Munro, who endowed five professorships and greatly stimulated secondary education by a system of bursaries, was followed by ample gifts from other friends of the college, which was thus placed on a firm financial basis. Its rapid expansion made it necessary to find a new home in 1887, when the old college on the Parade gave way to the present city offices. This second building also proving inadequate within twenty years, the governors of the college acquired an estate of forty-two acres named Studley, and once the property of Judge Croke. An extensive building programme is under way. With its traditional liberality, the city of Halifax subscribed in 1912 the sum of $200,000 to the Dalhousie forward movement. As were its founder and its model, so its staff, constituency, methods and educational ideals have been prevailingly Scottish.

Even before the foundation of Dalhousie, a strong practical protest against the exclusion of dissenters from King’s had been made by the establishment of a rival college. The leader of the movement was the Rev. Thomas M^cCulloch, a ‘Seceder’ minister who came to Pictou in 1803. Born at Neilston in Renfrewshire, he received his college training at Glasgow, and, on coming to Nova Scotia, soon perceived, like the first Bishop Inglis, that the great need of his church was an educated native ministry. To educate candidates for the Presbyterian ministry at King’s was out of the question, so M^cCulloch set to work to raise up a college of his own. He induced the Pictou Scots to subscribe liberally, and obtained an act of incorporation from the assembly, and even an annual grant, to which the council annually assented, but which they consistently refused to make permanent. This was the origin of Pictou Academy, which opened in the fall of 1817 with some twenty students. The students wore the old scarlet gown of the Scottish universities.

M^cCulloch, the founder, was a man of unusual powers. As a Scottish collegian of the eighteenth century he could not escape a thorough training in classics; but he was also a pioneer teacher of natural science. His ‘philosophical apparatus’ was reckoned by Bishop Inglis as one of the academy’s attractions; it is still preserved in part at Pictou, and was surprisingly good for the time. M^cCulloch was a naturalist whose collection of native birds was admired by Audubon; an inspiring teacher of the old school capable of giving sound instruction in every branch of the curriculum; and a ready writer with a strong sense of humour, which relieved even his theological controversies. His name is remembered with honour in the province, where he did yeoman’s service in the cause of free education.

The later history of Pictou Academy is chequered by unfortunate dissensions between ‘Kirkmen’ and ‘Seceders.’ After a long struggle, ministers of the Established Church of Scotland succeeded in obtaining a share in the control, and want of harmony in the management brought the old academy to an end. When Dalhousie College began to function in 1838, M^cCulloch was made principal and the assembly’s grant was transferred at the same time. The present Pictou Academy, though part of the modern educational system of the province, is the lineal descendant of the pioneer divinity hall, whose name it bears. Religious bigotry made Pictou Academy necessary and religious bigotry wrecked it. The blighting influence of sectarianism on higher education did not end there.

The Progress of Agriculture

Lord Dalhousie’s administration is also noteworthy for the impetus given in it to agriculture. In the year 1818, the year Dalhousie College was founded, a series of letters that threw Halifax into a ferment began to appear in the Acadian Recorder. The topics discussed could not be considered inflammatory; they dealt with soils, crops, manures, drainage, better methods of husbandry; but the public curiosity was aroused by the fact that no one knew who wrote them. They were signed ‘Agricola’; but who was ‘Agricola,’ the unknown writer who could imbue the subject of fertilizers with absorbing interest? It was the age of the anonymous. The author of Waverley was delighting the world with his romances, and here in the provincial capital was a similar mystery. Traps were laid for ‘Agricola’; artful letters were prepared to catch him off his guard; and at last the amateur detectives secured proofs of his identity. At the North British dinner on St Andrew’s Day, Lord Dalhousie proposed, in very complimentary terms, the health of the unknown ‘Agricola,’ who soon after revealed himself as John Young, a Scottish merchant who had come to the province four years previously. A son of the manse, he was educated at Glasgow for the ministry, but, being attracted to the profession of medicine and being refused aid by his father, he turned his attention to business. For writing on agriculture and for concealing his identity he had excellent reasons, which are best given in his own vigorous language.

After praising the much maligned climate of Nova Scotia, he outlines the situation with which he had to deal.

The system of husbandry was wretched in the extreme, and the profession of a farmer was little short of being despised. A visible poverty since the treaty of Paris was benumbing every faculty of intellect, begetting habits of inaction and languor among the people and preparing them to descend into the lowest abyss of humiliation. The American flag waved triumphant in the fort of Halifax, and was dispensing to us by way of indulgence on the part of that Government, those very products which our own soil could abundantly furnish, had its productiveness been excited and drawn upon by a vigorous industry. The proud and independent spirit of a Briton burned fiercely within me, and I vowed the surrender of my vacant time to the good of the country I had adopted. After some little deliberation I laid my plans, not to write a system of agriculture, but to combat as well existing errors as to light the glow of patriotism.... But a regular attack upon the prejudices and habits of a people exposed a writer to much resentment. For that reason I resolved on acting behind the curtain and shutting myself from the gaze of the public.

‘Agricola’s’ letters fulfilled their author’s purpose. They roused Nova Scotia to the importance of agriculture. Lord Dalhousie was himself an amateur farmer upon his Scottish estates in the breathing spaces between his campaigns, and he seconded ‘Agricola’ with a will. Public meetings were held to plan ways and means, and fourteen agricultural societies were formed throughout the province to introduce improved methods and encourage scientific farming. A similar effort had been made before in 1785, but evidently the attention given to lumbering all through the war had rendered it fruitless. The assembly took the practical step of loaning £10,000 to the farmers of Kings and Annapolis in sums varying from £25 to £350, secured by mortgage on their property, and granted the Agricultural Society £1500 in addition. Wheat was largely grown all along the Valley and on the rich intervales of Pictou. Mills were built to grind the ‘bread corn,’ and the province became more and more self-contained and able to support itself. The improvement is directly due to Young’s zeal, knowledge and convincing style. He was elected to the assembly, where he played no unimportant part. At his residence, ‘Willow Park,’ afterwards the home of Sir John Thompson, he continued his experiments in agriculture, with more benefit to the science than to his own pocket. His son became chief justice and received the honour of knighthood. As Sir William Young he is remembered for his generous gifts to his native city.

Lord Dalhousie

Lord Dalhousie was deservedly popular in Nova Scotia. When he was about to leave the province the assembly voted £1000 for a star and a sword as a present to him. In his speech of acceptance he terms it, justly, a ‘magnificent testimonial of your regard.’ Some time later he learned that the house had risen without attempting to carry out measures he had recommended—the complete survey of the province and the inspection of the militia—and he wrote to the speaker withdrawing his acceptance. His language is significant. ‘When I find the leading measures of my administration rejected and suppressed, in a manner disrespectful to the high station in which I am placed, at the very moment, too, when those gifts of approbation are tendered to me, my duty to my king—my duty to the province, and, above all, the sacred regard I have for my own personal honor, equally forbid the acceptance of the sum voted.’ At the time there was rather more friction than usual between the assembly and the council, which may partly account for Dalhousie’s attitude; but the original idea of the governor as head and source of power in the constitution is plainly manifest. This rebuff did not lower him in the popular esteem. When he visited his old government in 1824 he was warmly welcomed back and royally entertained.

His administration has left behind it many permanent traces. With part of the Castine Fund he founded a library for the officers of the garrison, and presented portraits of George iii and his queen, which adorn the Province Building. At Quebec he founded the Historical and Literary Society and set on foot the subscription for the first monument to Wolfe and Montcalm. Place-names in four provinces also testify to the popularity of this soldier-governor. In his time the yoke of the old Trade and Navigation laws was partly lifted from the neck of Halifax, to the benefit of her commerce. Both education and agriculture owed much to his leadership, and some wise measures he advocated still remain to be carried out.

Sir James Kempt

To Dalhousie succeeded Sir James Kempt, another distinguished Waterloo officer. Haligonians saw in him a little dandified old bachelor, fond of his four-in-hand and entertaining magnificently at Government House. The army knew him for an excellent and popular officer, who had reached his rank by sheer skill and hard fighting. As commander of the Light Division he had won honour at the forgotten battle of Maida where the superiority of England’s ‘thin red line’ formation to the French column was first demonstrated. He had served in Holland, in Egypt, and in the Peninsula, where he was twice wounded, first in leading Picton’s force in the storming of Badajoz and again at Nivelle. At Waterloo he commanded a brigade of the eighth division that shattered d’Erlon, and he succeeded Picton when that famous leader fell. To the duty of learning the needs of his government Kempt set himself seriously, travelling constantly from one end of it to the other. What impressed him most deeply was the need of improved communications through the interior. Under his administration money grants for roads and bridges were generous, and the assembly showed its confidence in his ability and wisdom by entrusting him with much of their management. His name is appropriately borne by a road he projected and also by a township.

The Establishment of Banks

All business in Nova Scotia had long been cramped and hindered by lack of a clearing-house and the scarcity of a circulating medium. The only British coin that came to the province was the old guinea. The fish and lumber exported to the West Indies were paid for in Spanish money, doubloons, dollars, pistareens and other small coins. Though merchants kept their accounts in pounds, shillings and pence, these tokens were rarely seen. One reason may have been an English law that forbade the exportation of the coin of the realm. To pay the troops, the British government imported large quantities of Spanish milled dollars, and paid them out at the rate of 4s. 6d. each. But this was found to be inconvenient. The pound was not readily divisible by ‘four-and-six’; so the Halifax merchants raised the value of the Spanish dollar to five shillings, which made the difference in the old arithmetic tables between the pound sterling and ‘four dollars, one pound, Halifax currency.’ ‘Halifax currency’ was just a means of dealing with stubborn figures; but the province issued treasury notes and had its own copper coinage of various issues down to Confederation.

The need of a local bank was early felt. After the refusal of a charter to the first project in 1800, a second attempt in 1811 also fell through, apparently from lack of support. In 1825, however, the old Halifax Banking Company started business with a capital of £50,000 divided among seven shareholders, one of whom was Enos Collins, who became a millionaire, and another, Samuel Cunard, who founded the line of steamers that bears his name. This company had no charter and was established by no act of the legislature; it was simply a joint-stock company formed by a few rich men to facilitate exchange, to provide accommodation—for a consideration—and, incidentally, to benefit themselves. There was, of course, no inspection, no publication of balance-sheets, no check on rates charged, and the profits were enormous. At the same time the benefit to business was very great. This was the second important bank founded in British North America, the first being the Bank of Montreal in 1817. The success of this monopoly led to the formation of the Bank of Nova Scotia, in spite of the determined opposition of the older company. This bank had a regular charter and began business in 1832. The Halifax Banking Company has been merged in the Bank of Commerce, but the Bank of Nova Scotia exists as one of the strongest financial institutions in Canada.

The Shubenacadie Canal

Another indication of the enterprise and resources of the time was the formation of the Shubenacadie Canal Company in 1826. The project had been broached as early as 1794. In 1796 Isaac Hildreth, later the architect of Government House, had made the first survey. A second survey by Valentine Gill in 1820 corroborated Hildreth’s report and showed the correctness of his levels. Its aim was to connect Halifax with the Bay of Fundy, a distance of fifty-three miles, by a series of natural waterways supplemented by sixteen locks. Trade-boats drawing eight feet were to be towed through by small steamers, accomplishing the passage in fifteen hours. This cheap water carriage was expected to develop the interior of the province and divert to Halifax the trade that went from this region to St John. Between 1794 and 1826 the project had grown greatly. For its completion the sum of £60,000 was required: £17,000 was raised by subscription and the assembly voted £15,000 in addition. The canal was built, but the advent of the railway age killed it. Some picturesque locks in the Dartmouth lakes remain to tell what old Haligonians tried to accomplish.

The whale fishery was carried on as late as 1820. A colony of Nantucket Quakers—Starbucks, Folgers and so on—settled in Dartmouth after the Revolution and prosecuted this industry with success for some six years. Samuel Cunard made, and unlucky Shelburne lost, money in it.

Catholic Emancipation

During Kempt’s administration Catholic emancipation advanced a stage. In the eastern part of the province, and especially in Cape Breton, immigration had greatly increased the number of Scottish Catholics, while the Irish Catholics seemed to concentrate in the capital. Proof of this concentration is found in the existence of the Irish Charitable Society along with the other two national societies, the North British and St George’s, all of which date from the eighteenth century. In 1802 the Rev. Edmund Burke petitioned the assembly for permission to incorporate a board that could legally receive subscriptions towards providing schools for the instruction of Catholic youth. The intention was ‘to establish a Roman Catholic seminary in Halifax,’ according to Governor Wentworth, who further states that Burke had changed his first plan and persisted in erecting a large building for the purposes of a charity school. Wentworth notes the increasing number of Catholics and their zealous activity. In 1818 Burke was created the first Catholic bishop of Nova Scotia. This remarkable man was born at Kildare, Ireland; he had been for some years professor in the seminary at Quebec and, later, a missionary to the Indian tribes of the interior. After the Revolution his services to the imperial government in securing the fidelity of the Indians were so important that he was granted a pension of £300 a year. He came to Halifax in 1803 and was a powerful promoter of his faith. With Bishops Inglis and Stanser and with Dr M^cCulloch he carried on learned controversies on the points at issue between the different confessions, but without animosity. He is characterized by Campbell as a ‘great, enlightened and liberal-minded prelate.’

In 1822 Lawrence Cavanagh was returned for the county of Cape Breton, but he could not take his seat without subscribing the old test oath denying transubstantiation, and this was impossible for any Catholic. Both the house and the council were sympathetic and tried every constitutional means of overcoming the difficulty. They were willing to accept Cavanagh and excuse him from the test, and even to free all Catholics from the disability, but they were afraid of running counter to the laws of the mother country. When the facts were laid before the home government, Cavanagh was permitted to qualify by taking merely the state oath, and the assembly decided by resolution that future Catholic members might be admitted in the same way. The test oath remained until 1827, when the Rev. John Carrol and others petitioned the house for its abolition. R. J. Uniacke, the younger, moved the following resolution: ‘That a committee be appointed to prepare an address to His Majesty, begging of him to dispense with the oaths now used as a qualification for office.’ The motion was seconded by the member for Annapolis, T. C. Haliburton, young, slender, at the height of his bodily and mental powers. After taking his degree at King’s he had enjoyed the rare advantage of foreign travel. His carefully prepared speech with its old-fashioned flights of rhetoric made a deep impression. There was no opposition, and Uniacke, Haliburton and ‘Agricola’ Young were appointed a committee to draft the address. The modern age was approaching rapidly; old intolerance was dying; but Nova Scotia forestalled the mother country in doing justice to those who held the ancient faith.

Haliburton: the Historian

Two years later Haliburton came again into prominence before the house. During his residence at Annapolis Royal he had become interested in the Acadians of Digby and Clare: he studied their origins and the whole settlement and development of his native province. The result was An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, in two volumes, printed by Joseph Howe, Halifax, 1829. For this work the author received £500 and the thanks of the house; but the impression was too large, and Howe lost heavily by the speculation. Judged by the standards of the present, ‘Haliburton’s History,’ as it is usually termed, is very faulty. When this provincial lawyer began his studies the modern school of history was unborn; criticism of sources was hardly dreamed of; the English model was Hume, who wrote lying on a sofa. The author’s conception of history is curious; only the remote, tragic or picturesque elements are admissible. Constitutional development, growth of institutions, economic progress, are hardly considered. The historical part ceases with the Seven Years’ War; after 1763 there is, according to Haliburton, no history; and he jots down mere notes for annals. His own words are: ‘The uniform tranquillity and repose which Nova Scotia has since enjoyed affords us no materials for an historical narrative.’ A large part of the second volume is a compilation from the valuable pamphlets of Robert Bromley, once captain and paymaster of the Welsh Fusiliers, whose varied philanthropic activities endeared his name in Halifax. Haliburton was unable to read some of the proof, and errors abound. But the work has still decided importance. It was the first to tell the world the pathetic tale of the Expulsion; and it was used by Longfellow in composing Evangeline. The thanks of the house is the formal recognition of a patriotic labour. On the title-page stood once more Scott’s oft-quoted line, ‘This is my own, my native land.’ Haliburton’s Nova Scotia is one more index of the steady growth of provincial pride. In spite of its defects it is a most valuable work, containing a mass of information not easily accessible elsewhere, and it has also the honour of being the first history of any province of Canada.

The Growth of Popular Rule

The advantages of the old paternal system of government, with the undisputed power of initiative in the hands of the governor, are well illustrated by the administrations of Dalhousie and Kempt. Under the present system no lieutenant-governor of a Canadian province could found a college; nor would he be entrusted with the expenditure of road money. Another important reform, which is due directly to Kempt, was the appointment of a president of Sessions and law judge of the Court of Common Pleas in each of the four juridical divisions of the province. In spite of strong protests this measure became law.

The next lieutenant-governor was a man of very different type. Sir Peregrine Maitland was an aristocratic officer such as flourished under the old purchase system. He had seen service in the Walcheren expedition and in the Peninsula; he had commanded two brigades of the Guards at Waterloo; but he was not such a soldier as Dalhousie or Kempt. In person he was tall, slight and handsome. His delicate health made conviviality impossible, and his personal decanter at the Government House dinners contained nothing stronger than toast-water. Something of an artist himself, he gave his patronage to the Halifax painting club, which met in the old Dalhousie College on the Parade. He and his wife, Lady Sarah, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, set Halifax society an example of religious decorum and piety. They and their household attended St Paul’s on foot; and a period was put to the brilliant spectacle of Sunday afternoon parades of the garrison on the common, with races to follow and bands playing before the colonels’ houses in the evening. Sir Peregrine seems to have exercised very little influence on the affairs of the province. He was the first of the lieutenant-governors who govern but do not rule. The modern world was coming slowly but inevitably even in tory Nova Scotia. A new school of native politicians was growing up which, in virtue of its ability and new ideas, was capable of governing and determined to do so. Campbell describes Sir Peregrine as ‘an amiable man of refined taste, but utterly wanting in decision of character and administrative capacity.’ His departure from Nova Scotia coincides with the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, and the farewell notice in the Novascotian, wishing him a comfortable sinecure in England for his amiable lady’s sake, is sufficiently contemptuous and significant of the rising tide of democracy.

With the beginning of the nineteenth century the modern newspaper began to appear in Nova Scotia. The Royal Gazette continued its steady course, but it had found a rival in the Weekly Chronicle, conducted by the good old loyalist, John Howe, Sandemanian, postmaster and magistrate, who brought up his son Joseph to the printer’s trade. In 1813 the Acadian Recorder was founded by A. H. Holland. The first number contained one piece of news of world-wide interest—the capture of the Guerrière by the Constitution. Holland was a man of energy. He established a paper-mill near Bedford to supply his journal. His free criticism of public affairs led to fine and imprisonment; but, says Murdoch, ‘his paper became both popular and useful.’ The Recorder has just completed a full century of continuous publication, largely under the management of one family, a record in Canadian journalism probably unique. In 1827 young Howe bought the newly founded Novascotian, of which he made, by dint of hard work and genius, a telling journalistic and financial success. Those were the days when the press was discovering its power and the editor took himself seriously as a moulder of public opinion. About this time Carlyle, composing Sartor Resartus at Craigenputtock, figured the journalist as the new order of preaching friar, whose pulpit was his paper, whence he addressed a greater audience than any regular priest.

The modern newspaper is both a symptom and an engine of democracy. It depends upon the democracy for its very existence, and a free press is almost always used to further democratic ends. Whether Howe knew of another great journalist’s practice or not is uncertain, but he learned Nova Scotia as Cobbett learned England—by rural rides from one end of it to the other. In the interests of the Novascotian he travelled his native province on horseback, and so gained not only an unrivalled knowledge of its beauty, its natural resources and its people, but also a host of admiring friends. His genial humour, his ready sympathy, his power of the tongue, his full-blooded humanity, made him a welcome man in every house from Canso to Cape Sable. ‘Brother to a prince and fellow to a beggar, if he be found worthy’ is a proverb that applies to Howe. In those happy days he developed the gifts that afterwards made him the idol of Nova Scotia. He threw his whole marvellous energy into his paper, doing everything himself, reporting debates and trials, writing leading articles, news items, etc. etc., and he made the Novascotian the most readable paper of its time.

Outside of Halifax the leaven of modern journalism began to work, and it was only natural that the ferment should appear first among the Scots of Pictou. There the Colonial Patriot issued its first number on December 7, 1827. In expounding its motto, Pro rege, pro patria, the editor declares, ‘In politics we shall side with the most liberal system,’ and the programme that follows is merely a further exposition of this pregnant declaration. The very word ‘liberal’ had been used, and in this provincial newspaper the liberal idea had a fearless and able champion. The editor, Jotham Blanchard, is still remembered in Pictou. He came of New Hampshire stock, but though not born in the province was brought to Truro by his parents while yet a child. Some infantile disease lamed him for life. Part of his education he owed to M^cCulloch and Pictou Academy. He became a lawyer who was notable for discouraging litigation, and he directed the Patriot through the first part of its stormy career, when the publisher was imprisoned for debt and he himself was burned in effigy. Recently a substantial scholarship to bear his name and to perpetuate his memory was founded in Dalhousie College by the people of Pictou. Howe, who began as an upholder of the old order, said that he had been ‘converted from the error of his ways by the Pictou scribblers.’

He learned of the Pictou radicals by opposing them. The very first number of the Patriot condemned the action of Lord Dalhousie in rejecting Papineau as speaker of the Canadian assembly. Governor Wentworth had rejected Cottenham Tonge for the same office in the assembly of Nova Scotia on purely personal grounds, but the Nova Scotians had submitted and the Canadians fought. This startling criticism gave deep offence, but it was followed by something worse, the ‘Canadian Letter.’ To afford aid and comfort to the popular party in Canada, Blanchard wrote an open letter, a sort of liberal manifesto, addressed to Leslie, the member for Montreal, which was published in the Canadian Spectator. It contained such sentences as this: ‘Lord Dalhousie, by stretching doubtful prerogatives to the utmost limits, and unnecessarily irritating the people, has made himself the public disturber.’ The ‘Canadian Letter’ was copied from the Spectator into the Halifax papers, and ‘the writer of it was denounced,’ says Patterson, ‘as a political libeller, not fit to crawl on free soil.’ Among those who attacked Blanchard most bitterly was Howe in the Novascotian. But the controversy helped to clear his mind as to the true principles of popular government. He became the most eloquent advocate of the liberal idea and he devoted his life to its establishment.

Few will contend that criticism of the existing system was needless. In 1820 an anonymous pamphlet appeared with the imprint of A. H. Holland, proprietor of the Recorder, ‘imputing blame to the magistrates in pecuniary matters,’ and charging the council with neglect of duty in not auditing their accounts as required by law. It caused great excitement. The author, William Wilkie, ‘though not a person of much esteem,’ was yet ‘a member of a respectable family in the community.’ He was indicted before the Supreme Court for libel, found guilty and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour in the house of correction. Dr T. B. Akins, whose services to the history of his native province are so important, and who was the very opposite of a radical, makes this comment on the case: ‘This was esteemed a most tyrannical and cruel proceeding on the part of the government. The pamphlet was a very paltry offence, such as at the present day would be passed over with contempt. Wilkie ... should have been spared the indignities thrown upon him by Chief Justice Blowers and other judges of the Supreme Court.’ His sentence, Akins adds, aroused general sympathy for him in the town. That this early martyr of free speech had no imitator for some time is scarcely matter for wonder.

The popular assembly was little more tolerant of criticism than the council, as the Barry riot proves. In 1829 John Barry, representing Shelburne, used language in the house that was resented by another member, Colonel Joseph Freeman. Barry was entirely in the wrong, and the house, always mindful of its dignity, dictated an apology, which the member for Shelburne refused to make. The house thereupon suspended him. His constituency petitioned that his seat should be declared vacant and that a writ should be issued for a new election. The committee of privileges considered the petition, but could find no instance of a member refusing to apologize when required by the house. A second petition from Shelburne was met by a second report of the committee, in which Barry’s conduct was characterized as ‘contumacious and improper.’ Barry’s retort was a violent letter in the Acadian Recorder, attacking individual members and accusing the committee of falsehood. For this outrage he was called before the bar of the house, and, on his admission of authorship, ordered to be committed to prison. On reaching the door of the Province Building, Barry refused to go to prison except by force, and he was set at liberty by an excited mob, which pelted with stones and snowballs members on their way to a Government House dinner. Some time afterwards Barry gave himself up, and was imprisoned until the end of the session. On his liberation he was conveyed home in triumph by the mob. Although expelled by the house, he was re-elected by his constituency and took his seat the following year without objection or turmoil. Here the episode ended as far as it concerned the member for Shelburne. The editors of the Recorder and the Free Press, however, who had printed Barry’s intemperate letters with comments of their own, were called before the house and reprimanded by the speaker. For this action Howe took the house to task in the Novascotian. ‘The Assembly,’ he wrote, ‘claims freedom of speech within its walls and those to whom the Press is entrusted claim it without; and if editors are brought for offences to the bar of the House, Legislators may depend on this—that they will be brought individually and collectively to a bitter expiation before the bar of the public.’ This scarcely veiled threat shows how conscious the press was already of its power, as its boldness shows the determination to use publicity as a means of reform.

Against the council the assembly had always maintained its right to control the public purse; but, as the council had the disposal of a large part of the revenue in its own hands, this cardinal principle of constitutional government was still far from being completely realized in Nova Scotia. The house had even to fight for this principle with a department of administration. The revision of the scale of duties in 1826, which grew out of the greater freedom of trade accorded to Halifax, resulted in a large revenue. The Board of Customs actually ignored the provincial government under which it was acting so far as to order the retention of nearly one half the aggregate duties for the payment of its own officials. All the house could do was to send a remonstrance to the home government, arguing most justly that it alone had authority to direct the collector of customs to pay over the duties to any one except the provincial treasurer. The outcome was a compromise; but an act was passed reaffirming the right of the assembly to dispose of the provincial revenue.

From this time on the story of Nova Scotia’s constitutional solution deepens in interest; the plot thickens and the action becomes more rapid and dramatic. It is the story of a long conflict between an irresponsible oligarchy and a popular assembly striving to free itself from the trammels of eighteenth-century paternalism. Another chapter was opened in the Brandy Dispute. The difference of fourpence in a duty may seem a small matter to fight over, but an important principle was involved.

When the tariff was revised in 1826 the duty on foreign brandy was fixed at one shilling and fourpence per gallon, but for four years only one shilling per gallon was collected. The lower rate was due to the interpretation of the law by the customs officials. So slight was the control exercised by the assembly over the Board of Customs that the difference was revealed almost by accident. When a committee appointed to examine the accounts discovered the error and the consequent loss of revenue, the house, to prevent all misconstruction in the future, passed a second act fixing the duty on foreign brandy at one shilling and fourpence, according to the intent of the act of 1826. The council objected to the alteration, refused its assent to the bill and requested a conference. Committees of both bodies held a joint meeting, at which the representatives of the council told the assemblymen that they considered several duties too high and proposed to lower them. The arrogant claim of the council to amend a money bill was not considered for a moment, and the conference came to an end. In the debate that followed the point at issue was clearly brought out. ‘Agricola’ Young said: ‘There was no principle of the constitution more clearly understood or more universally recognized than that all taxes must originate in, and be regulated, guarded and directed by the representatives of the people.’ The speaker, S. G. W. Archibald, held that ‘were the House to submit to encroachments on the rights and privileges of the people, it would become a shadow and a name.’ Neither side would recede; no compromise was possible, and a curious situation was created. The bill was rejected by the council at four o’clock one afternoon, and the next morning, there being no revenue bill in force, the councillors were astir ‘in a blinding snow storm,’ says Patterson, getting quantities of spirits out of the bonded warehouses, without payment of duty. The reason for the council’s opposition is clear. They belonged to the half of Halifax that sold rum; they were fighting for no constitutional principle, but for their own pockets. The appropriation bill was completed and sent up to the council, which refused to receive it, thus entailing a loss to the province of £25,000, for no revenue was collected that year. Immediately after the rejection of this bill the assembly was summoned before the council and dismissed by the president, Michael Wallace, who considered it his duty ‘to relieve you from further continuance in service, that you may return to your homes to attend to your own concerns’—a phrase tantamount to ‘mind your own business.’

The contest created great excitement, for public opinion was forming rapidly under the influence of a free press. The same year, 1830, the provincial parliament was dissolved by the death of George iv, and a new election was held before the echoes of the Brandy Dispute had died away. The council was strong in the city and the assembly strong in the country; both sides put forth every effort to win, but the new house was much of the same composition and temper as the old. S. G. W. Archibald was again elected speaker. Among the new members was Jotham Blanchard, who sat in the assembly for five years, introducing some important reforms and attempting others far in advance of his time, till the sickly body and overdriven brain gave way together. Public interest was on tiptoe, expecting a renewal of the obstinate struggle, and wondering what action the council would take; but the council was very tame. The house reimposed the much disputed fourpence on foreign brandy in unmistakable terms, and the council adopted the bill without demur. After this trial of strength between the two branches of the legislature there was a period of comparative peace. The house had won a victory, which the council took every means to make them regret. The old stately order still looked firm and unshaken, but its days were numbered.

From the time of the Brandy Dispute the movement towards reform is clearly discernible in the trend of events, though its progress was slow. In the same year, 1830, Howe began a campaign of education in the Novascotian. A series of articles entitled ‘Legislative Reviews’ discussed political principles, spread the new ideas broadcast and became more and more firm in tone. The house continued to struggle with the council, not always with success. Archibald, the speaker, who opposed the council, saw the prize of the chief-justiceship handed over to his rival, Brenton Halliburton, who was once an officer in the Duke of Kent’s regiment, the 7th Fusiliers. The council revived the long dormant claims of the quitrents. This was an ancient tax of a penny an acre due to the king on all grants of land from the time of Lawrence. The various administrations had been too eager to obtain and keep settlers on any terms, and too busy, to exact it. In seventy years the accumulated quitrents amounted to thousands of pounds. To enforce collection now would not affect the city or the council, but it would distress the country and the assembly. But the law had been a dead letter. Men had lived and died and passed on their farms to their children without being called on to pay a single penny. The threat of collecting the tax drove the house into a compromise by which £2000 a year was added to the civil list. Here the council triumphed. The efforts of the house at retrenching expenses were also defeated by the little oligarchy of twelve men. So were their efforts to fix a standard of value and establish a sound currency in the province. Five members of the council were partners in the Halifax Banking Company, and their policy towards their rival, the Bank of Nova Scotia, and towards the public led to commercial distress.

After the departure of Sir Peregrine Maitland in 1832 the province was administered by Jeffrey, the collector of customs, whose fat salary was the theme of many gibes in the Novascotian, until the appointment of Sir Colin Campbell as lieutenant-governor in 1834. This was not the Sir Colin of Crimea and Mutiny renown, who became field-marshal, but an almost equally magnificent soldier of an older day. His first active service was in India with Wellesley’s ‘fiery few’ at Assaye. He had risen in rank side by side with Wellington, who was his lifelong friend, and the Iron Duke evinced unwonted tenderness towards this old brother-in-arms. Few men had seen harder fighting or more of it in the East, in the Peninsula, and in the Waterloo campaign. He was now an old man, and if he did not sympathize with new ideas of civil government it is hardly to be wondered at. Personally he was well liked for his frank, generous, soldierly character; but he stood firmly for the old order.

The year of his arrival saw Halifax smitten with the prevailing plague of cholera. The air was thick with the smoke of burning tar-barrels to prevent infection. Dalhousie College was turned into a temporary hospital, and as many as eighteen corpses would be taken out in one morning. Not until the cool weather in September was the plague stayed.

Nova Scotia’s Greatest Statesman

The following year, 1835, marks the definite entrance of Howe into the public life of the province, and thenceforward, until his death in Government House in 1873, the history of Nova Scotia is his history. It is hardly exaggeration to claim for him the title of genius; only petty souls incapable of gauging greatness will deny the greatness of Howe. No one of Nova Scotia’s public men was ever so hated or so loved. No one was ever so devoutly, so blindly, followed. To have held his horse for him once, to have carried letters from the post office to him as he sat in his carriage, are cherished memories of his henchmen. No colonial statesman approached him in breadth of view, in eloquence and in the power of the pen. Beside his splendid gifts, his brilliant achievements, his glaring faults, Nova Scotia’s other politicians shrink to an indistinct array of mediocre, black-coated respectabilities. The man who had a natural son, who kissed every woman in Nova Scotia, who fought a deadly duel, stands out like a splash of scarlet on the drab background of Canadian politics. His dramatic entrance upon public life was characteristic of his whole career.

The Novascotian for January 1, 1835, contained a startling New Year’s gift for the respectable governing classes of the province. This was a letter addressed to the editor and signed ‘The People.’ It made vague assertions about ‘shameful and barefaced impositions and exactions,’ and ‘hard earnings of the people lavished on an aristocracy’; but the main objects of attack were the magistrates of Halifax. They were definitely accused of having ‘by one stratagem or other taken from the pockets of the people, in over-exactions, fines, etc. etc., a sum that would exceed in the gross amount £30,000. And,’ the unknown accuser continued, ‘I am prepared to prove my assertions whenever they are manly enough to come forward and justify their conduct to the people.’ Public excitement at the daring challenge was extreme, and the magistrates were furious. After a good deal of deliberation they decided to prosecute the editor of the Novascotian for libel. The writer of the letter was G. C. Thompson; but Howe, with the daunting example of Wilkie fair before him, accepted full responsibility for it. On seeking legal advice he was told that the letter was libellous, that he had no case and that his best course was submission. But Howe’s fighting blood was up; he borrowed works on libel and flung himself on a sofa to read them for a fortnight before the trial. His conclusion was that he had a case, if he were allowed to present it to the jury.

The trial took place in the court-room of the Province Building, now occupied by the Legislative library. Howe addressed the jury in a speech of six hours. Up to this time, while recognized as a fluent and forceful writer, even he himself was not aware of his power of the tongue. As he spoke he saw tears running down the cheeks of one listener, and the orator within him awoke. His appeal was irresistible. After ten minutes’ deliberation the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. His appearance in the street outside the Province Building was the signal for a popular ovation; the people’s champion was carried home on the shoulders of the mob, ‘amidst deafening acclamations. The people kept holiday that day and the next. Musical parties paraded the streets at night. All the sleds in town were turned out in procession, with banners.’ Every one felt that a victory had been won for free speech. From the window of his house Howe made a speech to the crowd, enjoining on them to keep the peace, to celebrate their triumph quietly at their own firesides, and to teach their children the names of the twelve men who had established the freedom of the press. Thus ended one of the most singular trials in the history of Canada. Reviewing it calmly at this distance of time, the unprejudiced critic is forced to conclude that the letter of ‘The People’ was distinctly libellous; that the magistrates could hardly have been as black as they were painted; that Howe’s audacious defence is weak in point of law; and that he owed his acquittal to his eloquence, his knowledge of the human heart and his magnetic personality. At the age of thirty-one he had found himself. Henceforward he was able to play on the feelings of a crowd. Nor was his trial of strength with the ruling classes in vain. What he was really fighting was the reign of Bumble; and Bumble was doomed.

Next year Howe and his faithful henchman, William Annand, were elected for Halifax County. He was now in a position to effect reform in the constitution by the use of recognized means. What he was contending for was clear in his own mind and clearly presented to the electorate in several speeches. ‘All we ask for,’ he said in his speech of December 5, 1836, ‘is what exists at home—a system of responsibility to the people extending through all the departments supported at the public expense.’ That is the democratic programme in a nutshell. The house met in January 1837, the year of the rebellion in Canada, and Howe lost no time in bringing in his projects of reform. These were embodied in the famous Twelve Resolutions. They are really ten, for the first and twelfth merely provide for putting the substance of the others into an address to the king praying for redress of grievances. The indictment of the oligarchy is heavy. The council, composed exclusively of residents in the capital, is ignorant of the province as a whole and neglectful of its interests. It has prevented the outports from obtaining the benefits of foreign trade; it has opposed a just and liberal system of education; it has upheld the judges of the Supreme Court in taking illegal and unnecessary fees. The Episcopal Church enjoys undue privilege. The Anglican bishop, representing but a small minority of the population, has a seat in the council, but the heads of other churches have not. The interest of several councillors in one mercantile concern has prevented the establishment of a sound currency. The casual and territorial revenues of the province are not in the control of the assembly. The presence of the chief justice in the council has made him virtually the head of one political party. Contrary to the practice of the House of Lords and of the legislative councils of Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, the council of Nova Scotia sits behind closed doors. The eleventh resolution shows clearly the contrast between the English system of government and that of Nova Scotia, in which ‘The people and their representatives are powerless.’

These resolutions provoked a keen debate in the house; they were defended by Howe in vigorous speeches; and with some alterations they passed. The council took exception to the wording of one, which they construed rightly as accusing them of acting from corrupt motives, and they sent a message to the house containing a thinly veiled threat of repeating the obstructive tactics of 1830 and leaving the province without revenue. A crisis was imminent; but Howe met it like an old parliamentary hand with great astuteness. He refused to retract a single statement; but instead he moved that all twelve resolutions should be rescinded. This he could well afford to do. His formal protest against the anomalies of the constitution had been made; the council had shown their colours; and the issue had been placed fairly before the country. When the session was near its end, and when the revenue bills had been passed, Howe moved an address to the crown embodying the substance of the Twelve Resolutions; the council, outgeneralled, prepared a counter-address, and both were forwarded to the colonial secretary.

A measure of redress was granted at once. Lord Glenelg listened to the petition of the assembly. The ancient constitution of Nova Scotia was modified by the creation of a legislative council of nineteen members, which was to sit with open doors, and of an executive council of twelve having imperfect control of affairs. Progress in reform had been made, but that progress was partially blocked by the way these councils were manned. The names were changed, but the old influences were still at work. Churchmen were still in control; for only those in favour of the old régime were appointed to the new legislative bodies. None the less, the situation was improved and reform had been brought in by strictly constitutional methods. Thenceforth the path to complete remodelling was open, even if stumbling-blocks abounded. Not until 1848 was the goal attained.

In 1838 Howe was able to realize what he calls ‘the dream of his youth.’ He spent six months in foreign travel, seeing much of England, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium, France and the region of the Rhine. On his way across with T. C. Haliburton in the Tyrian, one of the old ten-gun brigs which used to carry the monthly mail, an incident occurred that had a profound influence on the development of ocean travel. As the Tyrian lay becalmed within a few hundred miles of the English coast, she was overtaken by the steamer Sirius, returning from her maiden trip to America. As the latter ranged alongside, the captain of the Tyrian decided to transfer the mails to her, and soon the Sirius steamed away with them, leaving the sailing-vessel a log on the sea. Howe saw the possibilities of steam at once. He and Haliburton looked into the matter, consulted with other colonists, and made representations to the British government, with the result that it offered subsidies for the conveyance of mails by steamer. The contract was taken up by Samuel Cunard.

Samuel Cunard

He was the son of Abraham Cunard, or Cuenod, as it is spelt in an advertisement of 1769, who came to Halifax from Philadelphia in the days of the Philadelphia Company. The name has a Swiss look. Samuel was born in Halifax in 1787, and was thriftily brought up. Old Haligonians remembered him as a boy diligently knitting as he drove the family cow to pasture and back again. As a merchant of decided enterprise he had both successes and reverses, and by 1826 he was of sufficient importance to be included in the Halifax Banking Company and the Shubenacadie Canal Company. He went to England in 1838 and gave Robert Napier of Glasgow an order for four wooden paddle-wheel steamers of 1200 tons burden, and succeeded in interesting two important shipping firms in the enterprise. The contract for the conveyance of mails was signed on May 4, 1839; the subsidy was £60,000 per annum; and the vessels were to be built and fitted to carry troops when needed. The first Cunarder, the Britannia, left Liverpool on July 4, 1840, and reached Boston via Halifax fourteen days later. At Boston Cunard was banqueted and given a service of plate. The record of the first and most famous of all the Atlantic steamship lines is known to the world. Its reputation for safety, extending over seventy years, has passed into a proverb. For the service of the fleet during the Crimean War, Cunard received a baronetcy from Palmerston. The little Britannia of 1840 has been replaced by marine monsters like the Mauretania; but the honour of being the first to bridge the Atlantic with a line of steamers belongs to a merchant of Halifax.

The Founding of Acadia College

The year 1838 is also noteworthy for the foundation of a third college in Nova Scotia. Thanks to the fiery zeal of Henry Alline, the ‘New Light’ preacher in the ninth decade of the eighteenth century, the Baptist denomination had grown strong in those districts settled from New England. A notable schism in St Paul’s strengthened the Baptists in the city. The appointment of a rector to St Paul’s against the wishes of the congregation led to the hiving off of a new church and, ultimately, to a number of influential Anglican families becoming Baptists. Perhaps the most prominent seceder was J. W. Johnston. Of mixed Scottish and Hebrew blood, he was born in the West Indies, came with his family to Halifax and became the leading lawyer of the place. He was a man of unusual ability and of fervent piety. Aristocratic in all his instincts, he became the natural opponent of the radical Howe; their long wars made history; and their names are interwoven in the memory of Nova Scotia. This year saw the empty building on the Parade actually functioning as Dalhousie, with gowned students and a staff of three professors. The grant to Pictou Academy was transferred to Dalhousie and with it Principal M^cCulloch, in spite of the fierce opposition of the ‘Kirk’ interest. In filling the other positions a wrong was done, which had dire consequences. One of the applicants for the chair of classics was the Rev. E. A. Crawley, the son of a naval officer. He was one of those who left St Paul’s at the time of disruption and became Baptists. Apparently he was encouraged to apply for the position, and was all but appointed, when the ‘Kirk’ faction which had opposed M^cCulloch, fearing that Dalhousie would fall entirely into the hands of ‘dissenters,’ succeeded in defeating him.^[1] The college that was founded as a protest against sectarianism was untrue to its origin. The Baptists, led by Crawley, obtained a charter for Queen’s College, later called by the old name of the province, Acadia; and Crawley became its first president. Acadia College is identified with the Baptist denomination of the Maritime Provinces. To support it is a religious duty, which has been well fulfilled. Its educational ideals and methods are largely American, and its affiliations are with the United States. The institution has grown in wealth and numbers and has grouped about it large schools for boys and girls. Its setting is Wolfville, a singularly pretty college town in the pleasant orchard country near Grand Pré, made classic ground by the pathos of Evangeline. Across the border the Methodists founded a college at Sackville. Some time after, the Catholics, in accordance with their unvarying policy, founded a college of their own at Antigonish, and named it after the famous Jesuit missionary to the East, St Francis Xavier. Such is in outline the varied history of university education in Nova Scotia; and it will serve to indicate the difficulties in the way of establishing one strong central provincial university, which was the dream of Howe.

The ‘Aroostook War’

In the following year the ‘Aroostook War’ led to a characteristic outburst of feeling in the province. This ‘war’ was an episode in the long series of boundary disputes with the United States. Lumbermen of New Brunswick had been cutting timber on disputed territory between that province and the State of Maine. The governor of the state called for 10,000 militia to defend their rights, and armed forces were hurried by both sides to the storm-centre. When the news came to Halifax that the flag was menaced, party strife was forgotten. Howe and the reformers rallied to the aid of the council. The assembly voted £100,000 and pledged the whole strength of the provincial militia in support of the sister colony’s rights. The storm soon cleared. Through the wisdom of the opposing generals, Sir John Harvey and Winfield Scott, veterans who had already faced each other at Stoney Creek and Lundy’s Lane, the clash of arms was averted, but the incident showed that the old spirit of Nova Scotia was not dead.

Howe’s Battle with the Lieutenant-Governors

The open rebellion of Papineau and Mackenzie in the Canadas made the position of the reform party in Nova Scotia peculiarly difficult, but the Durham Report, and the application, in the disturbed provinces, of the political principles for which Howe and his followers were contending, strengthened their hands. Still, much remained to be done. The executive council had not yet become a cabinet, chosen from the majority of the house, and automatically going out of office when defeated. Howe tried to force the council to resign by passing a vote of want of confidence in it. But the lieutenant-governor, Sir Colin Campbell, still secure in the old autocratic tradition of his office, calmly returned answer that he was quite satisfied with his council. The assembly’s riposte was an address to the crown praying for his recall. Even the respected head of the government could not be permitted to thwart the will of the people. Here was a vast change from the days when Dalhousie could dictate measures to the house and Wentworth could reject their chosen speaker. In the end the people triumphed and Sir Colin was recalled. Personally he was popular in Halifax. At his departure the crowd took the horses from his carriage and dragged it to the wharf amid great enthusiasm.

He was succeeded by Lucius Bentinck Cary, tenth Viscount Falkland, descended from the famous cavalier who fell ‘ingeminating Peace’ at Newbury. His father, a captain in the royal navy and a friend of Byron, was killed in a duel, leaving his wife and young family penniless. His son grew up with a handsome face and figure; but was reduced, says the story, to teaching calisthenics in a fashionable London boarding-school. There he fascinated one of his pupils, Amelia FitzClarence, the natural daughter of William IV and Mrs Jordan, and married her. Court influence made him Lord of the Bedchamber and opened the way to other promotions. As a liberal peer he was supposed to be a specially fit and proper person to rule a colony where liberal ideas were making way. He seems to have been a sort of Lord Dundreary, the type of aristocrat who would upon request favour a commoner with a light from his own cigar and then fling it away as contaminated by the plebeian touch. He also attempted a coalition government, but, like the previous one, it proved a failure.

Howe’s brusqueness of manner gave offence to the young lord, and his fatal egotism made him an impossible colleague. He must be first; he could bear no brother near the throne. In 1843 he went back to journalism, taking the editorship of the Morning Chronicle, which had been purchased by the faithful Annand. It was congenial work; his delight at finding himself once more in the editorial chair was great and unfeigned. Besides his inability to pull with his colleagues, Howe had another good reason for going back to journalism. Politics made him a poor man. In 1836 his popular paper the Novascotian netted him £1500. If he had stuck to journalism, says Grant, he might have been as rich as Horace Greeley; but his generosity, his hospitality, besides the politician’s inevitable expenses, ran him into debt, undermined his independence and hampered him to the day of his death. In 1842 he had been appointed collector of customs at Halifax, the very post once held by the much ridiculed Jeffrey; now he was an editor once more, with a salary. To the task of writing he gave himself up with his pristine vigour, and he used all his powers in pouring ridicule, often Rabelaisian in its wit, upon his foe, Lord Falkland. One set of ribald verses began ‘The Lord of the Bedchamber sat in his shirt,’ in revenge for the insult of the stinging term ‘mendicant.’ The constitutional struggle gives place to a personal quarrel between the ‘radical’ leader and the aristocratic lieutenant-governor.

It was a troublous time. For coming out as the champion of the people’s cause Howe had to pay a price. Government House influence was very strong, and social ostracism to a man of Howe’s social instincts hit him hard. Society made the ‘radical’ feel the weight of its scorn. He, the true patriot, was denounced as a ‘rebel,’ a ‘Papineau.’ Because he advocated a non-sectarian university for the whole province he was stigmatized as an ‘infidel.’ Slander and calumny were busy with his name, and aversion passed into open violence. One young tory hothead mounted on horseback rode to his printing-office, and began smashing the windows with his drawn sword and shouting for Howe to appear. Howe rushed out in his shirt-sleeves and in a trice had the young man disarmed and on his back on the pavement. For the people’s champion was of athletic build, quick as well as strong, a capital racquet player and a powerful swimmer. He was full of hot-blooded courage, as this incident proves; but he had also to prove it in the field according to the prevalent code of honour. William Bruce Almon, one of his political opponents, sent him a challenge, which, for good reasons, he declined, and the tories sneered at the ‘radical’ showing the white feather. John C. Halliburton, son of the chief justice, likewise sent him a ‘message,’ which Howe decided to accept. He would show the mettle he was made of, once. The ‘meeting’ took place in the early morning of March 14, 1840, near the old Martello tower at Point Pleasant. In those days a duel was not necessarily a joke. In 1819 Richard John Uniacke the younger had shot and killed James Bowie at the governor’s farm; and this ‘meeting’ might have had as serious a termination. The principals were stationed only twelve paces apart, and, instead of firing together at a count, agreed to fire alternately. Halliburton won the toss, fired, and—fortunately for the country—missed. Howe was a dead shot, but he desired no man’s blood on his hands; he spared his adversary and fired in the air. As usual in the days of the code, he had left letters for his family in case he fell; and it was a very serious breakfast to which he and his second, Herbert Huntington, returned. Having faced a loaded pistol in his enemy’s hand, he showed still greater courage by declining further ‘meetings.’ To Sir Rupert D. George he replied by a sarcasm. He had ‘no great fancy to be shot at by every public officer, whose intellect’ he ‘might happen to contrast with his emoluments.’ The episode was characteristic. Again and again, in the Gourley shanty riots, in his wild recruiting adventure to the United States, he proved his native intrepidity. Howe had many faults, but, whatever else he was, he was no coward.

To follow in detail the movements of the Ins and the Outs, the shifting, changing combinations of men and parties through Lord Falkland’s administration, would be tedious. Great advantages had been won and the campaign of reform went steadily on. The main obstacle now seems to have been in the character of this rather vapid liberal peer. In the end he was recalled like his predecessor, at the instance of Howe and the popular party, and was transferred to India. His term of office marks the end of the old autocratic condition. It also marks the completion of the reform movement. Thanks to an act of Johnston’s, the elections of 1847 took place in a single day, instead of being spread over several days with the usual attendants of disorder and riot. When the house met in the following year, notable as the year of revolutions all over Europe, Johnston found himself in a minority and resigned. A liberal ministry was formed with J. B. Uniacke as premier and Howe as provincial secretary, to replace Sir Rupert George, who retired with a pension. Sir Rupert was the last of a line of secretaries appointed by the imperial government since the beginning of the eighteenth century. For ninety years, from the first assembly of 1758 to 1848, the long war for the rights of the people had never ceased. It is the glory of Howe that he led his forces to a complete and bloodless victory. Reform of the constitution in Nova Scotia has left no such searing memories as the drum-head courts-martial of Toronto or the slaughter of St Eustache. To the clear-eyed wisdom and the impetuous courage of Howe the credit is mainly due, though some must be given to the temper of a people long taught to abide by law and bred in constitutional methods. Howe’s greatest service to his country is winning for it responsible government. No later declination can tarnish the fame of that achievement. Political reform has not entirely fulfilled the predictions of its prophets. It has brought gain, and it has brought loss; but the old system of paternalism had become outworn and was no longer possible.

An Era of Railways

During the years that the liberals remained in power the most important question before the country was that of railway communication; for the age of steam transportation had dawned. As early as 1835, five years after the first railway was opened, Howe had perceived its value and possibilities and had advocated building a line from Halifax to Windsor. In all his railway projects he kept two objects in view—immigration and the organization of the empire. He saw clearly how the iron rails would bind the scattered colonies together and how easily settlers could be carried into the country and distributed at advantageous points. He had many difficulties to overcome. Nova Scotia was still too poor for his gigantic plans, and they had to encounter the consistent opposition of his rival Johnston. His own colleagues were not always with him. Different schemes of railway development—up the St Lawrence, along the St John valley, from Portland to St John and Moncton—distracted the public mind with their conflicting claims and advantages. The opposition of the British government to the St Lawrence scheme had to be overcome. Money had to be found in huge sums. Time and again the difficulties seemed insuperable, but the genius and strong will of Howe won through. In 1854 he resigned the office of provincial secretary to become commissioner-in-chief of the Railway Board. The first railway in Nova Scotia connected the Albion mines with the loading ground below New Glasgow and was finished in 1839; but not until 1854 was Halifax connected with Windsor and Truro. With this beginning, the line was pushed out to other important points, Pictou and the frontier of New Brunswick, and ultimately in the opposite direction as far as Yarmouth. One inestimable benefit of all the discussion and planning of large schemes was the adoption of a standard gauge, avoiding the error of Australia, where every colony had a separate gauge. Howe’s railway policy has been amply justified by time.

The Modern System of Education Founded

Provincial education was advanced during the liberal régime by the creation of the office of superintendent, to be permanent head and director of the whole system. The first to fill this important position was John William Dawson in 1850. After two years he resigned to become president of M^cGill University. In 1855 a normal school for the training of teachers was established at Truro; the principal was also superintendent of education. A Scottish ‘Free Kirk’ minister, the Rev. Alexander Forrester, became superintendent in 1855. He is given the credit for having supplied the details of the School Act of 1864 carried through by Dr Tupper. He laid the foundations of the present educational system of Nova Scotia with its council of public instruction, inspectors of counties and division into school districts.

Howe’s Great Rival

Howe met his first defeat in 1855. His successful opponent was young Dr Tupper, of Amherst. Charles Tupper, named after his father and grandfather, belonged to the New England stock planted in Cumberland by Lawrence, and his ancestors had settled in Massachusetts as early as 1635. His father was a Baptist minister who is credited with a reading knowledge of thirteen languages; his mother also was of pure New England descent. Charles Tupper the third was one of the first Nova Scotians to study medicine in the old country, receiving his doctor’s degree at Edinburgh in 1843. Howe first encountered the ‘little doctor’ at a public meeting in 1852. Three years later Tupper and Macfarlane carried Cumberland against him and his colleague Fulton. Soon after, the seat of Hants fell vacant, and Howe was elected by acclamation. The Cumberland election brought a fresh and striking personality on the stage of provincial politics. The ‘little doctor’ from Cumberland was destined to bring about the most sweeping of all changes in the constitution of the province.

Nova Scotia and the Crimean War

The Crimean War had its reflex action upon Nova Scotia. It led Howe into one of the most dangerous adventures of his varied life. In March 1855 he went to the United States on the wild project of enlisting recruits to supply the terrible wastage of life before Sebastopol. The history of those stirring six months remains to be written. The fall of the great Russian fortress was celebrated nowhere with wilder demonstrations of joy than in Halifax. Old St Paul’s burying-ground contains a dignified cenotaph to two sons of Halifax, Captain W. B. C. A. Parker of the 77th and Major A. F. Welsford of the 97th, one of whom fell at Alma and the other in the blundering assault on the Redan. Close beside the red stone monument that bears their names is laid the dust of old Stephens, boatswain of the Shannon, whose left arm was hacked off as he lashed the ships together. The strength of the colony’s feeling for the motherland had not lessened since the close of the Great War.

Howe and Tupper

The rapid changes of the following years are somewhat bewildering. In the Mutiny year, 1857, the liberal government was turned out of office after a decade of power. Their defeat is directly due to some rash words of Howe, which alienated the Catholic vote. Three years later the liberals were again in power, with Howe as the leader of a small majority, which dwindled until, upon an appeal to the country, the conservatives were returned once more. In 1864 Johnston was made a judge and the leadership of the party fell to his able lieutenant, Tupper. His brief administration of three years is marked by two great measures which must affect the province as long as it has a place on the map. The first was the School Act and the second was the forcing of Nova Scotia into Confederation.

‘The little doctor,’ as Howe called him, has played a conspicuous part in the affairs of the Dominion. It is perhaps too soon to form an impartial estimate of his character and to strike a balance between the eulogies of his friends and the blame of his foes. When he first came out against Howe, he was in many ways a contrast to the rival he triumphed over. Slight and neat in figure, rapid in gait, crisp in speech, with a clear resonant voice, Dr Tupper impressed his contemporaries as a man of business who valued his time, with no nonsense about him. The low broad forehead, heavy brows, square jaw which clenched the lips together as in a vice, all bespoke an embodied will of rare intensity and driving force. It is the face of a fighting man, incapable of surrender. His career has been successful, but not to the limit of his ambition. One searches his record for a single genial anecdote, a single kindling utterance. It is possible to admire the strength of Sir Charles Tupper’s character, his tenacity of one unswerving purpose; to feel affection for him is more difficult.

Tupper showed his mettle first in the matter of the School Act. The situation made some radical measure imperative, for the education of the province was in a bad way. The natural corollary of government of the people, for the people and by the people is the education of the people. If Demos is to be king, Demos must be able at least to read, write and cipher. To allow the ruling class to grow up in ignorance is a manifest absurdity. Nova Scotia had remade her constitution. The majority ruled, the cabinet was responsible, even the head of the government must bow to the people’s will. Johnston, the conservative, had brought in manhood suffrage. University education was served by four colleges; secondary schools had been created in various centres; but primary education, the broad foundation of the whole educational pile, was in a sorry state. The root of the evil was the voluntary assessment for school purposes. If a district desired schools, it was free to raise money for them; if a district did not desire schools, it was free to do without them. The state could not compel any citizen to educate his children. The census of 1861 revealed a shocking state of affairs. Thousands of young Nova Scotians were growing up in complete illiteracy. One country minister reported that there had not been a school in his district for fifty years.

As early as 1841 Howe had moved to amend the School Act by making assessment compulsory. His amendment was defeated by a large majority. In 1851, on the recommendation of Dawson, the liberal government passed an act permitting local taxation for the purpose of building and supporting schools. Again, in 1856, William Young brought this vital matter before the house; his bill passed with the approval of both parties; but, for some unexplained reason, it was afterwards withdrawn and did not become law. Evidently both parties feared to risk their political lives by bringing in the unwelcome novelty of direct taxation. Tupper resolutely took the bull by the horns. His School Act of 1864 outlined a well-considered scheme of organization, practically the same as at present in force, and it embodied the compulsory assessment clause. The liberals gave the bill some support as well as criticism. When it became law, the country rose in a storm of complaint and objection. Farmers discovered that after educating their own children they had to pay for the education of other people’s children; they were outraged at the injustice. The province held to the good old tory view of education. It was a luxury, and those who wanted it should pay for it. Schoolhouses were burned and lawsuits instituted in protest against the obnoxious act. Tupper never relaxed or wavered, though the act was extremely unpopular. The results of his courage and firmness are simply impossible to measure. Of course such a law was inevitable sooner or later; no democratic state could stultify itself and imperil its very existence by allowing its citizens to be illiterates; but Tupper was the man who saw the need and acted. For that he deserves nothing but praise.

Nova Scotia and Confederation

Judge Sewell is usually credited with originating the idea of uniting the British colonies in North America under one government; but the idea might very well suggest itself to any one who reflected on the benefits of union to the Thirteen Colonies. ‘Maritime union’ to Nova Scotians, who remembered the history of their province, would seem the most natural thing in the world. It was merely undoing the work of 1784, when old Acadia was split in three. The failure of Cape Breton as a separate province and its return to the parent state would be a strong argument for continuing the work of reunion. In 1830, the very year in which the first train ran over the Liverpool-Manchester road, the Halifax Monthly Magazine discussed uniting the provinces by means of a railway. Howe was the first imperialist, with large plans for the organization of the empire, which naturally included the union of the British colonies in North America. Long before the rest, Howe had his magnificent vision of iron highways spanning the great lone land and penetrating the Rocky Mountains to the coast, and of steamships laden with Nova Scotian products on the waves of the Pacific. Lord Durham’s Report specifically recommended union between two jarring colonies as the remedy for their troubles; and this would suggest a wider union. In his own province Howe was regarded as the natural, acknowledged exponent of the great idea. When the time was ripe for the idea to be translated into action, Howe was not, where every one expected him to be, in the lead, moulding the idea into practical shape. The irony of life and his own weakness combined to rob him of the lawful crown of a long, arduous and patriotic career.

The story of Confederation has been often told; but the reasons for the minor movement, the union of the Maritime Provinces, are not so well understood. It seems to have originated in expediency, not in necessity. The Atlantic provinces which sent delegates to the Charlottetown conference were not driven to take that important step by any economic crisis or political distress, such as impelled the Canadas to look to union as a way out of their difficulties. The economy of one government replacing three and the removal of tariff barriers hindering inter-provincial trade seem to have been the chief arguments for Maritime union. Nova Scotia certainly did not come to the conference as a pauper state. In justifying his railway policy in 1867 Howe said: ‘The roads have been built, and not only were we never compelled to resort to direct taxation, but so great has been the prosperity resulting from these public works, that, with the lowest tariff in the world, we have trebled our revenue in ten years, and with one hundred and fifty miles of railroad completed and nearly as much more under contract, we have had an overflowing treasury, and money enough to meet all our obligations.’ This statement was never challenged.

In 1864, when through the energy of Tupper the question of union took practical shape, Howe was not in power; he was not even a member of the assembly. He was Fishery commissioner, under the imperial government, going here and there in the queen’s ships to keep American fishermen from poaching. Tupper had been considering the matter for several years. In 1860 he had lectured on union at St John, and the reporter of the lecture had naturally mentioned the name of Howe as identified with it. Howe should have had a place in that Charlottetown conference. Tupper evidently felt this, and invited Howe to become a delegate. He has been praised for doing so; but his note of invitation is stiff, cold, formal and written in the name of the lieutenant-governor. Howe declined courteously, offering as excuse his duties as Fishery commissioner, and promising to help in ‘carrying out any measure upon which the conference shall agree.’ Perhaps it is expecting too much of human nature to wish that Tupper had shown generosity and tact and that Howe could have crushed down his jealousy of the young rival who had fallen heir to his policy. In after-life Tupper could win men over to his side. If he had urged Howe, then, to accept the position, the lives of both men might have been different. When the Quebec delegates ‘came knocking at the door,’ Howe must have dominated them all in virtue of his eloquence, his breadth of view, his deep insight; and he would have escaped obloquy, inconsistency and a ‘wounded name.’ Tupper would have entered on Dominion politics, whither his ambition and his abilities called him, and been gratefully remembered in his native province for his services to education. But it was not to be. Each man went his own way, and fulfilled his own destiny.

The delegates all came back from the harmonious and successful conference at Charlottetown, and were feasted at Halifax, St John and the other provincial capitals. The ‘Quebec scheme’ seemed to be fairly launched with every prospect of success. Then a tiny flame of opposition was kindled at Halifax, which was soon diligently fanned by a series of articles in the Morning Chronicle entitled ‘The Botheration Scheme.’ Every one recognized the hand of Howe. What were his motives? Why, after a lifetime of consistent advocacy of an idea, did he turn against it?

Those who think he acted from sheer jealousy are welcome to their theory. He may very well have said and thought that he ‘wouldn’t play second fiddle to that d——d Tupper.’ But the explanation is too simple. Like the rest of mankind, Howe acted from mixed motives, some creditable and some not. Jealousy had its part. Principal Grant, the most sympathetic judge of Howe and his most eloquent panegyrist, cannot acquit him of this ignoble fault. But there were other factors in the case. Howe loved his native province passionately. To the politicians of Upper Canada, absorbed in their own problems, Nova Scotia seemed remote, petty, insignificant. To Howe it was literally the most beautiful, interesting, desirable portion of the earth’s surface. He came back from his visit of 1862 ‘angry and annoyed.’ He foresaw financial difficulties, and thought it doubtful if the smaller members of the union would get fair play. Then there was a real opposition from the business interests of Halifax, which feared justly the effects of a protective tariff. Then Howe had the orator’s temperament—the ability to convince himself by the repetition and intensity of his own emotions. He had sound objections to the ‘Quebec scheme’ on constitutional grounds: such a revolutionary measure should be decided by the people. He had sound objections to it on financial grounds: both the subsidy and the assumption of provincial debt were inadequate, as his contest for ‘better terms’ amply proved. Howe told the Nova Scotians that they were ‘sold for three-and-sixpence a head, the price of a sheepskin.’ The ‘Quebec scheme’ was torn to rags. While the storm was rising outside in the country, the question was debated long in the house. Miller, the leader of the opposition, was a genuine convert to the scheme. Tupper had a clear majority; and he, too, was a fighting man of unyielding determination. At midnight, April 10, 1865, this momentous resolution was put and passed: ‘Resolved,—That the Lieutenant-Governor be authorized to appoint delegates to arrange with the Imperial Government a scheme of union which will effectively assure just provisions for the rights and interests of the Province, each Province to have an equal voice in such delegation, Upper and Lower Canada being considered for this purpose as separate Provinces.’ Thirty-one members voted for it; eighteen against. The vote changed the destiny of Nova Scotia.

The anti-Confederates fought on. New Brunswick strengthened their hands by voting down the measure, though within fifteen months that province turned about and voted for the measure. In 1866 Howe left Halifax with an anti-Confederate delegation to protest against the passing of the British North America Act. All his efforts were nullified by his own past. By simply assembling in a pamphlet passages from Howe’s public deliverances, Tupper was able to confute him out of his own lips. The delegates of the four provinces sat in the historic room of the Westminster Palace Hotel and worked out details; and on March 29, 1867, the constitution of the new nation, Canada, was fixed by British law. On July 1 that law came into force by proclamation. It was a day of rejoicing; but one province entered Confederation with a sense of being wronged.

I
EARLY HISTORY

It is the custom of historians to begin their task with a lament over the limitations in space which are imposed upon them. I shall accept those restrictions cheerfully, not because Prince Edward Island, of which I am about to write, is the least in area of all the Canadian provinces, but because the work has already been done so often and so well. No province has more exact or complete historical records; and most of these have been dealt with faithfully in books, monographs and magazines, and in the proceedings of various societies. Upon certain questions, like that of the relation between landlord and tenant, which perplexed the people for a hundred years, nothing now remains to be said. These will be passed over lightly, and attention will be given to others which are yet obscure, so that by a process of collaboration a complete epitome may be presented. If, then, it will appear that certain features are elevated into unusual prominence, it is because records are now available which were denied to earlier writers.

The history of Prince Edward Island falls into two periods according as it deals with the French occupation or with the events since that time. For a dividing line I shall select the year 1765, which is the date of Captain Holland’s survey. I shall select one other date, namely 1752, the year in which the French régime reached its climax, as one might choose the year 1873, when the island joined the confederation of the Canadian colonies, as the time at which it flourished most under English rule.

In 1752 a complete description was recorded of the condition of Prince Edward Island, or Isle St Jean, as it was then called, by the Sieur de la Roque. This journal and census of the Sieur de la Roque is a most satisfactory historical document.^[1] Writing from Louisbourg, December 5, 1752, to the minister in Paris as to the competency of this census-taker, Comte de Raymond says: ‘He is a very good man, full of zeal and talent; he has done wonderful things for me’; and this opinion the present writer desires to confirm. The count, however, had given to this talented land-surveyor most specific instructions. He was to make ‘a general census of the settlers on the Island, name by name, men as well as women and children, their respective ages and profession, the number of acres each has of improved land, the number of their cattle, their species, distinguishing the good workmen from those who are not, and the character of each individual ... and lastly a general survey of everything.’

If this conscientious enumerator had only taken the trouble to add up his numbers and present them in tabulated form, the obligation of the modern historian would be even greater. The instructions were received; and, accordingly, ‘we Joseph de la Roque left the town of Louisbourg, the capital of Ile Royale, at one o’clock in the afternoon, in rainy weather, and at four o’clock in the evening of the same day arrived at the dwelling of St Pierre Boisseau, situated on the road to Mire, two leagues from Louisbourg.... Between six and seven o’clock on the following morning, in bright sunshine we set out from the said dwelling for Gabarus’; and in due time, the census of Ile Royale or Cape Breton having been taken, he arrived in Prince Edward Island.

De la Roque sailed by way of Point Prime and entered the Anse of Port la Joye, now known as Hillsborough Bay. He left Ile du Gouverneur to the starboard and noted that it lay low and was wooded with all kinds of timber. Avoiding the shoals he passed close to the Ile de Comte St Pierre, and remarked that it also was wooded with pine, white spruce, fir and hemlock. Both of these lovely islands have long since been denuded of their trees.

He entered the port, or Charlottetown Harbour, between Pointe à la Framboise, on the east, and La Flamme, now Rocky Point, on the west, and estimated that these places lay five hundred toises,^[2] or about a thousand yards, apart, with the channel midway between them. With the experienced eye of the surveyor he saw that the harbour was formed by the junction of three rivers to which the names West, North and North-East might appropriately be given. The town itself lay not upon the point of land between the North-East and North Rivers, where it now lies, but between the West River and the sea; and there he began his work.

Without much labour he enumerated the population of Port la Joye, and found that it contained nine families with a total of thirty-eight persons. He proceeded methodically up the various rivers and the creeks that fall into them. Then, beginning as far west as Anse au Comte de St Pierre, he made a circuit eastwards around Hillsborough and Orwell Bays, visiting in turn Anse au Matelot, Grande Anse, Grande Ascension, Pointe au Boulleau, Anse de la Boullotière, Pointe Prime, and Pointe Pinnet which lies immediately beyond. There were then no names to record until he reached Havre la Fortune and Pointe de l’Est. Upon the north side he proceeded from St Pierre to Tracadie, to Etang des Berges, and on to Macpec. Apparently there were no settlements to the westward, so he crossed the island to the south side and enumerated in turn the population of Bedec, La Traverse, Rivière des Blonds, des Crapauds, Anse du Nord-Ouest and Anse au Sanglier.

The records show that there were 2014 settlers on the island and that at the moment they formed a poor but contented community. Only one person appears to have owned more than one horse, and very few had any, but all who had any animals possessed the ubiquitous pig. Cows were scarce, but oxen were a common possession. The families were large, and few adults were unmarried. None were rich, many were poor, and some are described as very poor.

The settlements must have been of recent origin, as apparently none of the adults had been born on the island. Nearly all are described as being natives of Acadia. Port la Joye, however, appears to have been more cosmopolitan, for three persons had come from Switzerland, and one from Picardy, and the last was married to a woman of Ireland. There were several others from France and a few from ‘the bishopric of Quebec.’ No priest’s name appears on the record, although mention is made of an island in Macpec Harbour ‘which had been granted to the late Monsieur Courtin, priest and missionary to the Indians, from which fact it bears the name of Isle à Monsieur Courtin.’ It may be added that it still bears that name, as those who are familiar with the finer breed of Malpeque oysters will remember.

Much of the land was held by a verbal tenure, chiefly from M. de Bonaventure, the king’s commandant, yet deeds were not uncommon. The clearings were not large, although it is recorded that Joseph le Prieur, who lived at Havre la Fortune, ‘could have sown twenty-eight bushels of seed if he had it.’ As it was he sowed only seventeen, including wheat, rye, barley, pease and oats. This thrifty settler is credited with the possession of six oxen, six cows, two heifers, four calves, five ewes, five pigs and twenty fowls, as well as one schooner of twenty-six tons burden and another of fifteen tons.

There was great lack of seed, although clearings existed ‘where they could sow twenty bushels of grain if it were given to them.’ The settlers were incredibly poor, and the fishermen were rendered poorer still by importing their supplies at fictitious prices. Sieur de la Roque saw where the difficulty lay. ‘When one considers seriously,’ he says, ‘all that might be accomplished to make this trade solid and durable, it becomes apparent that the cultivation of the land and the raising of livestock of all descriptions must be regarded as the pivot on which the whole ought to turn.’ This comment was made in justification of an order, of doubtful wisdom, that the inhabitants of some of the settlements should not engage in fishing.

Through all the early history there runs an account of some great fire; and to this day there are areas from which the soil appears to have been burned away. Sieur de la Roque found traces of it. East Point had been ‘reduced to a wilderness,’ and for twenty miles the land was ‘a desert.’ The date of the conflagration may be fixed in 1738, since one Magdelaine Poitevin claimed at the time of de la Roque’s visit that she held her land under a deed that was ‘burned at the time of the fire fourteen years ago.’ In general, however, he was amazed at the excellence of the timber, especially about Malpeque, where he found ‘all kinds of hardwoods, such as maples, black birch and oak, fit for use in the construction of schooners.’ Again, he reports that not far from ‘the harbour of Bedec is a great grove in which there are cedars of four feet in diameter and two toises and a half in circumference.’ He was struck, too, by the fertility of the soil and the excellence of its fruits. Savage Harbour receives the credit of yielding the best wheat. A later traveller gives similar testimony: ‘Nothing could be more beautiful than the ears which were larger, longer and better filled’ than any he had seen in Europe; and Potier du Boisson, in writing to the minister from Louisbourg, describes the grain as ‘estant parfaittement beaux.’^[3]

It must be remembered, however, that the settlers about Malpeque especially were suffering ‘from three years of anguish.’ Their crops were destroyed in successive seasons by field-mice, locusts and ‘scald.’ Suspicion of complicity in these disasters fell upon one St Germain dit Périgord; and the Indians put him to death ‘and buried him on the Ile de Comte St Pierre, which lies to the larboard as you enter Port la Joye.’

About the same time a second traveller surveyed the scene.^[4] This was Thomas Pichon, a man of many assumed names, at one time secretary to Comte de Raymond, governor of Louisbourg, and for years a spy in the pay of his country’s enemies. In 1760 he published in London a book which bore no signature, and in it is contained an account of his travels.

In August 1752 Pichon set out from Port la Joye, where he had found a garrison of fifty or sixty men. He proceeded up the North-East River, and after having made a portage of four leagues across a plain, well cultivated and abounding with all sorts of grain, arrived at St Peter’s. After a voyage to the east as far as Havre la Fortune he turned westward again and visited the settlements on the north side, following in the wake of de la Roque. He also crossed to Bedec, and turning eastward made a circuit back to Port la Joye. To complete the inspection he set forth to visit La Grande Ascension, which lies three leagues south of Port la Joye and is now known as Orwell Bay. The clump of birch trees on the cliff that he described still marks the eastward shore. He investigated the three rivers that fell into the bay, and proceeded by way of Vernon across the ridge to the Hillsborough and thence to Charlottetown—to use modern names. His account of the country is rather barren of information, although mention is made of the abundance of game, especially of woodcock and foxes. He was much annoyed by swarms of maringoins, or gnats, but he remarks philosophically: ‘I want to know what place in the world is exempt from all inconvenience.’

There is yet a third and slightly earlier account which merits attention, as it supplies information of a character that is wanting in the other two.^[5] It is written by Sieur Franquet, a military engineer, whose name we shall meet later. He visited all the settlements, selecting sites for military works and drafting plans for their defence. In the report that he sent to his government he does not confine himself to the dry details of planning redoubts and discussing the advantages of rival positions, but takes diligent note of the appearance of the country, its products and capabilities, and the condition of the settlers and their prospects.

Sieur Franquet left Port la Joye on August 9, 1751, and followed the usual route up the North-East River. With six oarsmen in a flat-bottomed boat he made way against the current until he was glad to be taken in tow by a small schooner. He passed the Anse aux Morts, La Petite Ascension and Rivière des Blancs, small streams which enter from the north, since identified as probably Spring Garden Creek, Wright’s Creek and Marshfield Creek. He passed several streams that enter from the south, to which the most various names have been given. Those that are fairly constant are Rivière du Moulin-à-scie and Rivière de Pengiguit, one of which is now known as Johnston’s River.

About two leagues up the North-East River he passed Ile aux Chèvres, or M^cNally’s Island, and came to an anchor at Bel Air near Scotch Fort, where he remained for the night at the house of Sieur Gauthier and was visited by a neighbour named Bugeauld. Gauthier and Bugeauld ^[6] were the first of the Acadian loyalists. In a letter addressed to the minister from Boishébert and Prevost at Louisbourg under date of August 15, 1749, it is written: ‘Nous avons placé dans l’île St Jean Sieurs Gauthier et Bigeau, Acadiens, qui se sont distingués dans la dernière guerre, et qui ont abandonné tous leurs biens par rapport à la France.’ These settlers occupied farms of 160 acres and showed to their visitor crops that could not be equalled in the most favoured districts of France.

This Joseph Nicholas Gauthier ^[7] was a native of Rochefort and came to Port Royal when he was twenty-three years old. He lived there for forty years until the Expulsion. His allegiance cost him seventy thousand livres and all his property. He was forward in the movement to persuade his fellow-countrymen to follow him, and he met with much success. He died on April 2, 1752, and was attended in his last hours by Curé Patrick M^cGhee, chaplain of the garrison at Port la Joye.

At the time of Sieur Franquet’s visit the settlers were in doubt about the proper site for the church that they proposed to build, whether it should be on the north or the south side of the river. For a variety of reasons Sieur Franquet chose the north side as being more accessible, and he promised to use his influence to secure a bell from the government. The church of St Louis was erected in Bugeauld’s orchard near a spring of water which still exists, and the last of the apple trees was cut down as late as the year 1887. A cross of white marble marks the place of burial, and beneath the cross lie the remains of Gauthier.

Sieur Franquet rested again, when half his journey was completed, at the inn of the widow Gentil. From this place to St Peter’s a road had been cut six or seven feet in width, which allowed passage for his oxen-drawn vehicle. Presently he began to encounter traces of the great fire, and proceeded by way of Savage Harbour till he reached his destination. In accordance with his commission he designed a fort having four bastions, and in choosing a site he did not fail to note the beauty of the harvest. Like many an engineer since his time he wondered why the roads were not constructed along the rivers instead of being carried over hills and valleys. After his return to Port la Joye he visited Three Rivers, and noted that the land was a desert, as a result of the attack the provincials had made upon Brudenelle Point when they burned de Roma’s settlement some six years before.

De Roma was one of the early settlers, but there were settlers earlier still. In 1663 Captain Doublet obtained a grant of the island, and associated with him were two companies of fishermen from St Malo. They used their possession merely for the purpose of landing and drying fish, and no settlement was made for agricultural purposes until after the Treaty of Utrecht. About the time of that treaty it would appear that a few Acadians visited the place; but Governor Caulfeild of Nova Scotia, writing from Annapolis on May 16, 1716, said that they had abandoned their quest of new homes. Four Acadian families arrived in 1720 and reported ^[8] that the land was red and dry (‘rouge et secq’). In 1719 two Normans, Francis Douville and Charles Charpentier, landed at St Peter’s. In three years thirteen more had joined them.

Among the earlier settlers of Port la Joye were members of two Acadian families, the Gallands and the Martins. They came in 1720. By 1724 five more of the Gallands and four more of the Martins left their homes for the island. The members of the two families numbered fifty—nearly one half of the entire population. Of the Galland family there was one named Mary who in 1728 advanced certain claims for land. She had come to the island in 1720. She was married to a man named Poirier, who died leaving her with a family of five sons and two daughters. It was stress of circumstances probably, and a maternal solicitude to provide for her sons, that suggested to her the demand she put forward. Resting her claim upon the first article of the conditions offered by the company of St Pierre to settlers, she asked for five tracts of land along the North-East River, each tract to measure four acres in width and forty in depth. On these lots she proposed to settle her sons, who were now, she averred, old enough to clear and till the land. The reception of her demand by the governor does not seem to have been of an encouraging nature, for we find her in the autumn at Louisbourg pleading her case with much energy before the intendant, Lieutenant de Mézy.^[9] Another settler was René Rassicot, who came to Port la Joye in 1724 from Avranches in Normandy. His family consisted of seven boys and three girls. In 1735 three of his sons disappear from the census roll, but the name appears on the north coast as the designation of a settlement, since called Rustico.

But in 1720 these sporadic colonies were overshadowed by the great immigration under the auspices of the Comte de St Pierre,^[10] and all perished in the common disaster that followed the withdrawal of his patent. This notable man was equerry to the Duchess of Orleans. In 1719 he formed a company of which he became the president, and applied to the crown for a grant of the Island of St John in order to plant a colony there and establish a permanent fishery. His request was granted on January 28, 1720, and on April 15 three ships carrying three hundred emigrants lay in the harbour of Rochefort, their destination in the first instance being Louisbourg. In command of the expedition was Daniel de Gotteville de Belle Ile, who was to act as governor of the colony. On September 4 St Ovide de Brouillan, governor of Louisbourg, writes to Vaudreuil that on August 23 two of the ships had arrived and had proceeded, having been provided with pilots.^[11] He adds that he had permitted Denys de la Ronde, an officer who was acquainted with such enterprises, to accompany the expedition. When the governor arrived in Port la Joye the landing of the immigrants and stores was well in progress. They at once began to construct log-houses of neatness and solidity. A breastwork was thrown up and eight pieces of cannon were emplaced with thirty soldiers to serve them, and a tall black cross was erected on the summit, upon ground consecrated to the dead. A church was built, but its site can no longer be identified.^[12] It was dedicated to St John the Evangelist, and Father Breslay of the order of the Sulpicians was the first curé. The grass-covered earthwork which yet crowns the height was built not by them but by a detachment of British soldiers sent to take possession of the land after the surrender of Louisbourg.

De la Ronde appears to have been faithful to his trust. A year afterwards he writes, under date of November 6, 1721, a dispatch that gives the earliest detailed account of the island.^[13] Port la Joye, he says, is one of the most beautiful harbours that the eye could behold. He visited the north shore and entered St Peter’s Harbour, Savage Harbour, Tracadie, Rassicot, Malpeque and Cascumpec. Large game appears to have been abundant, for he mentions the elk and the moose; the country was infested also with wolves of great size, and the skin of one of these was sent in the ship that carried the dispatch, as a present to the wife of the French admiral. He enumerates martens, otters, squirrels and foxes of various colours. There were, he says, no beavers because there were no lakes, and no porcupines because there were no mountains. I am afraid that he was reasoning from a preconceived notion, because there are traces yet to be seen of the operations of the industrious beaver. Amongst birds he mentions the skylark, the starling, and the nightingale, but these must long since have disappeared. He estimates the profits to be derived by Comte de St Pierre at one hundred thousand crowns after payment of all expenses. Shipbuilding had already begun. A ship of one hundred tons was built to sail for Europe with codfish; one of twenty-five tons was destined for the seal and walrus fishing around the Magdalen Islands, and a third of sixty-five tons was built to trade with the West Indies. At Port la Joye sixteen families from France and four from Acadia were settled, but the remainder of the immigrants from France had settled at Three Rivers, St Peter’s and Tracadie.

St Pierre’s venture ended in disaster. Trouble arose over the interpretation of the fishing privileges. The count complained that the inhabitants of Ile Royale were poaching in his preserves in the gulf.^[14] He asked that legal decisions should be given at Louisbourg without referring to the intendant of Canada, and that an engineer should be appointed to put the island in a condition for defence. The merchants of St Malo protested, and the matter appears to have been referred to M. Augran, who reported that these exclusive privileges were contrary to the good of trade and to the public liberty.^[15] The letters patent were recalled ^[16] and the colony was ruined, so much so that Lieutenant de Mézy reports, October 27, 1724, that nearly all the inhabitants had abandoned the island, and that the director had returned to France, leaving his creditors in a bad way.

One settlement of the company remained, namely, that which was established by de Roma at Brudenelle Point, near the present site of Georgetown. Nine log-houses were built, the two largest being eighty feet in length, one for de Roma and his family, and the other for the company’s fishermen. Three buildings, each sixty feet long, were erected: one for the labourers, another for the ship’s crew, and the third, a roomy structure, for the overseers and tradesmen. One building fifty feet long contained the stores and the bakehouse. A forge and a stable completed the establishment. This stable sheltered two horses and three horned cattle, and had a dove-cot as a refuge for the wood-pigeon. The wood was cut from the forest; the bricks were burned on the spot. The buildings were wainscoted with boards and divided into rooms of great convenience. Every house had its garden, and two fields were sown with pease and wheat. A brick wall was built around a spring that was discovered in the sands, but the ice laid the work in ruins. A cellar was dug 120 feet long, 18 feet wide and 7 feet deep. It was well roofed, and the roof was covered with brush and earth. A door at either end gave access to this cellar, and an ice-house was erected in a shady nook. De Roma says that ‘fuel had to be provided for thirteen large fires which were kept burning night and day for seven months in the year.’ To provide fodder for the cattle a road was made through the forest to Sturgeon Bay to obtain marsh grass, and another was cut to the Cardigan River. De Roma connected his establishment by roads with the settlements at St Pierre and Port la Joye. This occupied two winters, and movable huts were provided for the workmen. The company had five craft capable of making long voyages. Every year two voyages were made to Quebec and two to the West Indies, whilst smaller boats were employed to bring the fish from the different stations to the factory.^[17]

In spite of all his efforts de Roma was charged by the company with extravagance, tyranny and crime; but he worked on diligently until the week before Louisbourg fell into the hands of the provincials. A hostile cruiser arrived. There was no attempt at resistance. De Roma with his son and daughter and five servants escaped to the woods. The booty was carried off and the buildings were given to the flames. De Roma made his way to St Peter’s, where he found a vessel to bear him to Quebec. Five years later not a trace of the settlements could be found, and nothing now remains except an excavation which may have been the site of the cellar.

De Roma’s diary and accounts are still extant.^[18] They are written with such meticulous care that one wonders how he found time to do anything else than write. Herein lies the sign of failure. A colony that is concerned about making reports is doomed. De Roma describes the work of every moment: ‘Couper les arbres, les ébrancher, consommer les branches par le feu, choisir les arbres qui pouvoient être de quelque utilité, les transporter en lieu convenable par des passages extrêmement embarasser, diviser le reste, en transporter les parties ou pour en conserver ce qui étoit bon à bruler dans la maison.’ Each one of the later English settlers did all these things, but he was responsible to himself alone, and so succeeded.

All history is one history, and the smallest event is governed by forces that are universal. Even the settlement of Prince Edward Island cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of all the circumstances leading up to the conflict in which England and France were engaged. For our immediate needs it will be enough to note that under the Treaty of Utrecht Nova Scotia fell to England; that Louisbourg was captured by the English in 1745; that it was given back to the French in 1748, according to the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; and that it was recaptured in 1758. The situation of the French in Nova Scotia or Acadia was untenable. On the one hand they were seeking new habitations; on the other forces were moving towards their expulsion. At first they sought voluntary refuge in Ile St Jean. After the final fall of Louisbourg they were expelled in common with their compatriots who had remained behind in Acadia. As early as 1726 Normant le Mézy, governor of Louisbourg, put forth a plan of colonization by Acadians in Ile St Jean, ‘where they will find a land and pastures which are in no respect inferior to their own, and where they may dwell in greater security and peace.’ The tenure of land was even in those days a difficulty, for although Comte de St Pierre had abandoned his holdings, they were yet involved in a litigation that was only solved by the English conquest.^[19] M. de Pensens was placed in charge. He knew the island well. In 1726 he had been sent by St Ovide de Brouillan with twenty-five men to occupy the land, and he reported that it was good, that it could supply fine sound timber, and pine masts sixty feet long, as good as those which came out of Norway. He found himself obliged ‘to terminate an infinity of discussion between traders, settlers, and fishermen.’ The charge was not to his liking, and he complains bitterly that he was an exile in the forest without earthly or spiritual comfort.

In 1728 the regular immigration began. According to the census of that year there were seventy-six families in seven settlements; and in two years Port la Joye alone yielded two hundred and fifty barriques (hogsheads) of grain.^[20] The officials were astonished at the result. By 1731 there were eighty-four families comprising 347 persons, an increase of sixteen over the previous year.^[21] In 1748 there were 148 families or 735 persons. Any one who is fond of turning over old papers may learn the very names of the settlers who arrived. Some, it may be added, are familiar as belonging to honoured inhabitants of the present day. Thus three families of Arsenaulds comprising seventeen persons settled at Malpeque, and their descendants are still known as Arsenaults.

There is testimony to the quality of these immigrants. A minute of council of 1717 initialled by the regent, Louis Antoine de Bourbonne, and the Marshal d’Estrées declared the Acadians to be born blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers and builders. On the other hand, de Pensens complained that the Acadians were naturally idle; and that, accustomed as they were to the easy farming of the marais (marsh-lands), they were indisposed to engage in the heavy labour of clearing their new lands of trees.^[22] Prevost also, in a dispatch ^[23] of later date to the minister, quotes Bonaventure as his authority for describing the newly arrived settlers as ‘presque tous indolens et paresseux.’

The correspondence covering the next fifteen years is minute and wearisome. It deals with the passing and repassing of ships; requests for leave of absence, for support and for succour; with quarrels and recriminations; but on the whole it is a brave story of suffering and fidelity to duty. For the hospital there is no surgeon, no bed-clothing or curtains; only tallow for food; no wood, no fire.^[24] And in the letters covering a period of half a century there is not a trace of humour or a sign of joy. In the earlier period the hardship was probably not greater than that which is experienced by new settlers who land in any wilderness. It is only when the Acadians began to rush into a land that was already at the point of famine that the record of misery begins. In 1749 the letters make melancholy reading. On August 9 Bigot writes that ‘the inhabitants are dying of hunger’; and again, on August 22, that ‘the Acadian refugees are “quite naked.” ’ According to M. Bonaventure ^[25] six hundred persons had arrived, ‘la plus grande partie étant nus, s’étant échapés comme ils avaient pu’; and again, ‘those who have come into the island are stripped of everything.’ In July 1750 Prevost reported ^[26] that two hundred Acadians had arrived in May, and the number was increasing daily. Pichon during his journey had landed at Rivière aux Crapauds to see ten poor inhabitants whose misery greatly excited his compassion; and yet Acadians more miserable still were arriving every day from Baie Verte and Chedaik. Vaudreuil writes to the minister in 1756: ‘The misery is great, and most of the inhabitants are without bread; 1257 persons have been obliged to ask for public relief.’ In 1757 he writes: ‘1300 persons are living very miserably.’ There was nothing to eat and no seed to sow. The women and children could not venture out of doors, as they had no clothes to cover their nakedness. The intendants in Canada did their best. They sent cargoes of flour and meat from their own scanty stores, and the governor of Louisbourg wrote that he could send no help as he had no help to give—not even a surgeon, since his own surgeon was dead. No wonder Bigot lamented in his letter of October 11, 1749, ‘cette isle Saint Jean coute beaucoup au roy.’

Too much had been expected of the island. The most it could do was to support its own inhabitants, whereas it had been hoped that it would instantly become a base of supplies for Louisbourg.^[27] Its importance as a strategical centre was also exaggerated by French and English alike. Indeed, there was a mad scheme to populate the island, to arm the inhabitants, to send the animals and women to the woods, to transport the stores to the head of the North-East River, and ensconce a fleet from Canada upon the Pengiguit, which is a stream scarcely considerable enough to turn a saw-mill.

The distress was alleviated by peace, which brought a pleasant interlude. I shall seize the occasion to introduce a picture of Port la Joye, drawn from the Prince Edward Island Magazine,^[28] and turn aside for the moment from original documents to the description given by Professor Caven, whose style shines with a brilliancy which illumines the dismal archives. This venerable writer, who has employed his fine scholarship to elucidate the history of his adopted home, follows his explorers with the enthusiasm of one who is making a new Anabasis:

It is necessary that the reader while examining the annexed plan should bear in mind that the buildings which he sees depicted and explained are not the first buildings that were erected on that site. After the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, when Louisbourg, much to the chagrin of the New Englanders, was restored to its former masters, the island of St John, as a dependency, shared in the triumph, as it shared in the disaster of the great fortress. A few weeks, therefore, after Isle Royale had been delivered back to the representatives of France, M. Bonaventure, an officer who had distinguished himself in the defence of Louisbourg, sailed with his company of 100 men and established himself at the heights of Port la Joye. It was the month of August 1749. The pursuits of peaceful industry had either been abandoned or were carried on fitfully and in fear. Some of the less resolute settlers fled to Quebec or elsewhere, and left their homesteads to whatever fate the fortunes of war might bring. Others hovered between their hiding-places in the thick woods and their dwellings, watching the approach of danger. The buildings he erected are those shown upon the plan. They were built in haste to meet a pressing need and to serve as temporary shelters until works constructed on the most advanced principles of military engineering should take their place. Such plans were actually drawn with minute details by Colonel Franquet, but they never rose in stone or mortar on the heights of La Joye; they found a more peaceful resting-place in the archives of the Marine and Colonies in Paris.

Colonel Franquet was sent from France to superintend the new fortifications of Louisbourg, and devise a system of defence for the French possessions that lay in the Gulf of St Lawrence. He visited the island in 1751 and spent six days at Port la Joye examining the buildings that Bonaventure had erected and choosing a situation for the erection of a new fort. He approved of the site previously selected at the western entrance of the harbour, influenced probably by the fact that there was in the vicinity a spring of water, which still exists. His plan included a fort with four bastions, enclosing an area sufficient to contain all the buildings necessary for the accommodation of a garrison of four hundred men, with stores and provisions for two years. The bastions and curtains were to be of solid masonry. Brick clay had been discovered at a short distance from the site, and if the island sandstone was found to be too soft for such work, it was proposed to import from Cape Breton material of the kind that had been used in the construction of the walls of Louisbourg. To ensure still further the safety of the harbour, a square redoubt capable of accommodating a permanent garrison was to be erected at Pointe à la Framboise, which lies opposite—that is, on the right hand as one enters the harbour—and the vidette station on Pointe de la Flamme was to be strengthened.

II
THE EXPULSION FROM THE ISLAND

The order for the general expulsion from Nova Scotia of the Acadians ^[1] was made at Halifax on July 28, 1755, by the governor and council, and was passed against the inhabitants of Isle St John as well as against those of Nova Scotia, and the event that had been feared since 1745 was about to take place. The catastrophe did not come without ample warning. It had been expected since the first fall of Louisbourg. On October 3, 1745, Rear-Admiral Warren wrote to the Duke of Newcastle: ‘As we find it impossible to transport to France this fall the inhabitants of the Island of St John’s, which is a part of this government and therefore within the meaning of the capitulation, we have made a treaty with them to be neuter, and to remain there during our pleasure.’^[2] On November 23 he writes ^[3] that the ships that carried the officer and twenty soldiers who were garrisoned at the Island of St John to Canada had returned with the alarming intelligence that six thousand French and Indians were to be dispatched against Louisbourg. He inquired closely of a hostage whom he held for the neutrality and good behaviour of the rest. This one admitted ‘that the general of Canada had approved of their entering into a neutrality with us’; the admiral adds, ‘no doubt in hopes to give him an opportunity to make use of these people, when a proper occasion shall offer. This shows us what little confidence should be put in these people.’ The admiral was in a state of alarm.

In the following May he still entertained the idea of evacuating the island of all the inhabitants—who, he was informed, were about one thousand souls—and burning their settlements.^[4] As the year would expire on June 17, he thought it necessary to proceed with the evacuation at once, and he engaged a young Frenchman with the promise of a hundred pounds if he would induce the inhabitants to comply.^[5] But Warren resigned his governorship on June 2. He did not like the post on shore,^[6] and ‘preferred to act his part upon that element that he knew most of.’

The government now passed to Charles Knowles, and a council of war held at Louisbourg on June 7, 1746, was unanimously of the opinion that the ‘evacuation of St John’s cannot be complied with at present.’ The transports were needed elsewhere and there was ‘great exigence for money.’ Deputies from the island had appeared soliciting a continuation of the privilege of remaining on their lands; and as it was proved that they had strictly complied with all the articles and restraints of the capitulation and ‘had behaved in an inoffensive manner,’ a new indulgence was granted.^[7] The inhabitants were to send a deputy to Louisbourg to act for them and ‘ten or twelve of their principal young men as hostages.’ They were also to send one half of their livestock, for which they would be paid a reasonable price; and a promise of communication with the mainland was made, by which ‘a small vessel shall be appointed to pass and repass.’ In justification of his leniency Knowles writes to Newcastle ^[8] that the inhabitants were ‘poor, miserable, inoffensive people.’

Whatever causes existed in Nova Scotia for the deportation of the Acadians, in Isle St John there were none associated with the conduct of the inhabitants. They were ‘an inoffensive people.’ They had molested no one either by themselves or in conjunction with the Indians, and the Indians also kept their hands free from blood. The authorities of Nova Scotia from the beginning regarded the island with suspicious, jealous and hostile eyes. The early adventure of Comte de St Pierre was the first to excite their interest. In 1720 Paul Mascarene informed the Lords of Trade of the fact, and urged that a fort should be constructed on the neck of land between Baie Verte and the Bay of Fundy; and this suggestion was reinforced by the governor of Nova Scotia, who memorialized the king to the same effect in September of the same year. Indeed, as late as 1756 we find Governor Shirley of Massachusetts warning the home government of the importance that the island was acquiring as a base of operations against the British possessions.

The migration of the Acadians, of course, did not go unnoticed by the authorities in Nova Scotia, where we find Governor Cornwallis writing on September 11, 1749, that he had intelligence from all hands that the island was the scene of the operations of that arch-enemy Le Loutre. He returns to the subject again on October 17, informing the ministry that he had made a treaty with the Indians, but he was not very sanguine about their good faith; ‘nothing but force will prevail,’ he adds. There is no evidence that Cornwallis was correctly informed.

Admiral Boscawen appears to have been the immediate instigator of the deportation. In an official report he informed his government that

by the best accounts, the Island of St John has been the only supply for Quebec of corn and beef since the war, except what has been brought from Europe, having at present above 10,000 horned cattle; and many of the inhabitants declare that they grow, each of them, 1200 bushels of corn annually. They have no other market for it but Quebec. It has been an asylum for the French inhabitants from Nova Scotia; and from this Island has been constantly carried on the inhuman practice of killing the English inhabitants of Nova Scotia for the sake of carrying their scalps to the French, who pay for the same. Several scalps were found in the governor’s quarters when Lord Rollo took possession.

This was the grossest misrepresentation. There is no evidence that Rollo, who, with the 35th regiment and two companies of the 60th, was sent to take possession, made any such charge, or if he did make it, that it was true.

The settlers could scarcely be called colonists. They were in reality wards of the government, and no colony has ever succeeded unless it has struck out boldly with a full determination to make the land its own. There was no security of tenure, no sense of responsibility and no attempt at self-government. In addition they suffered from many disabilities. Fishing was discouraged so that they might be starved into farming, and all ships were obliged to call at Louisbourg for clearance papers.^[9]

But in 1758 the blow fell. By the third article of capitulation, dated from the camp before Louisbourg on July 26, between Admiral Boscawen and Major-General Amherst of the one part and the Chevalier du Drucour of the other,^[10] ‘le gouverneur donnera ses ordres que les troupes qui sont dans l’Isle Saint Jean se rendront à bord de tel vaisseau de guerre que l’Amiral Boscawen enverra pour les recevoir.’ To this was afterwards added the words, ‘Ceux des habitants de la place.’ Instructions were forwarded by Drucour to Villejoin at Port la Joye to comply with the terms. Upon receiving them he wrote to the minister a letter ^[11] that is at once an enduring remembrance of a humane and courageous man and a revelation of the fresh misery that came upon the colony.

Rousseau Villejoin was in sore straits. Louisbourg had fallen. He could not engage the inhabitants to take up arms. He could not abandon them. There was no refuge. To go to Miramichi was to die of hunger. He besought the English generals in vain. Although several hundred of the inhabitants were sent to Louisbourg, nearly four thousand remained. Nothing was left for them but to return to France, and Villejoin implores the minister to grant relief to ‘ce misérable peuple.’ In poignant words he recites the hardships that they had endured:

Il y a trois ans, Monseigneur, que les derniers réfugiés sont sur l’Isle, il leurs a fallu essuyer bien des pertes et bien des fatigues pour s’y rendre, et rendu ils se sont trouvés pour ainsy dire, dénués de tout secours, la dizette de vivres et de vêtements les a accompagnés sur l’Isle, je n’avois que très peu de chose à leurs distribuer, mes distributions n’ont été que minces et ce n’est qu’en les rendant fréquentes que je suis parvenu à ne voir mourir personne de touttes ses misères, rendus en France. Monseigneur, si vous n’avés la bonté de jetter un œil favorable sur leurs misères et leurs pertes, je les voy replongés dans la plus affreuse qu’ils ayent jamais essuyé et que je ne peux vous dépeindre aussy grande qu’elle sera, ce pauvre peuple sera sans vivres, sans vêtements, hors d’état de se procurer du logement et du bois de chauffage dans un nouveau monde, ne sachant à qui s’adresser pour présenter leurs besoins, timide de sa nature.... Si vous avés confiance en moy, je m’offre de les suivre dans la destination qu’il vous plaira de leurs fixer.

A most careful scrutiny of the records fails to disclose complete information as to the destination and number of inhabitants who were removed. Some of the exiles spent the winter in Louisbourg, where ‘they were maintained at great expense and took up much room in the hospitals.’ To the number of ninety-six they were utilized in exchange for English prisoners then being held in France.^[12] They were sent in the William and Ann, and arrived safely. According to a dispatch from Governor Whitmore to William Pitt, it appears that the prisoners comprised ‘a whole parish.’ In the spring Whitmore sent a ship to the island to take off the remainder, but Captain Johnson, who commanded there, informed him ‘that all the French were gone off to Canada just before our sloops gott round to that part of the Island.’^[13] The present writer’s impression is that the Evacuation was far from thorough, although five years afterwards Captain Holland, who made a survey of the island, reports that there were only thirty French families occupying lands, ‘extremely poor and maintain themselves by their industry in gardening, fishing and fowling.’

On July 21, 1768, Deschamps, the first-justice, gives the number of inhabitants as 203;^[14] and Francklin, in his dispatches, indicates that ample provision had been made for their reception into the new community. ‘Such of the Acadians,’ he writes,^[15] ‘as would take the oath were to have lots subject to the same condition as those exacted from other settlers’; but those who remained ‘obstinate and adhered to their old prejudices and attachment to the French king’ would not be allowed to remain; and again,^[16] such of the Acadians as had taken the oaths received the fullest assurance of favour and protection.’

On the other hand, A. B. Warburton cites a memorandum dated March 22, 1764, from which he quotes the words: ‘There are 300 French families on the Island of St John’s, who have lately in a solemn manner declared the same intentions,’ that is, of taking the oath of allegiance. From a return of the inhabitants taken in April 1798 it appears that the population consisted of 720 families comprising 4372 persons. An examination of the return discloses the fact, in so far as one can judge by the names, that only eighty of these families were French, that is, at a time forty years after the Evacuation. According to the census of 1901 the French population had increased to 13,866.

The most reliable information indicates that the population of the island at the time of the Expulsion was about 4000, although writers who are content with surmise place the number much higher. It would require at least ten transports for the undertaking. The voyage of one at least is recorded in detail. There are two accounts, and both are in agreement as to its tragic end. The one is by Curé Girard,^[17] who sailed in the ship; the other ^[18] is by a sea-captain who relates the ‘remarkable circumstance.’

This Girard was curé of St Paul’s Church at Point Prime. On October 20 he embarked with his parishioners to the number of three hundred at Port la Joye, bound for St Malo. His account was written from Brest. It is dated January 24, 1759, and was addressed to the vicar-general of the colonies in Canada. The letter is quite informal, and almost casually announces the dreadful intelligence that the ship had foundered in the Bay of Biscay, and that all on board, with the exception of himself and four others, had perished. On December 13

le vaisseau coulant bas d’eau qu’on n’a pu étancher ni épuiser avec 4 pompes et 3 puits ... l’équipage s’at sauvé et m’a sauvé moi-meme avec 4 de mes habitants et paroissiens, passagers Acadiens dont deux mariés et deux garçons. Tous les autres ont été ensevelis dans la mer et cela dans la Manche à 20 ou 30 lieues de terre. Nous avons gagné heureusement et comme par miracle les côtes d’Angleterre où nous avons été sans aucun secours ni du côté du roi d’Angleterre, ni du roi de france pendant un mois et quelques jours, n’étant pas prisonniers ... enfin nous avons été embarqués pour la Rochelle dans un paquebot. Nous sommes cependant de relâche à Brest ou nous avions débarqué pour attendre l’honneur de votre réponse et vos avis; mais étant sans ressources nous avons été obligés de rester à bord pour vivre, car nous n’avons rien sauvé que notre corps bien mal vêtu.

A lurid light is shed upon the tragedy described by Curé Girard by one Captain Pile, who is described as master of the ship Achilles. It is worth the labour of transcribing the narrative with only such alteration as will make it more easily read:

A Captain Nichols, commanding a transport belonging to Yarmouth, was employed by the government of Nova Scotia to remove from the Island of St John about 300 French neutrals with their families. He represented to the agent, before he sailed, the situation of his vessel and the impossibility of arriving safe in Old France at that season of the year. He was nevertheless compelled to receive them on board and to proceed upon the voyage. After getting within one hundred leagues of Scilly the ship was found so leaky, that, with all hands employed, they were not able to prevent her sinking. Finding that she must in a few minutes go down, and that all on board must perish, if the French did not consent to the master and crew taking to the boats—by which means a small number had a chance of being saved—Captain Nichols sent for their priest, and told him their situation and pointed out to him the only probable means of saving the lives of a few, among which the priest was to be one. He accordingly harangued the Frenchmen for half an hour, on the ship’s deck, and gave them absolution, when they with one consent, agreed to the master, crew, and priest taking the boats, and themselves to perish with the ship. One Frenchman only went into the boat, on which his wife said, ‘Will you then leave your wife and children to perish without you?’ Remorse touched him and he returned to share their fate. The ship in a few minutes went down and all on board perished.

With an ingenious stroke of malice the narrator adds that ‘the argument made use of by the priest for leaving Frenchmen was that he hoped to save the souls of the English heretics and bring them to God along with him.’ The boats after many hardships arrived at a port on the west of England, ‘and Captain Nichols afterwards commanded one of the Falmouth packets.’

The incident forms a fitting climax to the tragedy of the French occupation of a land that fell to them by right of discovery and effective possession, the best of all titles. This question of priority of discovery is always an interesting one, and there are many claimants for the honour of having first charted Prince Edward Island. The work of only four navigators need be touched on, and of these Verrazano and Stephen Gomez may be dismissed at once. John Cabot’s landfall was certainly in those latitudes; but his report that the land he discovered was fertile, with a mild climate as if the silkworm might thrive in it, is not conclusive. Besides, Prince Edward Island has no resemblance to the abode of the great Khan whose territories this eminent sailor supposed he had come upon.

It is to Jacques Cartier the discovery is due. His account is very clear. It is contained in the eighth volume of Hakluyt’s Voyages, and is much commented upon by James Phinney Baxter:^[19]

We went that day on shore in four places to see the goodly and sweete smelling trees that were there; we found them to be cedars, ewetrees, pines, white elmes, ashes, willowes, with many sorts of trees to us unknown, but without any fruit. The grounds where no wood is, are very faire, and all full of peason, white and red gooseberies, strawberies, blackberies, and wilde corne, even like unto rie, which seemed to have bene sowen and plowed. This countrey is of better temperature than any other that can be seene, and very hote. There are many thrushes, stockdoves, and other birds; to be short, there wanteth nothing but good harboroughs.

This complaint of lack of harbours was well founded, since to this day on the north shore ‘the firme lande is compassed about with little islands of sand.’ Of the south coast, where the harbours abound, Cartier knew nothing. He made two mistakes: first, he supposed that the country consisted of two islands; and again, that it was not an island at all. Indeed, he gave to the northern entrance of Northumberland Strait the name of St Lunario Bay.

The discovery was made on Tuesday, the last day of June 1534, ‘in the evening toward sunne set,’ and the place was in the vicinity of St Peter’s Bay. To attempt to identify the spot more closely is merely to engage in surmise. ‘All the next day till the next morning at sunne rising’ the strangers ‘sailed westward about fourtie leagues to a very good cape of land called Cape Orleans,’ now known as Kildare. They appeared to have enjoyed themselves on that first day of July. They went on shore in many places and found that ‘al the said land is low and plaine, and the fairest that may possibly be scene, full of goodly medowes and trees.’ At one spot they entered ‘into a goodly river but very shallow,’ which they named Rivière des Barcques, because that there ‘we saw boates full of wilde men that were crossing the river.’ They ‘had no other notice of the said wild men; for the wind came from the sea and so beat us against shore, that wee were constrained to retire ourselves toward our ships.’ The next day they made the outermost point of land, which they called Wilde Man’s Cape, for an obvious reason, as the narrative reads: ‘Whilest wee were at this cape, we sawe a man running after our boates that were going along the coast, who made signes unto us that we should returne toward the said cape againe. We seeing such signes began to turne toward him, but he seeing us come, began to flee: so soone as we were come on shoare, we set a knife before him and a woollen girdle on a little staffe, and then to our ships againe.’

Of the French occupation there remains upon the land not a trace, unless it be the obscure foundations of a single church and a few indefinite mounds in traditional cemeteries. Forty years ago, when children were accustomed to use their eyes for other purposes than the reading of books, it was not uncommon for them to find pieces of iron—it might be a harrow-tooth, the hinge of a door, an ax, or a hoe, which were identified by their delicacy of workmanship and the softness of the metal; but even these have now become the curiosities of an occasional cabinet.

III
THE ENGLISH OCCUPATION

The fall of Quebec in 1759 ended the period of French domination in Canada. The event was formally recognized by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, and Prince Edward Island, as we shall now call it, was placed under the government of Nova Scotia. The change in designation was introduced by an act in the seventh session of the sixth assembly in 1798, and the bill was allowed on February 1, 1799. The name was in honour of Prince Edward, who afterwards became Duke of Kent and father of Queen Victoria, and at the time was commander-in-chief of the forces in North America. As early as 1780 there was a desire that the designation Isle St John should be abandoned. In that year Lieutenant-Governor Patterson, who had just arrived to resume his functions, wrote in approval of an act to change the title to ‘New Ireland,’ stating that the island was constantly being mistaken for a variety of places bearing similar names, especially with St John’s, Newfoundland, to which, ‘since ever it has been known the idea of fogs and barrenness has been annexed.’ The confusion in his correspondence was intolerable, and the lieutenant-governor adds with some bitterness: ‘We are so much confounded with this part in particular that people have even sailed for Newfoundland, thinking that they were coming hither.’

This suggestion was not taken in good part by the home government, as appears from a letter to the lieutenant-governor from Stuart, the agent in London, dated March 3, 1781: ‘Your passing an Act to change the name of the Island is considered as a most unprecedented instance of irregularity. The reasons you give are admitted to be of some force, but they insist that you ought in common decency to have set forth the reasons in a petition instead of passing a presumptuous Act which is neither warranted by law nor usage.’ The lieutenant-governor accepted the suggestion and presented a petition, for we find Stuart writing two years later that he was not unmindful of it, but was keeping it back ‘till we shall have carried points of more importance.’ The island narrowly escaped being called New Guernsey or New Anglesea.

To this land came Captain Samuel Holland, as surveyor-general, with a commission dated March 23, 1764, from the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, instructing him to make a survey of that part of North America ‘lying to the north of the Potowmack River and of a line drawn due west from the head of the main branch of that river as far as His Majesty’s dominions extend.’ He was instructed further that ‘the greatest precision and exactness will be required and expected; the latitudes and longitudes of the most important places must be settled by just astronomical observations, the depth of water and soundings as well on the coast as within the harbours must be taken with the greatest care, and every remark made which can tend to the security and information of such of His Majesty’s subjects as may navigate those seas.’ The Island of St John was to be surveyed first, as it was considered the most important ‘in respect of the fisheries.’

Captain Holland sailed in ‘the armed vessel Canceaux,’ a merchant ship of two hundred tons with a crew of forty men. He passed the Isle of Wight on May 26, and on July 11 arrived off the coast of Cape Breton. But for an accident the ship would have been cast away in a fog, which Captain Holland says ‘had like to prove fatal to us all. The fog was excessive thick and all on a sudden when we expected the least, we were surprised with a report of a musket and people crying out “breakers ahead” within a cable’s length of us. An open fishing boat, the first we had seen since our departure from England, and which Providence had put in our way, apprised us of our danger.’ They proceeded to their destination, which was Quebec, and in the St Lawrence, as the wind was contrary, Captain Holland left the ship on July 19 to continue his voyage in a six-oared open boat. This method of travelling was found to be so toilsome that he went ashore and continued the journey on horseback. As the roads proved to be impassable he secured an Indian canoe with two Canadians to paddle it. Eventually he procured caleches. And so by these diverse methods he arrived in Quebec on the second day of August.

The Canceaux came into port some ten days afterwards, and as she had to undergo repairs it was September 14 before she sailed again; she only arrived at North Cape on October 5. Being assured by an Acadian guide that the distance to Charlottetown from that point was only eighteen leagues, Captain Holland landed a party in charge of Lieutenant Haldimand with one week’s provisions but no boat, with instructions to survey the coast as far as Charlottetown. The vessel arrived at the capital two days afterwards, and Holland, with the additional information he had acquired, fearing for the safety of his surveying party, sent two other assistants to relieve them. As a further measure of safety he applied to Captain Hill, the commanding officer on shore, to send a small schooner with provisions. The vessel sailed immediately, but was lost in a storm; enough provisions, however, were saved to enable Haldimand and his party to return to headquarters. Assistance had come not a moment too soon, as they had already been three days without food in the wilderness.

In Quebec Captain Holland met one Captain Dean of the Mermaid who had visited the island the previous summer, and advised him ‘to take all sorts of material and provisions with him, as there was nothing left on the Island but a detachment who were indifferently provided, and could not furnish lodging.’ He finally reached the scene of his labours in October, and soon realized the force of Captain Dean’s warning. The fort was a poor stockaded redoubt with barracks scarcely sufficient to lodge the garrison, the houses near it having been pulled down to supply material to build it. ‘I am obliged,’ he writes, ‘to build winter quarters for myself, and have chosen a spot in the woods, near the sea shore, properly situated for making astronomical observations, where I have put up an old frame of a barn which I have covered with what material I brought with me, and some boards that we collected from the ruins of some old houses. I fear that it will not be too comfortable.’

This spot is still known as Holland’s Cove. It is now (1913) occupied in summer by Mr Justice Fitzgerald as a camping place, where he has erected a house somewhat in conformity with Captain Holland’s simple design. The site of Captain Holland’s cellar is yet visible. The sea has encroached upon the old burying-ground, and from time to time the skeletons of long-buried soldiers with remnants of their martial uniforms are unearthed. Many legends of hidden treasure centre at this spot, and the search for gold has not yet been abandoned. The ghost of a Micmac half-breed woman who was once an inmate of Holland’s house is watched for at the midnight of every twelfth of July, only by those, however, who are unaware that the apparition is not to appear until the moon is at its full and the tide at its height at the moment of twelve o’clock.

Captain Holland’s troubles began at the moment of his arrival. Lieutenant Mowatt of the Canceaux, through some misunderstanding of his orders, declined to supply boats and men for the survey; and it was not until Colville, then in command of the naval force, had been appealed to, and Governor Wilmot had given instructions to Captain Hill, the commanding officer on the island, that the survey could be undertaken. By October 1765 a preliminary report was made. The survey as completed by Charles Morris was a thorough piece of work, and it still governs every transaction in the sale and purchase of land. Even the houses are set to ‘Captain Holland’s compass,’ that is, to the magnetic north of his time, which, it may be added, lay some seven degrees to the eastward of the present direction.

One of the greatest evils that can fall upon a wooded country that is not absolutely level is to have a survey made in advance of settlement. The surveyor runs his lines at right angles over hills and across valleys. To obtain his sights he clears away the trees, and settlers following his path come to believe that these lines were intended to mark the roads. From these evils the island suffers more than from any other cause. The hills are used for travelling and the valleys go unused, in forgetfulness of the old dictum that the longest way round is the shortest way home. Captain Holland never intended that his lines should be so used. He was well aware that a deer or cow can find a better contour for a road than any surveyor. He urged continually that the river-courses rather than the hills should be so utilized. For example, he writes that ‘there is a communication inland by means of Cardigan, Brudenell, and Montague rivers, from the top of which last to the source of the Orwell river is not quite ten miles [he should have said half a mile]; and the Orwell river emptying itself into the great bay of Hillsborough makes a safe and short communication both in winter and summer betwixt two of the county towns.’

It must be remembered that Prince Edward Island was now no man’s land. Captain Holland found upon it only thirty families, ‘extremely poor, living in little cabins or huts in the woods, and the quantity of cattle but very inconsiderable.’ There were 352 houses, ‘but very few were good for anything and by no means tenantable.’ To this there were only three exceptions: two at St Peter’s, and his own at Observation Cove, which, as we have seen, was not a very elaborate affair. There were two churches and seven mills, one of which was driven by the wind, and of cleared land there were 10,885 acres, but a great part of this was ‘so much overgrown with brush and small wood that it would be extremely difficult to make it fit for the plough.’ Charlottetown had as yet no existence. Even the site had ‘not any cleared lands or houses.’ The French villages were in ruins; one was marked only by ‘a grave of cypress shrubs.’^[1]

The island was divided into three counties and sixty-seven lots, each lot containing about 20,000 acres, and annexed to the plan of each is a careful notation of the quality of land and availability for settlement, which time has proved to have been remarkably accurate. The sites for three towns were surveyed. Georgetown was most to the surveyor’s liking: ‘in respect to trade and shipping no place could be more convenient.’ Princetown was next in his esteem. Charlottetown was admitted to have ‘a very proper depth of water for shipping to ride near the town in good grounds’; but it was made the seat of government, not from any inherent advantages it was considered to possess, but, ‘as this side of the Island cannot have a fishery, it may probably be thought expedient to indulge it with some particular privilege.’

Prince Edward Island has always had a curious capacity for fascinating the beholder, and many of the early accounts err somewhat in respect of overstatement. As an example I shall select a report ^[2] that was transmitted to the director of the Colonies by César Moreau, vice-consul of France, at London, under date of September 20, 1818. This enthusiastic traveller likens the climate to that of England. Snow, he says, does not fall after the month of January. Mutton is very cheap and pork costs almost nothing at all. The poorest families have for dinner every day roast pork, wild duck and salmon, which may be bought from the Indians for a glass of rum, a charge of powder, or even in return for a few kind words addressed to their women and children. Farming is carried on merely as a diversion and the farmers occupy themselves chiefly with their amusements. They carry home from market rum, sugar, tea, tobacco and all kinds of provisions. Each one of these happy people who have rediscovered ‘les mœurs pastorales de la vie des premiers âges’ has a spring of water in his kitchen, a cellar filled with vegetables, and a storehouse containing grain, barrels of rum and fish. Rum costs only four shillings a gallon and is so cheap and plentiful that the consumers of it find themselves at the end of two or three years ‘hors d’état de travailler.’ It may well be imagined how prominent a place would be given to this document in that curious product known as ‘immigration literature.’

Captain Holland having completed his survey, the land was ready for the speculator. There were many applicants, and their petitions were referred by The Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee for Plantation Affairs to the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. The commissioners ‘did accordingly as far as the nature of the case would admit examine into the ability and intention of each petitioner,’ and recommended a list of persons whose names ‘should be respectively wrote on a slip of paper’; these slips were to be drawn ‘by some indifferent person.’ The lottery was held on July 23, 1767, and with certain reservations, such as one hundred acres in each township for a church and thirty acres for a schoolmaster, sites for county towns and fortifications and for rights of way, the ownership of the land was assigned.^[3] There is no evidence available to indicate the considerations that governed the commissioners in making their choice, but nearly two-thirds of the land went to officers in the army and navy, and to other persons obviously connected with the government.

The grants were not made without stringent conditions. The proprietors were obliged to pay quitrents at a rate of two to six shillings per hundred acres, which was considered ‘as near as may be proportioned to the value of the lands, all circumstances of convenience and advantage considered.’ This yearly rent ranged from £20 to £60 for each lot, or from one to three farthings per acre, but payment was not to be exacted for five years. They were also obliged to place one European Protestant on every two hundred acres within ten years, that is, one hundred persons upon each lot; and one-third of the land was to be settled in that proportion within four years. It is scarcely necessary to say that these conditions were not complied with. On July 21, 1768, there were forty-one settlers on behalf of the grantees.^[4] Upon fifty lots there were no settlers as late as 1779, and in 1770 there were only one hundred and fifty families and five proprietors residing on the island.

The lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, Michael Francklin, was instructed to issue warrants for the grants upon the terms specified. The ‘proceedings upon the whole of this business’ are very voluminous in reports from one set of Lords to another ^[5] and to the king,^[6] and in instructions ^[7] to Francklin, who was entrusted with the task of forming the establishment. His first business was to have the lands surveyed, and he employed Charles Morris, chief surveyor of Nova Scotia, for that purpose, under directions which are a model of clearness.^[8] He was to proceed to the site of Charlottetown and lay it out. As the houses were to be of wood and subject to taking fire, the main street was to be a hundred feet wide and the others not less than eighty. He was to mark off the boundaries of the townships with ‘circular piles of stones of the size of a common haycock, or a little hill of earth.’ To supervise the proceedings Isaac Deschamps was appointed first-justice of the Court of Common Pleas,^[9] ‘at a sallary of two hundred pounds, he being a proper person in whose prudence, assiduity, and integrity the government could fully confide.’

Nothing escaped the attention of this vigilant lieutenant-governor. Not only does he describe what he has done, he also gives valid reasons under various heads ^[10] for his minutest action. He allowed to Deschamps, the superintendent of the settlement, ‘seven shillings and six pence pr. diem towards enabling him to support the expenses of his table in order to keep the principal people in good humour.’ A surgeon was appointed with an allowance of five shillings a day, and a clergyman at something less, as it was considered ‘highly expedient that the settlers might perceive that His Majesty paid the earliest attention to their religious as well as their civil concerns.’ The Rev. Mr Eagleson received the appointment.^[11] He had been ordained by the Bishop of London and was designed for Nova Scotia, ‘but as the Island of St John was entirely destitute it was thought more advisable to send him immediately to Charlottetown to officiate.’ The zealous lieutenant-governor received little thanks for his pains. Hillsborough in a dispatch ^[12] to Lord William Campbell at Boston, which is grossly unfair, writes that his actions ‘are highly disapproved by the King’; he charges him with ‘total and entire misapprehension of his orders’; and fears that any further bills that he might present would have to ‘be protected and the loss and damage fall upon himself.’ Campbell excuses the lieutenant-governor as well as he can, on the ground of mistaken zeal, but for a long time the payment of £2000 was a subject of dispute.

IV
A UTOPIAN SCHEME OF SETTLEMENT

This was not the first proposal for alienating this chance possession of the crown. In 1763 John, Earl of Egmont, the first Lord of the Admiralty, had concocted a scheme which he presented in an elaborate memorial to the king.^[1] Nothing more fantastic has been conceived outside of Utopia. He prayed for a grant of the whole island to be held in fee of the crown for ever, and if its area should fall short of his estimate of two million acres, he was willing to accept the Island of ‘Dominique’ to make up the discrepancy. It was even feared that the Island of St John was too small to afford sufficient inducement to the adventurers, and the earl was desired to withdraw his application and to ask for Cape Breton. The Earl of Egmont proved that he was the first imperialist, for he declared in his memorial that ‘the subjects of the island are to be considered and treated not as provincial or dependent but as Englishmen to all intents and purposes whatever, without any jealousy or invidious distinction, as fully as though the county of Saint John was a member of the Island of Great Britain and a part and parcel thereof.’ The authority and power was to be territorial, and not hereditary and personal, by which, the earl believed, ‘the benefits from both the principles of aristocracy and democracy would be conjoined, preserved, and reconciled, the respective evils of both avoided, and the real source of contention between the two orders extinguished.’ The benefits of the system were not to be confined to Prince Edward Island alone, for the writer of the memorial affirms that ‘this proposal is but part of a general plan for the settlement of all the conquered countries of America suggested soon after the conclusion of the late peace.’ This plan is afterwards set forth in great detail.

The system of judicature was to be extremely perfect, with a Court of the Hundred, Courts Leet and Courts Baron, and Courts of the Earl, as Lord Paramount:

These courts, wisely established by Alfred and others of our Saxon princes, to maintain order and bring justice to every man’s door, are obviously and capitally essential for a small people forming or formed into a separate and remote society in the vast, imperious, and dangerous forests of America, intersected with seas, bays, lakes, rivers, marshes, and mountains; without roads, without inns or accommodation; locked up for half the year by snow and intense frosts, and where the settler can scarce straggle from his habitation five hundred yards, even in times of peace, without the risk of being intercepted, scalped and murdered.

The Earl of Egmont, in short, proposed to transport the feudal system in its entirety to America. There was to be a lord paramount of the whole island; with forty capital lords of forty hundreds; four hundred lords of manors, and eight hundred freeholders. For assurance of these tenures in common socage, that is, by payment of a fixed money rent, 800,000 acres were to be set aside; for the establishment of trade and commerce by means of county towns, market towns, and villages, 75,200 acres. In addition 1,124,800 acres were to be left at large for the encouragement of the undertakers to complete their plans.

The lord of each hundred was to pay to the lord paramount £20 sterling yearly, and he was to set apart five hundred acres for the site of a town, which was to be divided into one hundred lots of five acres each, and the proprietors of these were each to pay a fee-farm rent of four shillings. Each hundred was to have a fair four times a year and a market twice every week. Ten hundreds were to be allotted to the earl and his family of nine children. On this property a strong castle was to be erected, mounted with ten pieces of cannon, each carrying a ball of four pounds, with a clear circuit around the castle of three miles every way. Each hundred or barony was to consist of eight square miles, and the lord of each was bound to erect and maintain a castle or blockhouse as his capital seat, and as a place of protection for the settlers upon any alarm of sudden danger; ‘and thus,’ the memorial continues, ‘the whole people residing within the hearing of a cannon fired at the blockhouse of their respective Hundreds, and each blockhouse likewise being thus erected about eight miles asunder, within distance to hear such cannon respectively from the blockhouse from its adjoining Hundreds, and the signal repeated from the next, and so on from the one to the other, will be sufficient to give the general alarm and to put every inhabitant of the whole country in every part thereof from one end of the island to the other, under arms and in motion in the space of one quarter of an hour.’

Lord Egmont’s memorial was presented in December 1763, and early in the following year it was endorsed by ‘persons of very high rank and distinction,’ who were to share in its benefits.^[2] Amongst the names are those of Admirals Knowles, Saunders, Townshend and Rodney; Commodore Spry; Generals Townshend, Monckton and Oglethorpe; Captains Cosby, Palliser, Campbell, Derby, Shouldham, Bentinck, Byron, Patterson, Gordon, Bassett, MacLean, Jones, Douglas and Maxwell, ‘besides several other gentlemen which for want of room cannot be contained in this list.’^[3] The memorial was referred by the king to the lords commissioners of Trade and Plantations for their consideration and report. On February 13, 1764, the lords reported ^[4] that they had

examined the memorial with the greatest care and attention and observed that the plan of settlement was formed with great ability from accurate knowledge of the ancient tenures of this kingdom, which as they appear to have been calculated more to answer the purposes of defence and military discipline than to encourage those of commerce and agriculture, are, we conceived, totally and fundamentally adverse in their principles to that system of settlement and tenure of property, which have of late years been adopted in the colonies, and, therefore, we do not see sufficient reason to justify us in advising your Majesty to comply with His Lordship’s proposal.

The lords then proceeded to restate their own plans for the settlement of the colonies, their objects being ‘to advance and extend the commerce and navigation of this kingdom, to preserve a due dependence in the colonies upon the mother country, and so to secure to them the full enjoyment of every civil and religious right that your Majesty’s people of those your distant dominions may sensibly experience the advantage of and have of just reasons to value themselves upon being British subjects.’ In order effectually to obtain these objects they had recommended such a mode of granting land as by a just distribution of property, proportioned to each man’s ability and unembarrassed with any burdensome services, might encourage industry; and in the form of government they had recommended a constitution for the colonies as nearly similar to that of the kingdom as the nature of the case and the subordination so necessary to the welfare of both would permit. In proof of their wisdom they cited the flourishing state of the colonies and the progress they had made in cultivation and commerce compared with the condition under charters, ‘which though they were granted to persons of high rank and consequence and accompanied by plans of government, the effect of the study and reading of the wisest and most learned men, yet being more founded in speculation than experience, did, in the event, not only disappoint the sanguine expectation of the proprietors but checked and obstructed the settlement of the country.’ Egmont was not discouraged, and he sent additional memorials. The king referred all the documents to a committee of the council, and a minute was drawn up in which the opinion is recorded ‘that the introduction of such condition of settlement and tenure is entirely impolitick, inexpedient, and anti-commercial.’

V
THE PROPRIETORS

When the final plan of settlement was effected in 1767, an attempt was made to conciliate Egmont and make some reparation to him for the trouble and expense that he had incurred in urging his schemes. One entire parish of a hundred thousand acres was granted to him, and he was asked to make a selection of his land; but he wrote in reply that he had no intention of availing himself of the offer. Many of the supporters of his scheme were more complaisant, and we find their names upon the list of those to whom grants under different conditions were afterwards made. The reasons put forward by Egmont’s associates why they should be awarded land are sufficiently curious.^[1] Four London merchants, Muir, Cathcart, Spence and Mill, who applied,^[2] ‘had fitted out at a very considerable expense two vessels and embarked on board of them upwards of seventy persons to make a settlement on the Island,’ and they feared if the grant were denied that ‘they would be forced to quit an undertaking which they were carrying on with spirit and sit down with a loss of some thousand pounds.’ Chauncey Townshend had lost a large sum of money by the surrender of Miquelon to the French. Simon Fraser and sixty officers of the 78th regiment applied jointly for 146,000 acres on the ground of their well-known services.^[3] Alexander Macleod,^[4] ‘being in the prime of life and an enemy to idleness, had encouraged a number of useful and industrious Protestant families to accompany him,’ and he thought those lands ‘would be just suited to the constitutions and habits of the natives of the British western isles where he himself was born.’ David Higgens had endured ‘great fatigue’ in carrying on a fishery, and without a grant he ‘must inevitably be ruined and undone.’ John Garden ^[5] ‘had been six times wounded, three of which wounds were at the siege of Quebec, and had two balls lodged, one in the head and one in the joint of his shoulder.’

The proprietors, having received their grants from the governor of Nova Scotia, at once began to feel the necessity for a capital seat within their own territory. Accordingly they presented a petition to the king praying that the island should be erected into a separate government.^[6] They alleged the difficulty of their situation in being deprived of legal decisions ‘without a tedious and expensive voyage to Halifax, which during the winter months is impracticable on account of the ice.’ This petition was taken into consideration by the lords of the committee. They, ‘being then of opinion that the carrying into execution what is proposed might under proper restrictions and conditions, be of public advantage and promote settlement,’ thought proper to refer the petition to the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations for their consideration.

Both lords and commissioners made it very clear that the expense of the civil establishment must be defrayed ‘without bringing any burthen upon the kingdom, or charge upon the treasury’; and the proprietors agreed to provide the funds if some variation in the payment of quitrents were allowed.^[7] Their report was then approved by an order of the king in council on June 28, 1769. The lords were of the opinion that the island did not appear to require—not at least until an assembly or house of representatives could be formed upon the plan and constitution of the other American colonies—anything more than a governor in council and a court of justice in civil and criminal matters, exercising the authority of the Courts of King’s Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer in Westminster Hall under the laws of England as far as they applied to the situation and circumstances of that island. They recommended that the commissioners of the treasury and the Earl of Hillsborough, one of the principal secretaries of state, should be entrusted with the payment of such officers as were necessary for the administration of the government. They furnished an estimate of the annual expense, which amounted only to £1470. The governor was to receive £500; the chief justice, £200; the secretary, £150; the attorney-general, £100; the clerks of the court, £80; the provost-marshal, £50; a minister of the Church of England, £100; the agent and receiver of quitrents, £150; and £140 was allowed for contingent expenses. On the other hand, the estimate of the amount of money arising from quitrents made it appear that it was just sufficient for defraying the expenses.

VI
THE RÉGIME OF LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR PATTERSON

On July 10 the lords submitted to the king a draft of the appointment of Walter Patterson as lieutenant-governor, and on the 13th Lord Hillsborough wrote to the Lords of the Admiralty informing them that Patterson ‘had been appointed captain-general and governor-in-chief over the Island.’ On July 14 an order-in-council under the Great Seal was made approving the lieutenant-governor’s commission, and on August 4 the instructions to him were confirmed. Amongst other things he was charged ‘to take especial care that God Almighty should be devoutly and duely served throughout his government.’ On the same day the customary oath was administered to him, and an order was made authorizing the Lords of the Admiralty to appoint a vice-admiral and a Court of Admiralty for the island.

Lieutenant-Governor Patterson arrived within his territory on August 30, 1770. He caused his commission to be read, and appointed to the council Phillips Callbeck, John Russell, Thomas Wright and Patrick Fergus. He was sworn in on September 19. The customary oaths were administered to the officers, and the chief justice, Duport, was given a commission for holding the Supreme Court, which was opened September 24. The first enactment of the lieutenant-governor in council was a regulation of the fishery of ‘sea-cows,’ those strange beasts which were at that time plentiful but became extinct within forty years. In the process of extermination the chief offenders appear to have been one Gridley from the Magdalen Islands and fishermen from New England. These monstrous animals were probably the Rhytina stelleri. They weighed many thousands of pounds and yielded an excellent oil, an indifferent meat, and hides from which a useful leather could be prepared.

The lieutenant-governor was performing his new duties with assiduity and kept the home government informed of his progress. In his first dispatch to the Earl of Hillsborough, October 21, 1770, that is, within seven weeks of his arrival, he gives information about the fertility of the soil, about the timber, wild fowl and beasts. ‘This side of the Island,’ he complains, ‘is but indifferently off for fish except in the spring when I am told we may have a small kind of cod, mackerel, trout, bass, smelts, and several sorts of flat fish pretty plenty. At present there are only lobsters and oysters, neither very good.’ In the winter the inhabitants ‘make all the frames for their houses, saw boards, and do almost all their wood work.’ A few French inhabitants, who were employed mostly in the fishery, received their wages ‘in clothes, rum, flour, powder and shot.’ Owing to this, ‘agriculture has been so much neglected that there is not one bushel of corn raised by all the French inhabitants on the Island.’ Nor does he omit to mention the difficulty he had in defending himself from the cold and in procuring provisions. He wanted a church, gaol and court-house, which would cost £3000; he could not pay for these conveniences and he needed them badly, ‘unless we are left to submit to all manner of injustice and violence; this is only the shadow of a government without the substance, for there is not one house or place in or near this town, which would confine a man contrary to his inclination.’

The capital city could not have presented a very imposing appearance to the eyes of the new magistrate. There is a description by Lieutenant-Governor Francklin of Nova Scotia, which, although written a year earlier, may be taken as sufficiently accurate, since Charlottetown does not change very much in so short a time. From this account, given in October 1768, it appears that there were only two buildings in the place. One was ‘a dwelling house 56×26 feet, one storey with a pitched roof, shingled, and clap-boarded, and filled in between with stone laid in rough mortar, two stacks of chimneys with two ovens and six fire-places, two parlours, two kitchens and lounging rooms, a cellar stoned under one-half of the house.’ The other, to be used as a store, was of the same dimensions. In addition to these erections a wharf fifty feet wide had been carried out for thirty feet into the river, and was made ‘solid with stone and timber.’^[1]

The dispatches that the lieutenant-governor wrote during the next few years are full of interest. This indefatigable official was building roads incessantly, and even laid out his own money when none other was available. He was impressed at once by the difficulty of communication between Charlottetown and the outlying settlements, ‘almost the whole depending on water carriage.’ To reach Princetown involved a journey that occupied two weeks. The traveller was compelled to proceed up the Hillsborough by boat, then across the height-of-land to St Peter, from which a chance passage might be had to Richmond Bay. If Georgetown was the destination, the point of departure again was St Peter. The traveller was ferried across the bay on the road to Fortune Harbour, whence he might proceed by water as occasion afforded. The lieutenant-governor pointed out the desirability of inland communication and the ease with which it might be secured.

Within a year the road to Princetown was built by one of Captain Holland’s surveyors, who had wintered on the island, and was disposed to undertake the work on most favourable terms. Although he had been instructed ‘to avoid all swamps, difficult rivers, and steep hills,’ the road was only thirty-three miles in length, or scarcely a mile longer than a direct line between the two places. A second road was undertaken to connect the head of the Hillsborough River with the head-waters of the Montague, and thence on to Georgetown, by an ‘easy, short, and certain route.’ The lieutenant-governor asked for five companies of soldiers who could be profitably employed in building these public works so dear to his heart. The pretext was that they would be useful in guarding the settlement against the insurrection of the French inhabitants, who, as we have seen, numbered about thirty impoverished families, against incursions of privateers, and Indians from the mainland. He sought approval of certain changes in the plan of Charlottetown—drawn by the surveyor-general of Nova Scotia to make it more suitable for a northern climate—by which there would be a communication between every backyard and the street. This the lieutenant-governor considered ‘would be a very great convenience.’

After a year’s experience Lieutenant-Governor Patterson was able to give an exact account of the capability of the land under his jurisdiction. Writing on October 18, 1771, to Hillsborough, he says:

From everything I have tried, both in husbandry and in gardening, my expectations are fully answered, and in many surpassed, such as the raising of Indian corn, which I have done this year myself, and very good too, though it was not planted by more than a month so early as it ought to have been. In every other part of America where I have been, grain in general deteriorates, especially oats and barley; but here I have raised both this year to the full as good as the seed sown, which was the best I could purchase in London. The oats were of the Polish kind, as I judged our summer might resemble theirs in Poland, more than that of England, and believe we would be right if we used more of the continental seeds of Europe than we do. I never met with nor heard of such an increase of potatoes as I was told of by two servants belonging to Captain Holland. One of them planted six bushels and has from them raised two hundred bushels; the other had a hundred and sixty bushels from three. This they offered to take their oaths of. Wheat has not had a fair trial yet, but I have every reason, from what has been done, to think we may have it as good as anywhere; and as to garden stuffs, there is no country produces better. In short, my Lord, if only the proprietors will exert themselves, this Island will, in a short time, be the Garden of America.

The lieutenant-governor next proceeded to the constitution of a house of assembly. This was effected on February 17, 1773. At a meeting of council held that day it was resolved ‘that a House of Representatives or General Assembly of the inhabitants of this Island be forthwith called.’ In a dispatch of the same date the lieutenant-governor informed Lord Dartmouth that the house was to be chosen ‘by taking the voices of the whole people collectively, as belonging to one country, and waiving all kinds of qualifications except their being Protestant and residents.’ The number of representatives was limited to eighteen, as that was about the number of inhabitants ‘who could make a tolerable appearance in the House.’ Upon all matters connected with the deliberations of the assemblies in succeeding years A. B. Warburton may be followed with confidence. He has investigated the records with skill and care and has embodied the results of his research in a pamphlet which is easily accessible.^[2]

The first assembly met in July with Robert Stewart as speaker. Thirteen acts were passed, the most important being ‘An Act for the recovery of certain of His Majesty’s quitrents in the Island of St John.’ On July 12 the assembly was dissolved, ‘as there was advice of many respectable people coming to the Island, which on a new election would give a greater choice of men, and the number might be increased.’ Lieutenant-Governor Patterson returned to England, August 2, 1775, in the Two Friends, having been granted a year’s leave of absence, and Phillips Callbeck, the oldest councillor, was appointed to administer the government. Patterson remained at home for five years, returned for a six-year period, and was finally recalled to answer ‘serious and secret charges’ which had been preferred against him.

Edmund Fanning received his commission as lieutenant-governor April 5, 1787, the day on which Patterson was dismissed. He had spent the previous winter on the island in a most ambiguous situation. He arrived November 4, 1786, bearing a letter from Lord Sydney dated June 30, in which he was informed that Patterson had been recalled and directing him ‘to carry on the public service during Lieutenant-Governor Patterson’s absence.’ As no date had been set for Patterson’s departure, and as he could not leave until the spring, he quite properly declined to surrender the government until his absence began. John Stewart, the persistent traducer of the lieutenant-governor, although in many respects a most valuable authority, entirely ignores these facts in his history and gives an impression of Patterson’s conduct that is entirely false.

The day after Fanning arrived Patterson wrote to Sydney in the following words, marked by dignity and pathos:

There are unsurmountable reasons why I cannot this winter quit this island. The season is too far advanced to leave a possibility of arranging my little matters so as to prevent total ruin in my absence. Besides, if the charges are such as I have already answered, my ipse dixit will add but little weight to my defence, and I have no further proof to offer. If there have been any new charges sent from hence, the evidence to disprove them cannot be had in England; therefore, my going home without them would only prove a useless trouble to your lordship and to myself. It is an unspeakable grief of heart to me that I am under the necessity so long of lying under the appearance of having proved unworthy of my station. All my labours for thirty years have been in search of reputation, and I have gained it everywhere but where most I wished. I hope and trust your lordship will feel my situation as I do myself, and that in justice you will order me copies of my crime, so as to have them by the first of spring; and be assured that I shall, as soon after the receipt of them as possible with every anxious and eager hope, pay instant obedience to the royal mandate. Were it even possible for me at so few days’ notice, to quit the island, even with the total ruin of my family, I should be obliged to accumulate ruin on ruin by being obliged to stay a whole season in England to wait for evidence from home, and in place of expediting, it must delay my hearing. But if I cannot go from hence prepared to answer my accusers, after my arrival my fate may be soon decided; and if I have not been guilty of what will deprive me of my liberty, I may return in the course of the summer to cultivate my farm. Afford me only an opportunity of clearing my character, and I shall instantly resign. I have long and anxiously wished to do it, and most certainly shall the moment I can with honour. I cannot even guess at the nature of my present accusations; but be they what they may, I wish to meet them; and I shall do so, my Lord, with a confidence and certain knowledge that they are as unfounded as the last. I know I have done no wrong, and therefore court inquiry; but I also know my enemies, and must go prepared among them.

In the following spring Patterson left for Quebec, but returned in a few months and remained for two years, when he did all a man who was already ruined could do to retrieve his fortune and, incidentally, to embarrass his successor. He returned to England after seventeen years’ service, a broken and ruined man. He died in great poverty in London, September 6, 1798, and his widow was unable to recover anything from the wreck of his fortune.

For many years Patterson’s fame was unnecessarily beclouded, for the simple reason that the history of the times was left in the hands of his enemies, of whom John Stewart was the mouthpiece. It is proper to add, however, that there were circumstances associated with his dismissal that do not appear upon the official records, but are to be found in contemporary chronicles of scandal. One who confines his reading to official dispatches will know only so much of history as those dispatches contain. He will miss the motive and meaning, for the very reason that the dispatches are official. An explanation of Patterson’s conduct must be sought elsewhere. He had two families to support with a salary of £500 a year. That explains a good deal. He had married Hester Warren in England, March 9, 1770, and by her he had ‘at least four children.’ By Margaret Hyde, who was ostensibly his wife in Charlottetown, he had two daughters. One of these, Margaret, married Dr Alexander Gordon, and their daughter, Margaret, became the wife of Sir Alexander Bannerman and returned with him to the place of her birth when he was appointed lieutenant-governor in 1851.^[3] Patterson trafficked in lands that were forfeited because the rents were unpaid, and so he incurred the hostility of the proprietors. The records still show his efforts to provide for his numerous dependants by giving them title to those lands.

VII
LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR FANNING

Lieutenant-Governor Fanning’s difficulties began the moment he attempted to collect the arrears of rent. The proprietors promptly complained, and he also was obliged to defend himself in London. He found the task the easier as he was of a conciliatory temper and had the support of the assembly instead of its opposition. Indeed, he was able to report that entire harmony prevailed in a house that was constituted in 1790 and lasted for twelve years. When his term of office expired in 1805 he was granted by the home government a life-pension equal to his salary; and he was presented with an address signed by over a hundred of the principal inhabitants of the island. In his reply he said that he had undertaken the government with the strongest prejudices against both the island and its inhabitants, but after eighteen years’ continued residence he had acquired a close attachment to both, ‘and he had no other expectation or intention than passing the remainder of his days in that flourishing and delightful island.’

This General Fanning was born in New York in 1739, and was the son of James Fanning, a captain in the British service. He was a graduate of Yale College, and in 1774 was granted the degree of Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford. He was admitted to the bar of North Carolina in 1762, and three years later became one of the judges of the Supreme Court. In 1768, at the request of Governor Tryon, he raised a corps of eight hundred provincials to repress a body of insurgents, and so well did he perform the task that he was called upon three years later to repeat it. In 1773 he was appointed surveyor-general of New York, and afterwards served with the regiment which he had raised, called ‘The King’s American Regiment.’ In 1783 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, with a promise that it would lead to something better. Accordingly, and in due time, he became lieutenant-governor of Prince Edward Island. He died at his residence in Upper Seymour Street, London, on February 28, 1818, in the seventy-ninth year of his age.

VIII
PRIVATEER RAIDS

The events associated with the rebellion of the Thirteen Colonies touched the inhabitants of Prince Edward Island remotely, if at all. In 1776 two armed American vessels entered the harbour of Charlottetown. They had been cruising in the gulf to intercept British ordnance and store ships that might be on their way to Quebec. A landing was effected without opposition. The administrator, Phillips Callbeck, the surveyor-general, Thomas Wright, and Thomas DeBrisay were made prisoners, and with such booty as could be seized they were carried off to New England. The raiders reported to Washington, who then lay at Cambridge in his headquarters. Instead of approving their exploit, he dismissed the principal officers from their commands with the rebuke that they had left undone the things which they were sent to do, and did those things which they ought not to have done. The prisoners were freed, but, according to their own account, they were left to make the best of their distressed situation without any offer of redress for the injuries they had sustained and the ruin of their families.

There are many contemporary accounts of the incident. John Russell Spence, a member of the council, tells how he was waiting at Canso for a fair wind to bring him home. He also was seized with his wife and servants by the returning privateers, but they were released the following day. John Budd, clerk of the courts, records the stores that were carried off, namely, winter supplies that had been accumulated for 103 persons who were expected to arrive. After the return of the prisoners to Halifax, Callbeck spent much time in recounting the hardships they had endured, and his letters are suffused with bitterness. The marauders had carried off his property to the value of £2000 sterling; they offered to cut his wife’s throat merely because her father was a Mr Coffin of Boston, ‘who was remarkable for his attachment to the government.’ ‘Those violators of domestic felicity left her without a single glass of wine, without a candle to burn, or a sufficiency of provisions, most of the furniture taken away, and for what I know her clothes.’ What made the case still harder to bear was the theft of the lady’s rings and bracelets, which were afterwards seen adorning the ‘female connections of these villains.’

The following year an expedition from Machias in Maine against the island reached as far as Pictou, where a merchant ship loading for Scotland was seized and brought into Baie Verte to await convoy. By a defeat at Port Cumberland the position of the invaders became untenable and the ship was surrendered. Next year instructions were issued to raise an armed force within the island, but as some of the scanty inhabitants had already gone to the wars the attempt was abandoned. In the following year four companies were sent from New York by General Howe under command of Major Hierliky for the defence of the island and remained in barracks during the winter. About this time two privateers landed crews at St Peter’s, and, according to an account sent by Callbeck to Germaine, ‘began their accustomed wanton depredation, by shooting with grape at oxen and sheep, and taking but very few of them away for use.’ In 1779 Knyphausen’s Hessian regiment was driven by stress of weather into Charlottetown, where it remained till the following June, and some of its members became permanent settlers.

IX
THE SELKIRK COLONISTS

The immigration that fixed indelibly the character of the population of Prince Edward Island was the large influx of settlers from Scotland, especially from the western islands, who arrived in the early years of the nineteenth century. According to the census of 1901 the inhabitants of Scottish descent numbered 41,573. There were only seventeen Jews, and all but 908 of the entire population were of British descent. Lord Selkirk was chiefly responsible for the introduction of the Scottish immigrants. The trivial incidents of the life of these immigrants on board ship have been elevated into importance, and a mass of legendary material has grown up around the migration, which there is no necessity for disturbing, since it ministers to the satisfaction of the descendants of those courageous pioneers. A romantic belief exists that the exodus from Scotland was a consequence of the defeat at Culloden, but the connection between that exodus and an event that had happened sixty years before must have been very remote.

The name of Lord Selkirk is the most remarkable in the annals of immigration to Canada. He extended his operations from Prince Edward Island to Hudson Bay and up the Nelson River to that ‘fertile spot with a salubrious climate,’ now known as Manitoba.^[1] He had purchased an estate from the original proprietors, but he appears to have made few preparations for the comfort of the colonists, and he left for home six weeks after his arrival, leaving his affairs in charge of an agent named Williams. In the churchyard that still lies in the centre of the territory which once he owned is a monument, and on it is recorded that his ‘daughter’ is buried there. Tombstones do not necessarily convey the truth, and paternity in this case is a matter of inference.

The agent, Williams,^[2] had had a varied career as sailor and soldier before he attracted the attention of Lord Selkirk in 1802. He proved himself to be an admirable propagandist. He was by race and nature litigious, and his extensive reading of the Scriptures and Blackstone’s Commentaries affords some probability that the sobriquet, ‘Lawyer Sandy,’ which he bore was not entirely misapplied. Passing among the Highland villages he soon had the people in a condition of unrest and ready for any adventure. He persuaded them that tea, of which the Highlanders have always been inordinately fond, could be gathered in the swamps; that the maple tree yielded a copious stream of sweetness that with a little trouble could be transformed into whisky; and that the Indians who had been converted to Christianity by Catholic missionaries were dissatisfied with the doctrines they had been taught, and were anxious only for an opportunity to join the Church of Scotland. On other grounds, also, he was a man who possessed authority. When he was soldiering in Ireland he had rather the better of an argument upon the subject of the perseverance of the saints with a Galway schoolmaster, who, athirst for further knowledge, followed his instructor to the Highland glens. The two worked in harmony, if not in collusion, for the advancement of Selkirk’s plan, and sailed with the party in the Polly.

In the management of the affairs of the company these two associated with them Hector Campbell, who had the unusual qualification of being at once an elder and a piper. Religious exercises were held every morning. They were arranged in two parts. In the first a psalm was sung, a chapter of the Bible was read and expounded, and the divine blessing was invoked for all on board. The second part of the order was devoted to an exposition of doctrine and a discussion upon various problems in theology. The agent was obliged to confine himself to the latter part, save that he was allowed to join in the singing of the psalm, as it was commonly reported that he was suffering from the vice of profanity—an inheritance from the wars.

The immigrants, to the number of about eight hundred of all ages, left Scotland in the early summer of 1803 in three ships, of which one at least, and that the best known, namely the Polly, sailed from Portree in the Isle of Skye. The vessel was reported off Charlottetown on August 7, proceeding to her destination. Two days later Lord Selkirk in the second ship entered the harbour, and on August 28 the third ship arrived safely—‘the people in pretty good health,—bless God.’ The diarist who records these events was Benjamin Chappell, the postmaster and joiner of the town.^[3] From his little book it would appear that he had many letters to dispatch outward from these newcomers, and as he was occupied ‘with ye wood leg of Mrs Baker,’ it must have been a busy time. Another difficulty that this official had was the indisposition of people to call for the letters awaiting them, and he was obliged to give warning in the newspaper that the missives would be returned to the writers.

Looking back over an active life Lord Selkirk had no reason to be dissatisfied with his achievement, nor was he insensible to the difficulties that attend all migrations. He wrote:^[4]

I had undertaken to settle these lands with emigrants whose views were directed towards the United States.... To induce people to embark in the undertaking was, however, the least part of my task. The difficulties which a new settler has to struggle with are so great and various, that in the oldest and best established they are not to be avoided altogether.... Of these discouragements the emigrant is seldom fully aware. He has a new set of ideas to acquire; the knowledge which his previous experience has accumulated can seldom be applied; his ignorance as to the circumstances of the country meet him on every occasion.... The combined effort of these accumulated difficulties is seen in the long infancy of most new-settled countries.... I will not assert that the people I took to Prince Edward Island have totally escaped all difficulties and discouragements, but the arrangements for their accommodation have had so much success that few perhaps, in their situation, have suffered less or have seen their difficulties so soon at an end.... It had been my intention to come to the Island sometime before any of the settlers, in order that every requisite preparation might be made. In this, however, a number of untoward circumstances occurred to disappoint me; and on arriving at the capital of the Island, I learned that the ship of most importance had just arrived and the passengers were landing at a place previously appointed for the purpose.... I lost no time in proceeding to the spot, where I found that the people had already lodged themselves in temporary wigwams or tents composed of poles and branches.

This accession to the population was not the only one that the island received from Scotland. As early as 1770 two parties landed. The one was sent out by Montgomery, the lord advocate, and the other by Robert Stewart. Included in both there were one hundred and twenty families. Stewart’s party settled in Malpeque, after having suffered shipwreck with the loss of their belongings but not of life. Between September 3 and October 15, 1771, nine families arrived ‘who had been sent by lieutenant-governor DeBrisay to settle on his lot near Charlottetown.’ From his petition ^[5] it would appear that he had, in his own family of a wife and ten children, the nucleus of a settlement.

John Macdonald of Glenaladale and Glenfinnan with his cousin and chief sent a large emigration,^[6] and they prospered so well that by the year 1841 there were 4500 persons of the name of Macdonald on the island. Glenaladale formed a regiment known as the 84th Highland Emigrants, and served with his men for three years during the American Rebellion. It was of him General Small wrote: ‘The activity and unabating zeal of Captain John Macdonald in bringing an excellent company into the field is his least recommendation, being acknowledged by all who knew him to be one of the most accomplished men and best officers of his rank in His Majesty’s service.’ In 1806 there was a considerable emigration from Guernsey of families, who settled first on Lady Fanning’s property at Pisquid and afterwards at Murray Harbour,^[7] where their descendants still reside.

X
THE LOYALISTS

Prince Edward Island, in common with the other Canadian colonies, obtained an addition to its population by settlers who either voluntarily or by compulsion had left the United States during the rebellion.^[1] Here also they suffered the common hardship and their own peculiar grievances besides. The story of their ‘wrongs and persecutions’ in their new home is precisely that of all persons who settle without due authority upon land which they do not own. For many years they existed as a community bound together by a common hatred, and the ‘loyalist vote’ was regularly trafficked in by the politicians. Lieutenant-Governor Patterson found it especially convenient in his contest with the assembly on the one hand and the imperial authorities on the other. There was the usual trouble about their land grants. Deeds to which they thought they were entitled were withheld, and there is no doubt that the minutes of council that concerned their affairs were tampered with. On different occasions bills that reached various stages were introduced to remove their grievances, notably in 1790, 1839, 1840 and 1841; but it was not till 1870 that they obtained the relief which was applied to all settlers alike.

The incentive to their coming is very obvious. The proprietors saw an opportunity of obtaining settlers and at the same time of escaping the payment of quitrents. In 1783 they addressed a petition to Lord North offering lands on the generous pretext of helping their distressed fellow-subjects. At the moment a large number of loyalists were stranded at Shelburne, that city of high hopes in Nova Scotia. Proclamations were issued amongst them by immigration agents, who appear to have been no more scrupulous than are those of to-day. On the strength of these the wanderers settled in their new homes and encountered fresh difficulties. Their numbers were considerable. On July 12, 1784, a muster showed 202 men; with women, children and slaves the total was 380 persons. By the autumn 120 more men had arrived, and if the proportion of their dependants held, the total number would have reached 605. These new settlers came, for the most part, from New Jersey and New York, and possibly some from Boston and the Carolinas. Their numbers were made up of private soldiers and an occasional officer from Butler’s and King’s rangers, artisans and farmers, as most of ‘the gentlemen’ amongst the immigrants of that period appear to have gone to Ontario.

During this period the colony became fixed and its success was assured. Since 1792 the importation of food had ceased. Fish were exported to Europe and to the West Indies; grain, pork, cattle and butter to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland; and squared timber to England. This export business brought trouble in its train on account of the lack of currency. It was proposed to make wheat legal tender. The silver dollar was punched, and the middle part was made to circulate as a shilling, whilst the rim was reckoned as a dollar. It was not long before the shillings were sold as bullion and only dollars remained. Private persons issued leather notes and special coinage—in short, the colony passed through the stages of all primitive communities on the way to financial solidity. In 1871 the currency was assimilated with that of the Dominion by the adoption of the decimal system.

The inhabitants enjoyed then, as they do now, all the benefits of isolation, but they have never endured it with contentment. Their first effort to bring the world into winter communication with them was made in 1775, when Lieutenant-Governor Patterson established a service between Wood Islands and Pictou by means of a birch-bark canoe. With certain modifications this method is employed till this day for a portion at least of nearly every year. The writing of letters at that time played only a minor part in life, and scant attention was given to the carriage of mails. As late as the year 1827 one mail a fortnight in winter was considered sufficient for the various settlements, and the cost for the year is set down as £75. In 1832 the steamer Pocahontas began to ply between Charlottetown and Pictou, making two trips a week, for the carriage of mails and passengers. In 1851 the rate of postage was fixed at twopence for inland letters and threepence when transmission was to be made to other parts of America.

XI
POLITICAL STRIFE

Colonel J. F. W. Des Barres succeeded to the lieutenant-governorship in July 1805 and occupied the post for eight years. He had been present at the taking of Quebec and for two years was governor of Cape Breton. During his tenure of office the War of 1812 occurred, and although he was then upwards of eighty years of age, he urged the assembly to put the people in a posture of defence. The house promptly went into committee and passed a resolution of a kind that has become somewhat familiar in Canadian annals, ‘that in the present state of the country, it was not in their power, after the fullest consideration, to devise any means for immediately defraying the expense.’

The records become interesting once more in 1813, when Charles Douglas Smith was appointed lieutenant-governor. There was open strife between him and the assembly for eleven years, which were enlivened by petitions, resolutions and impeachments. His first address to the house was not auspicious. He would have convened it sooner, he said, had he thought that the public good would be served by its deliberations; and he dismissed it on the ground that the members were only wasting time. For over three years he voluntarily deprived himself of advice from the assembly. At the next meeting the appropriations were passed, and to the bill was added an expression of hope that the funds ‘would be strictly and honourably applied.’ A new assembly was called in 1818. It presented an address which the lieutenant-governor declined to receive, ‘from a sense of propriety on the ground of its containing unconstitutional animadversions.’ Through a special committee it complained of many particular offences: that of £98 expended by the overseer of roads only £37 had been properly applied, that £7 had been wasted in lawsuits, and that there was further ‘misapplication of the public money.’ The assembly demanded the dismissal of the chief justice and the high sheriff, and did not shrink from impeaching the lieutenant-governor himself. A series of resolutions was drawn up, and with an accompanying report they were transmitted to the prince regent, but the governor was at work privately, and apparently represented that the meeting that had passed the resolutions was improperly convened.

A new address was prepared for transmission to His Majesty, this time by the hand of Lord Dalhousie. The charges were quite specific. It was alleged that the lieutenant-governor had not in ten years ventured more than eighteen miles from his own house, that he had illegally constituted a court of escheat, that he had declined to receive an address, that he had held up his watch to the speaker and allowed him exactly three minutes to adjourn the house under penalty of dissolution, and that he had degraded the council by appointing one member who was a retailer of spirits, and another whose sole recommendation was that he had married the lieutenant-governor’s daughter. Feeling must have been very tense, for we find that the lieutenant-governor’s son broke the windows of the apartment in which the house was then sitting. For this breach of privilege he was committed to the gaol. The lieutenant-governor was not at all embarrassed, and he assured the house that he was ‘superior to all party politics, and could only regard with regret and wonder those who allowed themselves to be carried away.’ Public meetings were held to petition for his removal. The instigators were arrested, but one escaped to England, and on May 22, 1824, it was announced that Lieutenant-Governor Smith had resigned.

His successor was Colonel Ready, who remained for seven years. He was the first governor of the new school, and busied himself less with politics than with industry. He encouraged agriculture by importing animals for breeding; he improved the means of internal communication and did his best to secure a free port at which trade could be carried on without restraint; he originated a sound system of education; and worked in harmony with the assembly to secure enactments by which the resources of the island were conserved and developed. The act of 1781 declaring that the baptism of slaves should not exempt them from bondage was repealed in 1825, and the disabilities under which members of the Catholic Church had long laboured were removed in 1830.

XII
THE LAND QUESTION

One approaches the land question with some hesitation; it is so tiresome. Yet for a century it overshadowed all others in the politics and history of the island. It affected the fate of the people in the minutest detail. It governed industry and directed social life. All writers made it their theme, and the accounts they give are quite contradictory, according as they deal with the interests of the proprietors or with those of the tenants. The question was not a new one, and it was as simple as an affair ever is between a landlord and his tenant. By right or wrong means the proprietors obtained grants that were valid. They failed to comply with the conditions annexed to the grants, and the estates should have automatically reverted to the crown and there become revested. This, however, in the absence of some fresh disposition by the king, did not confer title upon the tenants.

The failure of the proprietors was obvious. Thirty years after the sixty-seven townships had been allotted there were twenty-three without a settler, and 216 persons occupied one half the island. Quitrents to the value of nearly £60,000 remained unpaid by the proprietors to the crown. They neglected to provide the £3000 set apart for the civil establishment. Bills drawn upon them were dishonoured and the official salaries fell hopelessly in arrears. Prices were high. In 1780 the price of beef was quoted officially at fourteen cents a pound, butter at thirty cents and sugar at sixty.

The assembly did not fail in its duty. At the very first session in 1773 an act was passed for the effectual recovery of the quitrents, and it received the royal assent. In 1776 the lords commissioners directed the receiver-general of the island ‘to take all proper means to enforce the payment of the arrears and of the accruing quitrents’; but unfortunately there was no receiver-general to comply. In 1780 Patterson attempted to put this minute into effect, and a number of townships were sold, whereupon trouble promptly arose in London. The proprietors drew up a bill rescinding these sales and had it transmitted to the governor with instructions that it should be passed. Patterson declined and called a new assembly, which in 1786 reaffirmed the previous proceedings. This contumacy was too much, and the governor’s career was at an end.

The proprietors were at the seat of government. By the same influence by which they obtained their grants they were able to hold them, and in 1776 they were relieved from the charge of defraying the expense of government, trifling though it was. Again in 1801 the arrears of rents were forgiven for a period of twenty-seven years, on condition that those for five should be paid; but there is no evidence that the proprietors complied with these generous terms. They were powerful enough to have Patterson recalled in 1786 to give an account of his proceedings, and a year later to secure his dismissal. In 1789 they were able to obtain a report from the Lords of the Committee that all the councillors and the attorney-general should be dismissed.

And yet the proprietors found many difficulties in the way of carrying out their engagement to settle their lands. When the colonists did arrive there was difficulty in keeping them, and an order was passed ‘prohibiting masters of vessels from transporting any persons out of the Island without a license or pass.’ They were restricted in their choice by the provision in the grants ‘that the settlers be Protestants from such parts of Europe as are not within His Majesty’s dominion,’ and these were as scarce as Methodist democrats in the United States. The landowners of England were of no mind to have their tenants spirited away, as Thomas DeBrisay found out to his cost. The proprietors were so hard pressed that they were driven to discuss proposals for emigrants with German princes, who were equally willing to barter their subjects as settlers in peace and mercenaries in war. One Emanuel Lutterlot, a major in the service, and agent at London to Prince Ferdinand, ‘a gentleman of the strictest probity and honour,’ presented a most elaborate scheme for the settlement of four thousand colonists of the proper habitat and denomination, but it came to nothing.

To us it would appear intolerable that men should spend their time clearing away the forest from land they did not own and erecting houses that were not theirs to enjoy. But in reality they were so much concerned with the work in hand that they had little leisure to dwell upon events that had not yet happened. They had no newspapers to inflame their minds, and few could read them even if there had been any. They were prospering and they were content. People never feel their wrongs so deeply as the agitators pretend they do. But the condition could not last. At the first attempt on the part of the proprietors to collect their rents the inhabitants were cast into a state of panic. The sheriffs were assaulted. Riots broke out, and as many of the Highland settlers could not read the language in which the legal documents were written, they were in great alarm. In fear they loaded upon carts such produce as they had and conveyed it sixty miles to the seat of government.

In a letter written by Lord Durham, which remained unpublished until 1875, the situation was fully disclosed. This letter, bearing date October 8, 1836, was written from the ‘Castle of St Lewis,’ Quebec and is addressed to Lord Glenelg, at that time secretary of state for the Colonies. It was printed for the first time by Duncan Campbell in a book that is an excellent chronicle of events and a useful compendium of knowledge of the land question.^[1] Lord Durham writes:

The absent proprietors neither improve the land themselves, nor will let others improve it. They retain the land and keep it in a state of wilderness. Your lordship can scarcely conceive the degree of injury inflicted on a new settlement hemmed in by wilderness land, which has been placed out of the control of government, and is entirely neglected by its absent proprietors. The people, their representative assembly, the legislative council and the governor have cordially concurred in devising a remedy for it. All their efforts have proved in vain. Some influence—it cannot be that of equity or reason—has steadily counteracted the measures of the colonial legislature. I cannot imagine it is any other influence than that of the absentee proprietors resident in England.

By the year 1839 three proposals had grown as solutions of the case, namely, the creation of a court of escheat, resumption by the crown, and a penal tax upon uncultivated land. To every proposal there were valid objections. After twenty years of further discussion a commission of three persons—one to be appointed by the home government, one by the assembly, and the third by the proprietors—was appointed to find a new way. The suggestion appears to have come from Sir Samuel Cunard and was embodied in a dispatch from Lord Newcastle to Governor Dundas, which was submitted to the assembly, April 13, 1860, and approved of, and Joseph Howe was named as commissioner. John Hamilton Gray was appointed by the crown, and John William Ritchie by the proprietors. The commission met September 5, 1860, and issued its report on July 18 following. Three conclusions were arrived at: (1) that the original grants were improvident and ought never to have been sanctioned; (2) that all the grants were liable to forfeiture for breach of the conditions with respect to settlement, and might have been justly escheated; and (3) that all the grants might have been practically annulled by the enforcement of quitrents, and the lands seized and sold by the crown, at various times, ‘without the slightest impeachment of its honour.’ And yet, the grants having been confirmed repeatedly, the opinion was firmly held that the proprietors must be regarded as lawful owners.

The remedy proposed was that the estates should be purchased at a price to be fixed by the arbitrators. This proposal was not new. Indeed, the Selkirk and Worrell estates had been purchased, and in 1855 Henry Labouchere advocated a loan guaranteed by the imperial government for that purpose. In February 1862 the report was laid before the assembly, accompanied by a dispatch from Newcastle approving of the industry of the commissioners, but declining to guarantee the loan. In a subsequent dispatch Newcastle remarked, quite justly, that whilst the proprietors had agreed to accept any award the commission might make, they could not be expected to abide by terms that might be imposed upon them by future arbitrators of whose existence they knew nothing. The commission was appointed ‘for inquiring into the said differences and for adjusting the same on fair and equitable principles,’ but instead of adjusting them the report merely referred them to another authority not yet created.

The disappointment was great, but the island government did not despair. They sought legal opinions; they sent deputations to England; they deplored ‘the evils which necessarily result from widespread agrarian agitation’; they tried in vain to secure a loan of £50,000 on their own responsibility: but nothing was done until the confederation of the Canadian colonies became an issue. As an inducement to the island to enter the confederation and surrender its right to levy duties upon imports, the sum of $800,000 was advanced. This was accepted, and the Land Purchase Act of 1875 was passed and assented to by the governor-general of the Dominion. This act provided that commissioners should be appointed to determine the value of the estates, and their sale was made compulsory. The proprietors were paid and the tenants were permitted to purchase the fee-simple of their lands by yearly instalments, covering a period of fifteen years. Accordingly this question, which had bred strife and contention for a hundred years, was settled. Whether settled right or wrong, at any rate it was settled.

XIII
THE STRUGGLE FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT

Any history of Prince Edward Island would be conspicuously incomplete if mention were not made of the struggle for responsible government. In this the island was not singular amongst the American colonies. The first assembly of representatives of the people was held in 1773, but they had to supervise their proceedings a lieutenant-governor who was appointed by the crown and a council that was appointed by the lieutenant-governor. They had no control over the expenditure of the moneys they appropriated and they could be dismissed upon the slightest pretext. When the controversy with Lieutenant-Governor Smith was at its height in 1819 the assembly demanded that they ‘should have the same control and power in appropriating public monies’ as was possessed by the other colonies. In the more peaceable administration of Lieutenant-Governor Ready the time seemed auspicious for attacking the powers of the council, and a deadlock between the two bodies resulted. The dispute, of course, was the traditional one about money bills, and it lasted in a most acute form for fifteen years. In 1839 a dispatch was received by Lieutenant-Governor Young ordering him to form an executive apart from the council. In 1847, that is in Lieutenant-Governor Huntley’s time, the assembly passed an address praying that the executive council should be deemed the constitutional advisers of Her Majesty, and that the members should be compelled to resign when they could not approve the acts of her representative. It was also suggested that from the lower house four members of the executive should be chosen, who would be responsible for the acts of the governor. In 1849 Lord Grey sent a consolatory dispatch, in which, however, he was obliged to defer the installation of a complete system of responsible government. In this he had the concurrence of his predecessor, William Ewart Gladstone. The assembly was obdurate and refused to grant supplies, and at the close of the session the lieutenant-governor, Sir Donald Campbell, was obliged to declare: ‘I should fail in the performance of my duty, if I did not express my disapprobation of your premeditated neglect of your legislative functions.’

In the following year some progress was made: the crown revenues were commuted and the cost of the civil list was undertaken by the government. The franchise was extended in 1853, so that it became almost universal; and Sir Alexander Bannerman, the newly appointed lieutenant-governor, dissolved the assembly, with the intention, as some said, of defeating the government. In 1858, Dominick Daly being lieutenant-governor, it was the turn of the council to complain that the executive did not contain a single member from their order, nor did it include any Catholics, although they numbered thirty-two thousand of the population. Five members were added, and in 1862 the legislative council was made elective. The struggle for responsible government was at an end. In time all this paraphernalia of legislation was found too costly and cumbersome, and the two houses were combined into one house of thirty members, of whom one half are elected by property holders, and the other half by property holders and franchise voters together.

XIV
THE CONFEDERATION MOVEMENT

Up to the year 1871 Prince Edward Island was without a railway, and no formal proposal had been made that one should be built. On April 3 of that year a resolution was submitted that a line should be built throughout the length of the island. A committee was appointed to draft a bill, and in two days an act was passed authorizing the construction, providing that the contractors would accept debentures in payment. The cost was not to exceed £5000 a mile, but the act neglected to specify how many miles should be sufficient to connect the terminals. Consequently the contractors made the road as long as possible and secured a double advantage: they avoided expensive cuttings by following the contour of the land and earned an increased subsidy by the greater number of miles. This tortuous length has not proved to be a convenience to those who are obliged to travel by the road. Since Confederation the railway has been operated by the Dominion government at a loss, which is largely due to an inequitable system of book-keeping, to rates that are prohibitive of traffic, to political interference, and to imperfect communication with the mainland. A car-ferry is now in course of construction, and this, it is hoped, will alleviate some at least of these disabilities.

Prince Edward Island joined the confederation of the Canadian colonies July 1, 1873, after a bitter controversy. The island was flourishing. The people had wrested their homes from the wilderness by their own unaided efforts, and the settlement of the land question was in sight. They had obtained a system of government entirely to their liking. They had complete control of their own affairs and a militia quite adequate for their defence. The import duties, low as they were, were sufficient for all public needs, and they could be altered or abolished to suit any contingency that might arise. There was no public debt, since the railway was an asset against the debentures that had been issued for its construction. These debentures had been pledged by the contractors to a local bank in return for advances that were far beyond its powers to support. The securities at the moment were saleable only at a heavy loss, on account of a financial stringency that prevailed in the larger markets of the world. If the cost of building the railway were assumed by the Dominion government, the holders of the debentures would be relieved of the strain; and the directors of the bank were curiously intermingled with the public men of the day. The determination to join the confederation in reality arose from a financial motive. The promoters, however, did not fail to ascribe their activity to considerations of high patriotism, and they had all the help that the Canadian and imperial governments could give. In this illumination the politics of the confederation appear only as a sinister farce.

The matter was first bruited in the assembly of 1864, apparently at the suggestion of the imperial government, as an echo from the legislatures of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, when delegates were appointed to discuss the lesser proposal of a union of the three maritime provinces. The meeting was held in Charlottetown and permission was given for the presence of a delegation from the Canadian government to urge the larger scheme. No proceedings were published, but it was understood that the union of the Maritime Provinces was considered impracticable; and it was proposed that a conference should be held in Quebec to consider the wider view. The delegates proceeded to Quebec by a somewhat indirect route by way of Halifax, St John and Fredericton, and continued their progress to Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. The accounts of the entertainment that they received on the journey are quite ecstatic.

The report of the delegates at the Quebec conference, or the Fathers of Confederation, as they are commonly called, was adopted by the Canadian legislature in 1865; but in Prince Edward Island hostility broke out at once. Public meetings were held, and a resolution that was passed at one conveys the sentiments entertained at all. The terms of union as proposed were declared to be ‘neither liberal nor just, and it was highly inexpedient that they should be adopted.’ A resolution that the terms should be adopted was submitted to the assembly on March 24, 1865. It was defeated by a vote of twenty-three to five. In the following year a resolution was passed by twenty-one votes to seven, ‘that this House deems it to be its sacred and imperative duty to declare and record its conviction, as it now does, that any federal union that would embrace this Island would be as hostile to the feelings and wishes as it would be opposed to the best and most vital interests of its people.’ In January 1870 a minute from the privy council of Canada containing the conditions upon which the island might be admitted to the union was submitted to a committee of the executive, and the committee replied that they ‘could not recommend the terms to the consideration of their constituents and the public.’ In the assembly of the same year a further resolution was adopted by nineteen to four votes, ‘that the people were almost unanimously opposed to any change in the constitution of the colony.’

This matter will bear some amplification by material drawn from the treasury books, from files of newspapers, and from the memories of men who shared in the proceedings. In 1871 two and a half per cent was added to the customs duties to provide for the interest on the debentures issued for railway purposes. In August 1872 an act was passed authorizing the construction of branch lines to Souris and Tignish, and it was made ‘an indispensable condition that contractors accept in payment 30-year debentures at six per cent.’ To meet the interest on these new debentures it was found that no additional taxation was required. Exchange was purchased at three banks to the amount of £12,000 currency to meet the interest which would fall due in London on January 1 and July 1, 1873. Rumours that financial embarrassment would follow the withdrawal of this sum from the finances of the island began to circulate. These were ultimately traced to the bank that held the debentures, but no other bank appears to have apprehended any difficulty.

An alarm was raised that the credit of the province would be strained to the breaking-point by the weight of these debentures. At a public meeting in Charlottetown it was contrived that a resolution should be passed of which the following is the preamble:

Whereas the enormous outlay occasioned by the building of the railway will necessitate largely increased taxation upon the people; and, Whereas the payment of the interest upon the debentures to be issued for that work will withdraw from the ordinary trade of the colony a large portion of the exchange necessary to carry on its commercial pursuits, and will as a consequence cause financial embarrassments of a very serious nature....

At the same time the government had ample funds on deposit in the banks, and a minute of council, dated February 14, 1873, affirmed ‘that the country can undoubtedly sustain the taxation necessary to meet these liabilities.’ In opposition to the claim that the railway could be operated only at a ruinous loss, two of the most prominent public men offered to undertake it at their own risk.

But the combined forces of the government and the embarrassed financial interests were too strong for the opposition to Confederation. The Union Bank of Prince Edward Island had purchased debentures to the amount of $120,000, whilst their total capital was only £30,000 currency or $97,000. The securities were peddled in Halifax but found no takers. The president of the bank for the first time appeared upon the public platform and he was asked the pointed question, how much the bank would make if its assets were guaranteed by the Dominion government.^[1] The government in the minute of council already referred to defined their policy in the words:

It is evident that the promoters of the railway scheme underestimated its cost and calculated on an increased revenue through the expansion of trade which has not been realized, and consequently the people when last consulted laboured to some extent under a false impression as to the amount of taxation which would require to be imposed to meet the liabilities of the colony. In view of this ... if the Dominion government concede liberal terms of confederation, advised that question be at once taken to the polls.

On January 2, 1873, a minute was drawn up by the executive council and forwarded to the governor-general. As a result a delegation was summoned to Ottawa, and R. P. Haythorne and David Laird departed in haste. Upon their return the house was dissolved on March 7. On April 27 the new house met. Next day the question was debated. A resolution was offered that a union should be effected ‘upon terms just and reasonable.’ The government proposed that the terms as offered in a minute of the privy council of Canada dated March 10, 1873, should be accepted. The question was put and the government was defeated by sixteen votes to ten.

The opposition was returned to power in virtue of their promise that they would secure ‘better terms,’ and the unknown was preferred to the known. Terms slightly better, but substantially the same, were conceded to a delegation composed of J. C. Pope, T. H. Haviland and G. W. Howlan, which was sent to Ottawa by the new government, and these the people were prevailed upon to accept. Confederation was then accomplished.

No task is at once so interesting and so futile as that of speculating upon what would have happened if something else had not happened. That is the business of the essayist and not of the historian. And yet any history of Prince Edward Island would be fallacious, because it would be so incomplete, if mention were not made of the decay that set in immediately after the union; and prosperity or decay is invariably expressed in terms of population. According to the census of 1911 the population was 93,722, that is, 299 less than it was forty years before, when it stood at 94,021. The causes working for a reduction began to operate with full force after 1881, and in 1891 the population was seen to be about stationary. By 1901 the loss was nearly six thousand and in 1911 it was 15,356 below the maximum.

In addition all the natural increase has disappeared, and this increase must have been very great, since, according to the census of 1901, the average of each family was the largest in Canada, exceeding even that in the Province of Quebec. In the period from 1871 to 1881 this increase amounted to fifteen per cent, and if that rate had continued the population to-day would stand at 165,616 persons, instead of showing a loss of 71,894. By careful computation it appears that three-fourths of this exodus has gone to the United States.^[2]

The movement of population during the past century is interesting. In 1798 it was 4372; by 1827 it had risen to 23,226. That was the period of the great immigration from Scotland, when it was said that none but the bed-ridden would be left behind. In 1832 there were 32,293 people; in 1841, 47,034; in 1848, 62,634; in 1855, 71,000; in 1861, 80,856; in 1871, 94,021; and there was a steady increase till 1881, when the population reached 108,891, which was within 187 of the maximum. At the time of Confederation the island sent six representatives to the Dominion parliament; to-day it is technically entitled only to three.

But there is evidence that the exodus is stayed. The word has gone forth that the cities of the Eastern states are no longer fit places for wage-earners. The high cost of living has made the situation untenable, since high wages are apparent rather than real. Indeed, there is evidence that the tide of population has turned. Men who went to the United States thirty years ago as artisans find themselves with impaired powers and scant savings. Their sons, instead of being craftsmen, are factory workers or labourers. Fathers and sons are homeless, and they are beginning to remember the pleasant farms which their ancestors occupied. They are coming back in twos and threes to escape the high cost of living, to be no longer victims of the situation, but to profit by providing food for their more unfortunate fellows.

It would be easy to convince any one who has a map in his hand that Prince Edward Island is the least in area of all the provinces. It is hard to explain to the uninstructed how it has come about that this little province has always exercised so large an intellectual influence. The explanation lies in the excellence of the original stock, in the industry and freedom of their lives, in the social system which retained some tincture of gentleness, and in those religious and educational advantages which from the first fell to their lot.

A very wide table on page 192 has been split into two parts to make it more legible.

The footnotes have been renumbered sequentially within each chapter, or subsection.

[The end of Canada and its Provinces Vol 13 of 23 edited by Adam Shortt and Arthur G. Doughty]

(Vols. 1 and 2)	(Vols. 13 and 14)
SECTION I	SECTION VII
NEW FRANCE, 1534-1760	THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES

(Vols. 3 and 4)	(Vols. 15 and 16)
SECTION II	SECTION VIII
BRITISH DOMINION, 1760-1840	THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC

(Vol. 5)	(Vols. 17 and 18)
SECTION III	SECTION IX
UNITED CANADA, 1840-1867	THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO

(Vols. 6, 7, and 8)	(Vols. 19 and 20)
SECTION IV	SECTION X
THE DOMINION: POLITICAL EVOLUTION	THE PRAIRIE PROVINCES

(Vols. 9 and 10)	(Vols. 21 and 22)
SECTION V	SECTION XI
THE DOMINION: INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION	THE PACIFIC PROVINCE

(Vols. 11 and 12)	(Vol. 23)
SECTION VI	SECTION XII
THE DOMINION: MISSIONS; ARTS AND LETTERS	DOCUMENTARY NOTES GENERAL INDEX

Thomas Chapais		Alfred D. DeCelles
F. P. Walton		George M. Wrong
William L. Grant		Andrew Macphail
James Bonar		A. H. U. Colquhoun
D. M. Duncan		Robert Kilpatrick
Thomas Guthrie Marquis

JOSEPH HOWE		Frontispiece
	From a contemporary engraving

CHAMPLAIN’S MAP OF ST CROIX ISLAND AND SURROUNDINGS		Facing page	18

MAP OF THE BAY OF FUNDY		„	24

CHAMPLAIN’S VIEW OF THE SETTLEMENT AT PORT ROYAL		„	30

VESSELS FROM CHAMPLAIN’S MAP OF 1612		„	32

CHAMPLAIN’S MAP OF PORT ROYAL		„	34

ANNAPOLIS ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA		„	72
	From a photograph

PAUL MASCARENE		„	80
	From the painting by T. B. Akins in King’s College, Windsor, N.S.

MAP OF THE SOUTH PART OF NOVA SCOTIA, 1750		„	88

FORT HOWE		„	138
	From a sketch by Ben Marston, 1781

PROVINCE HALL, FREDERICTON, 1820		„	158
	From a contemporary lithograph

PLAN OF NEW BRUNSWICK SETTLEMENTS		„	192

FIRST STEAM SAW-MILL IN NEW BRUNSWICK, 1822		„	194

GENERAL SIR HOWARD DOUGLAS, Bart.		„	198
	From an engraving by William Hoff

LEMUEL ALLAN WILMOT		„	200
	From a photograph

TOWN AND HARBOUR OF HALIFAX, 1760		„	246
	From the drawing by Richard Short

GEORGE RAMSAY, NINTH EARL OF DALHOUSIE		„	268
	From the portrait by Watson Cordon

LORD SELKIRK		„	354
	From a bust in possession of the Women’s Historical Society, Toronto

Government Candidates		Opposition Candidates
Stanton Hazard,	536	Tertullus Dickinson,	650
Christopher Billopp,	512	Alexander Reid,	636
William Pagan,	507	Richard Lightfoot,	627
Jonathan Bliss,	500	Richard Bonsall,	625
Ward Chipman,	497	John Boggs,	615
John M^cGeorge,	494	Peter Grim,	601

Counties	1824	1834	1840	1851	1861
Charlotte	9,267	15,852	18,178	19,938	23,663
St John	12,907	20,668	32,957	38,475	48,922
Kings	7,930	12,195	14,464	18,842	23,283
Queens	4,741	7,204	8,232	10,634	13,359
Sunbury	3,227	3,838	4,260	5,301	6,057
York	10,972	10,478	13,995	17,628	23,393
Carleton	..	9,493	13,381	11,108	16,373
Victoria (M.)	..	..	..	5,408	7,701
Madawaska (Fr.)	..	..	..	..	..
Westmorland (M.)	9,303	14,205	17,686	17,814	25,247
Albert	..	..	..	6,313	9,444
Northumberland (M.)	15,829	11,170	14,620	15,064	18,801
Kent (Fr.)	..	6,031	7,477	11,410	15,854
Gloucester (Fr.)	..	8,323	7,751	11,704	15,076
Restigouche (M.)	..	..	3,161	4,161	4,874
Province	74,176	119,457	156,162	193,800	252,047

Counties	1871	1881	1891	1901	1911
Charlotte	25,882	26,087	23,752	22,415	21,147
St John	52,120	52,966	49,574	51,759	53,572
Kings	24,593	25,617	23,087	21,655	20,594
Queens	13,847	14,017	12,152	11,168	10,897
Sunbury	6,824	6,651	5,762	5,738	6,219
York	27,140	30,397	30,979	31,620	31,561
Carleton	19,938	23,365	22,529	21,621	21,446
Victoria (M.)	11,641	8,676	7,705	8,825	11,588
Madawaska (Fr.)	..	7,010	10,512	12,311	16,634
Westmorland (M.)	29,335	37,719	41,477	42,060	44,621
Albert	10,672	12,329	10,971	10,925	9,691
Northumberland (M.)	20,116	25,109	25,713	28,543	31,194
Kent (Fr.)	19,101	22,618	23,845	23,958	24,376
Gloucester (Fr.)	18,810	21,614	24,897	27,936	32,662
Restigouche (M.)	5,575	7,058	8,308	10,586	15,687
Province	285,594	321,233	321,263	331,120	351,889

			PAGE

THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES IN THE DOMINION: INTRODUCTION. By Andrew Macphail			3

THE ACADIAN SETTLEMENTS AND EARLY HISTORY, 1604-1713. By W. O. Raymond
	THE FIRST EXPLORERS		15
	THE ILL-FATED SETTLEMENT AT ST CROIX		18
	THE FOUNDING OF PORT ROYAL		21
	THE INDIANS OF ACADIA		22
	THE FIRST YEARS AT PORT ROYAL		28
	THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN ARMED CONFLICT		32
	SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER’S FEUDAL COLONY		35
	THE LA TOURS		39
	THE COMING OF THE ACADIANS		40
	FEUDAL STRIFE		42
	THE GROWTH OF ACADIA		52
	KING WILLIAM’S WAR		56
	A SHORT PERIOD OF PEACE		58
	LAST DAYS OF FRENCH RULE IN NOVA SCOTIA		62

NOVA SCOTIA UNDER ENGLISH RULE, 1713-1775. By Archibald MacMechan
I.	AN EXPERIMENT IN GOVERNMENT		69
		Early Organization—The French of Acadie—Annapolis Royal the Centre of Government—The Government and the Acadians—English Rule in Danger—The Founding of Halifax—The Lunenburg Settlement—Establishment of Regular Law-courts
II.	A CRITICAL PERIOD IN NOVA SCOTIA’S HISTORY		89
		The Expulsion of the Acadians—The Seven Years’ War—The First General Assembly—The Immigration Problem—The Submission of the Indians—The Character of Lawrence—The New England Settlers—A ‘Boom’ Time—The Acadians Once More—Instructive Statistics—The Civil Government—Nova Scotia Loyal in Time of Stress

NEW BRUNSWICK: GENERAL HISTORY, 1758-1867. By W. O. Raymond
I.	PIONEER DAYS		127
II.	THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION		132
III.	THE COMING OF THE LOYALISTS		140
IV.	A NEW BRITISH PROVINCE		152
V.	THE FORMATIVE PERIOD OF NEW BRUNSWICK		154
VI.	POLITICS AND INDUSTRY		193

NOVA SCOTIA: GENERAL HISTORY, 1775-1867. By Archibald MacMechan
I.	THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION		213
		Outbreak of War—An Alarming Situation—The ‘Cumberland Rebels’—War at the Gates—Nova Scotia’s Long Parliament—The Partition of Nova Scotia—The Loyalists—The Church of England in Nova Scotia—The Beginning of Literature—The Birth of Provincial Sentiment—The Wars with the French Republic and Napoleon—The War of 1812
II.	FROM WATERLOO TO CONFEDERATION, 1815-67		260
		A Period of Depression—Sir John Sherbrooke—Educational Development—The Progress of Agriculture—Lord Dalhousie—Sir James Kempt—The Establishment of Banks—The Shubenacadie Canal—Catholic Emancipation—Haliburton: the Historian—The Growth of Popular Rule—Nova Scotia’s Greatest Statesman—Samuel Cunard—The Founding of Acadia College—The ‘Aroostook War’—Howe’s Battle with the Lieutenant-Governors—An Era of Railways—The Modern System of Education Founded—Howe’s Great Rival—Nova Scotia and the Crimean War—Howe and Tupper—Nova Scotia and Confederation

THE HISTORY OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. By Andrew Macphail
I.	EARLY HISTORY		305
II.	THE EXPULSION FROM THE ISLAND		321
III.	THE ENGLISH OCCUPATION		331
IV.	A UTOPIAN SCHEME OF SETTLEMENT		339
V.	THE PROPRIETORS		342
VI.	THE RÉGIME OF LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR PATTERSON		345
VII.	LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR FANNING		352
VIII.	PRIVATEER RAIDS		353
IX.	THE SELKIRK COLONISTS		354
X.	THE LOYALISTS		358
XI.	POLITICAL STRIFE		361
XII.	THE LAND QUESTION		363
XIII.	THE STRUGGLE FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT		367
XIV.	THE CONFEDERATION MOVEMENT		369

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES IN THE DOMINION: INTRODUCTION

THE ACADIAN SETTLEMENTS AND EARLY HISTORY, 1604-1713