NOVA SCOTIA AND NEW ENGLAND DURING THE REVOLUTION

Ar the beginning of the American Revolution it was not a foregone conclusion that Nova Scotia would continue loyal to the crown of England and that the other British colonies on the continent would all become independent. Yet writers dealing with the period frequently assume that Nova Scotia was from the first in a class altogether distinct from that of the revolting colonies, and therefore do not think her exceptional course of action worthy of remark. For instance, Green1 says that all the colonies "adopted the cause of Massachusetts; and all their Legislatures, save that of Georgia, sent delegates to a Congress which assembled on the 4th of September at Philadelphia". In this statement Nova Scotia is altogether ignored. But, had this province made a fourteenth state in the Union, there is little doubt that the difficulty of England's holding Canada, especially during the season when the St. Lawrence was frozen, would have been enormously increased; and it is probable that England, like her rival France, would have been driven out of America. The attitude of Nova Scotia during the contest has therefore more than a merely local interest.

At first sight it is difficult to understand why Nova Scotia did not follow the lead of New England. The character of the population did not promise any high degree of loyalty. It was composed largely of emigrants from New England, who had only recently, at the time of the Stamp Act agitation, left their old homes; and there was another element of danger to the British connection in the presence of a number of Acadians who had escaped the intended doom of exile or had contrived to return to the province. In April, 1761, Belcher reported that there were 1,540 Acadians who had not yet submitted and who were fitting out armed vessels to prey on the trading ships. The hostility of the Acadians usually involved that of the Indians, who were still much under French influence. They

1 A Short History of the English People, New York, 1877, 741.

2 Belcher, chief-justice of Nova Scotia, to Lords of Trade, April 14, 1761, Manuscript Volume 37, no. 6, in Provincial Library, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Copies of this despatch and of most of those cited below are in the above-named library, which contains a valuable collection of documents relating to the early history of the province. Some of these are originals; others are transcripts from papers in the British Museum, the Massachusetts Public Records, etc.

numbered in 1764 about six hundred fighting men, a formidable force in a country of small and scattered settlements.'

It had been part of Lawrence's plan to settle some of the New England troops upon the fertile lands from which they had been employed to drive the Acadians, but these troops had not chosen to remain, and it was not till the reduction of Louisburg in 1758 that the resettlement of the "vacated" French lands really began, for as long as the Acadians and Indians received encouragement from Cape Breton, new settlers entered the country with their lives in their hands. But within three months after the fall of the fortress Lawrence issued a proclamation3 (with a description attached), inviting applications as well for the "lands vacated by the French as every other part of this valuable Province". He described in detail the unique advantages of the lands at his disposal-extensive forests, rich farms, already cleared, and navigable rivers falling into the Bay of Fundy. With special enthusiasm he dwelt on the fact that the new-comers would find their way prepared by the exiled Acadians, and that they might at once go in and possess fruitful orchards, fields stocked with English grass, and "interval plough-lands ", upon which for a century the crops had never been known to fail. In another proclamation, he promised liberty of conscience to all Protestant dissenters, assured them that they would not be required to give any support to the Church of England, and explained that the government and system of justice in Nova Scotia resembled that of Massachusetts.

The people of New England showed themselves very ready to go in and possess the lands of the unfortunate Acadians. Before the close of 1759, one hundred seven Massachusetts men had received grants in the township of Annapolis; nearly three hundred others of the same province had "signed " for lands in the townships of East Passage, Shoreham (on Mahone Bay), and Liverpool; and the township of Yarmouth had been allotted to a number of applicants, of whom nine or ten came from Philadelphia, and over a hundred from different parts of New England. This by no means ex

1 Wilmot, governor of Nova Scotia, to Lords of Trade, June 24, 1764, MS. Volume 39, no. 9. See also Douglas Brymner, Report on Canadian Archives, 1894, 255.

2 Lords of Trade to Lieutenant-governor Lawrence, July 8, 1756; see Report on Canadian Archives, 1894, 210. In a few cases, as above, when I have not had access to the document in question, I have made use of the abstracts, in many instances very full, in the above report.

3 Council Book, III, MS. Volume 211, 27, 28. This is a copy of the minutes of the meetings of the governor of Nova Scotia and his council. The original minutes are in the Provincial Library at Halifax, but the references here are always to the copy.

5 Papers connected with Settlement of old Townships, Nova Scotia Provincial Library, MS. Volume 359.

hausts the list of immigrants. In September of this year, Lawrence stated that the total number of families to be settled before the close of 1762 was 2,550, or about 12,250 souls. But it appears that, in a number of cases, the grantees never actually took possession of their lands, for in 1766,2 counting the former inhabitants with the newcomers, there were in Nova Scotia only 2,375 families, or 9,789 persons, including what is now the province of New Brunswick. If we may assume the correctness of Chief-justice Belcher's estimate of 3,000 as the number of English inhabitants in Nova Scotia in 1755, it will be seen that the increase was by no means inconsiderable; and had Lawrence been permitted to manage matters as he thought best, it might have been much greater than it was.'

The glimpses we obtain of the New England settlers give the impression of an energetic, self-reliant people, jealous, like their compatriots, of any encroachment on their liberty. In June, 1760, the first settlers arrived at Liverpool, N. S., with live stock and thirteen fishing-schooners. Some of the party immediately betook themselves to the Banks to fish, while the rest set up three sawmills, and began to build houses for their families. Both Lawrence and Belcher reported that the settlements at Horton, Cornwallis, and Falmouth were prospering, but by the end of 1761 Belcher complained of the exorbitant price demanded by the New-Englanders for their labor. He said that, while the Irish were willing to work "in common labour" for two shillings per day, the New-Englanders would not work for less than four.

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Of all the new settlers, the people of Liverpool' seem to have been most imbued with the spirit of their Boston brethren. In the 1 Lawrence to Lords of Trade, September 20, 1759 (enclosure), Report on Canadian Archives, 1894, 218.

2 Abstract of number of inhabitants, etc., December 31, 1766, MS. Volume 43, paper 15.

3 Belcher's opinion on removal of Acadians, of July 28, 1755, Report on Canadian Archives, 1894, 206.

He was informed by a letter from the Lords of Trade, dated August 1, 1759, that his duty with respect to the lands was simply to receive and transmit proposals. See Report on Canadian Archives, 1894, 218; Council Book, III, MS. Volume 211, 95, 96. About this same time there were extensive schemes on foot to bring colonists from the other American colonies and from Ireland, but complaints were made that difficulties were thrown in the way of those bringing out settlers. See Memorial of Colonel Alex ander McNutt, April 17, 1766, MS. Volume 31, no. 53. Several hundred from the north of Ireland were in fact brought over. See Lords of Trade to King, April 8, 1762, Report on Canadian Archives, 1894, 232.

5 Lawrence to Lords of Trade, June 16, 1760, MS. Volume 36, no. 48. See also Report on Canadian Archives, 1894, 221.

6 Belcher to Lords of Trade, November 3, 1761, MS. Volume 37, no. 11; Report

on Canadian Archives, 1894, 228.

7 Council Book, III, MS. Volume 211, 250.

minutes of the council of Nova Scotia, under date of July 24, 1762, is a remarkable document drawn up by the inhabitants of this little sea-coast town, which could then count scarcely more than two years from the day of its first settlement, insisting in no measured terms on their right to local self-government :

We, your memorialists, proprietors of the township of Liverpool, look upon ourselves to be freemen, and under the same constitution as the rest of His Majesty King George's other subjects, not only by His Majesty's Proclamation, but because we were born in a country of Liberty, in a land that belongs to the Crown of England, therefore we conceive we have right and authority invested in ourselves (or at least we pray we may) to nominate and appoint men among us to be our Committee and to do other offices that the Town may want. His present Excellency . . . and the Council of Halifax have thought proper to disrobe and deprive us of the above privilege, which we first enjoyed. This we imagine is encroaching on our Freedom and liberty and depriving us of a privilege that belongs to no body of people but ourselves, and whether the alteration and choice of the Men you have chosen to be our Committee is for the best or not we can't think so, and it has made great uneasiness among the people insomuch that some families have left the place and hindered others from coming, and we know some of the Committee is not hearty for the settlement of this place.

The petitioners complained that the said committee discouraged fishermen by saying that "they want farmers and that the township is full ", but “we say, 'Encourage both "". "Therefore we pray", continued the memorial," that we may have the privilege to chose our own Committee and other officers, as it will greatly pacify us and the rest of the people of the township, and what we must insist on as it belongs to us alone to rule ourselves as we think ourselves capable".

Liverpool was the only place in Nova Scotia to show "public marks of discontent" on the imposition of the stamp-duty.1 Again, a little later, this town was the scene of a riotous resistance to the law, as represented in the persons of the sheriff and deputy-sheriff of the county of Lunenburg. These officers had come to Liverpool in pursuit of a schooner that had been seized at New Dublin for some breach of the revenue laws and had escaped. Not seeing her in the harbor, they went into the town to make inquiries, but on the following night a mob of fifty men, armed with sticks and cutlasses, threatened the sheriff's life and forced him to sign a bond for 300l. "not to pursue the schooner any further ".

Such manifestations of sympathy with persons engaged in illicit trade were a marked feature of the times in all the American colonies.

1 Wilmot to Lords of Trade, November 19, 1765, MS. Volume 37, no. 46. See also Report on Canadian Archives, 1894, 265.

2 Council Book, IV, MS. Volume 212, 45.

With regard to restrictions on trade, Nova Scotia was of course in much the same position as New England. For instance, in the royal commission' to Governor Wilmot there is a clause forbidding him, on account of the complaints of London merchants, to assent to any bill by which the inhabitants of Nova Scotia would be put, in her own trade, on a more advantageous footing than those of England. Neither might he assent to bills laying duties on British shipping, products, or manufactures. The tender solicitude for British interests, to the exclusion of all others, went so far that the governor was forbidden to assent to the laying of import or export duties on negroes, which might tend to dicourage British trade with Africa; nor might the province protect her self against undesirable immigration by laying any duty on the importation of felons from Great Britain. Wilmot was indeed commanded to suppress the " engrossing of commodities, as tending to the prejudice of that freedom, which Trade and Commerce ought to have, and to use his best endeavours in the improvement of the trade of those parts by settling such orders and regulations therein as may be most acceptable to the generality of the inhabitants ". But in the same clause the governor was forbidden, on pain of the king's highest displeasure, to "assent to any bill for setting up manufactures or carrying on trades", which might prove "hurtful and prejudicial" to England. Legge's commission, dated 1773, is in many clauses identical with that of Wilmot. The clause concerning the slave-trade, and another requiring the governor to do his utmost to facilitate the conversion to Christianity of Indians and negroes, is the same.

In Nova Scotia there was, however, comparatively little reason for popular discontent with the navigation laws. There was practically no manufacturing in the province. Two distillers of rum, a sugar baker, and two hatters constituted the list of manufacturers'. A little linen was sold by the Irish settlers, but there was good ground for hoping that such an objectionable practice would disappear when the people were more fully employed in the agricultural pursuits which became them. Lord William Campbell went so far as to ask permission to open and use the coal-mines of Cape Breton, and even ventured to issue licenses for the digging of coals. But though he said that the colliery could never interfere with England, his action 1 Royal instructions, March 16, 1764, MS. Volume 349.

2 MS. Volume 349.

3 Michael Francklin to Shelburne, November 21, 1766, MS. Volume 42, no. 6. See also Francklin to Hillsborough, July 11, 1768, Report on Canadian Archives,

1894, 287.

5 Campbell to Shelburne, February 27, 1767, MS. Volume 43, no. 1. See also Report on Canadian Archives, 1894, 276.