The population of New Brunswick at the time of its separation from Nova Scotia, in 1784, was about 12,000. The governments of both provinces were similarly constituted—a Governor, an Executive and Legislative Council, members of the latter appointed by the Crown for life, and an Assembly or House of Commons, elected periodically by the freeholders: and both provinces were prosperous and contented for many years under successive governors, who seemed to have ruled impartially, and for the best interests of the people, though with narrower views of free government than those which obtained at a later period. The Loyalists not only obtained the establishment of New Brunswick as a province, but constituted the principal members of its Legislature, the officers of its government, and founders of its institutions; and the chief public men of the province have been from that day to this either U.E. Loyalists or their descendants.
Mr. Andrew Archer, in his excellent History of Canada for the Use of Schools, prescribed by the Board of Education for New Brunswick, gives the following account of the formation of the government of that province, and its founders:
"On Sunday, the 21st of November, 1784, Colonel Thomas Carleton (brother to Sir Guy Carleton), the first Governor of New Brunswick, arrived in St. John harbour and landed at Reed's Point. He had commanded a regiment during the revolutionary war, and was much esteemed by his Majesty's exiled Loyalists. The province was formally proclaimed the next day.
"The government of New Brunswick consisted of a Governor and a Council that united both executive and legislative functions, and a House of Assembly of twenty-six representatives. The Council was composed of twelve members. They were men of great talent, and had occupied before the war positions of influence in their native States. Chief Justice Ludlow had been a judge of the Supreme Court of New York; James Putman was considered one of the ablest lawyers in all America; the Rev. and Hon. Jonathan Odell, first Provincial Secretary, had acted as chaplain in the Royal army, practised physic and written political poetry; Judge Joshua Upham, a graduate of Harvard, abandoned the Bar during the war, and became a colonel of dragoons; Judge Israel Allen had been colonel of a New Jersey Volunteer corps, and lost an estate in Pennsylvania through his devotion to the Loyalist cause; Judge Edward Winslow, nephew of Colonel John Winslow, who executed the decree that expelled the Acadians from Nova Scotia, had attained the rank of colonel in the Royal army; Beverley Robinson had raised and commanded the Loyal American Regiment, and had lost great estates on Hudson river; Gabriel G. Ludlow had commanded a battalion of Maryland Volunteers; Daniel Bliss had been a commissary of the Royal army; Elijah Willard had taken no active part in the war; William Hagen and Guildford Studholme were settled in the province before the landing of the Loyalists; Judge John Saunders, of a cavalier family in Virginia, had been captain in the Queen's Rangers, under Colonel Simcoe, and had afterwards entered the Temple and studied law in London. He was appointed to the Council after the death of Judge Putman. The government of the young province was governed with very few changes for several years.
"The town and district of Parr was incorporated in 1785, and became the city of St. John. It was the first, and long continued to be the only incorporated town in British America. It was governed by a mayor and a board of six aldermen and six assistants. The first two sessions of the General Assembly (1786-87) met in St. John. On meeting the Legislature at its first session, Governor Carleton expressed his satisfaction at seeing the endeavours of his Majesty to procure for the inhabitants the protection of a free government in so fair a way of being finally successful. He spoke of the peculiar munificence which had been extended to New Brunswick—the asylum of loyalty—and all the neighbouring States; and expressed his conviction that the people could not show their gratitude in a more becoming manner than by promoting sobriety, industry, and religion; by discouraging all factious and party distinctions, and by inculcating the utmost harmony between the newly-arrived Loyalists and the subjects formerly settled in the province.
"Two years afterwards (1788), the seat of government was removed to St. Anne's Point, Fredericton, which was considered the most central position in the province. It is said that Fredericton was chosen to be the seat of government because Albany, the seat of the Legislature of New York (from which State the great body of the Loyalists came), is situated many miles up the River Hudson, and is thus removed from the distracting bustle, the factious and corrupting influences of the great commercial metropolis at its mouth."[149]
FOOTNOTES:
[149] Chap. xxvi., pp. 260-262.