CHAPTER XIV.
THE MARITIME PROVINCES.
On the outer margin of the great bay into which the waters of the St. Lawrence discharge themselves, there lie certain British provinces which had till now maintained their colonial existence apart from the sister States of the interior. The oldest and most famous of these was Nova Scotia—the Acadie of the French period—within whose limits the Province of New Brunswick had been included. Northwards, across the entrance to the bay, was the island of Newfoundland. The Gulf Stream, moving northwards its vast currents of heated water, meets here an ice-cold stream descending from the Arctic Sea, and is turned eastward towards the coasts of Europe. The St. Lawrence deposits here the accumulations of silt which its waters have disengaged in their lengthened course, and forms great banks which stretch for many hundreds of miles out into the ocean. These banks are the haunt of icebergs escaping from the frozen North; perpetual fogs clothe them in gloom. But they offer to man wealth such as he cannot elsewhere win from the sea. The fisheries of the Newfoundland Banks were the earliest inducement which led Europeans to frequent those seemingly inhospitable shores. The Maritime Provinces were more easily accessible than Canada, for they abounded in commodious inlets where ships could enter and lie secure. They were placed at the difficult entrance to the St. Lawrence valley, and their value was more immediately apparent. Their possession was keenly contended for, at a time when England had not made up her mind to seek, and France scarcely cared to retain, the interior of the northern continent.
The Cabots were the first Europeans who looked upon the rugged shores of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and England therefore claimed those regions as her own. But France actually took possession of the Acadian peninsula. Small settlements were founded here and there, and a profitable trade in furs was carried on with the Indians, who came from great distances on the mainland to acquire the attractive wares which the white men offered. During its first century Acadie had an unquiet life. England would allow the poor colonists no repose. During those periods—and they constantly recurred—when the two great European powers were at war, the roving ships of England were sure to visit the feeble Acadian settlements, bringing ruin, sudden and deep. The colonists of Massachusetts or of distant Virginia, now grown strong, did not wait for the pretext of war, but freely invaded Acadie even during the intervals of peace. The French incautiously provoked the resentment of their Indian neighbours, and the treacherous savages exacted bloody vengeance for their wrongs. And as if foreign hostility were not sufficient, civil wars raged among the Acadians. At one unhappy time there were rival governors in Acadie, with battles, sieges, massacres of Frenchmen by French hands. But even these miseries did not prevent some measure of growth. Before Acadie finally passed away from France, there were twenty thousand Frenchmen engaged in its fisheries and its fur trade.
1713 A.D. A hundred years after the first French settlement on the Acadian peninsula, there came to a close, in the reign of Queen Anne, the desolating war against Louis XIV., which King William had deemed essential to the welfare of Europe. England, as was her practice at such seasons, had possessed herself of Acadie. Hitherto she had been accustomed to restore Acadie at the close of each war. Now she determined to retain it; and exhausted France submitted, by the treaty of Utrecht, to the loss. Acadie became Nova Scotia; Port Royal became Annapolis, in honour of the English Queen. Cape Breton, an island adjoining Acadie on the north, was suffered to remain a French possession; and here France hastened, at vast expense, to build and fortify Louisburg, for the protection of her American trade. Thirty years later, the English besieged and took Louisburg. France strove hard, but vainly, to regain a fortress the loss of which shook her hold of all her American possessions. A great fleet sailed from France to achieve this conquest. But evil fortune attended it from the outset. The English captured some of the ships; tempest wrecked or scattered the others. Fresh efforts invited new disasters; the attempt to repossess Louisburg was closed by the destruction or capture of an entire French fleet. But France had fought more successfully in India, and when the terms of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle came to be adjusted, she received back Louisburg in exchange for Madras. 1748 A.D. It remained in her possession for ten years more, and then passed finally away from her, along with all the rest of her American territory.
The first care of England, when Nova Scotia became decisively hers, was to provide herself with a fortified harbour and naval station adequate to the wants of her extended dominion. Her ships in large numbers frequented those Western waters, intent upon the protection of her own interests and the overthrow of the interests of France. Some well-defended and easily-accessible position was required, where fleets could rendezvous, where ships could refit, from which the possessions of France in the north and of Spain in the south could be menaced. A site was chosen on the eastern shore of the island, where a magnificent natural harbour opens to the sea. Here, on a lofty slope, arose the town of Halifax, the great centre of British naval influence on the American coast. 1749 A.D. Four thousand adventurers arrived from England, tempted by liberal offers of land. During the months of one brief summer, houses were built, and defences were erected against unfriendly neighbours. The forest trees of that lovely hill-side disappeared, and in their place arose a busy English town.
The Indians of Nova Scotia did not look with approval upon the occupation of their territory by the English. They lurked in the woods around Halifax, or they stole silently along by night in their light canoes, and as they found fitting opportunity they plundered and slew. Once they burst upon the sleeping crews of two vessels lying in the harbour, murdering some, and carrying away others to be sold to the French at Louisburg. England held the Frenchmen of the province responsible for these outrages. The Acadians were a simple, light-hearted people, living contentedly in the rude comfort which the harvest of sea and of land yielded to them. But they did not at once assent to the revolution which handed them over to a foreign power, and they refused to swear allegiance to the English King. The Governor dealt very sternly with these reluctant subjects. 1755 A.D. He gathered up as many as he could find, and having crowded them on board his ships, he scattered them among the southern English colonies. He burned their houses, he confiscated their goods. Nearly one-half of the Acadians were thus sent forcibly away from homes which were rightfully their own. Of the others, some escaped into the woods, and finally into Canada. Many perished under this cruel treatment, and nearly all fell from comparative ease and comfort into extreme wretchedness.
For some years Nova Scotia was without any semblance of representative government, contenting herself with the mild despotism of the Governor. At length, when this arrangement ceased to give satisfaction, an Assembly chosen by the people met in Halifax. Henceforth Nova Scotia enjoyed the privilege of self-government, and her political history runs for the most part parallel with that of Canada. 1758 A.D. She had the same prolonged conflict with the Governor in regard to control of the revenue, the same grievance of a despotic family compact, the same determination that the advisers of the Governor should be responsible to the Assembly. The population was mixed and inharmonious. There were Germans and Dutchmen; there were some remnants of the Acadians who had been permitted to return; there were American loyalists fleeing before triumphant republicanism; there were the English who founded Halifax. Soon, however, the preponderance of the English element was decisive, and Nova Scotia was spared those envenomed dissensions which difference of race originated in the Canadian provinces. At the close of her separate existence Nova Scotia did not embrace with entire cordiality the project of confederation. A strong minority opposed union. But wiser counsels in the end prevailed, and this province, although not without hesitation, cast in her lot with the others.
Nova Scotia has an area equal to rather more than one-half that of Scotland, with a population of four hundred thousand persons; and as nearly all of these are natives of the province, it does not appear that many strangers have recently sought homes upon her soil. The country is beautifully diversified with valley and with hill, and bright with river and with lake. Much of the land is abundantly fertile, and a careful and intelligent system of cultivation is practised. Near the sea-board are vast treasures of coal and iron, of copper and tin. No equal length of coast in any part of the world has been more abundantly supplied with convenient harbours. In a distance of one hundred miles there are no fewer than twelve harbours capable of receiving the largest vessels in the British navy. The salmon rivers of Acadie are second only to those of Scotland. The ocean-fishings are so productive that Nova Scotia exports products of the sea to the annual value of one million sterling.