Founded in 1749, Halifax, on the coast of Nova Scotia, was, in 1752, a town of 4,000 inhabitants. Had the settlement been made thirty years earlier, immediately after the Peace of Utrecht instead of after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the story of Acadia would have been a different and probably a happier one. Mascarene at Annapolis, and Shirley at Boston, saw the necessity of introducing English settlers into the peninsula in order to balance the French malcontents, and the British Government, when giving back Louisbourg to France, recognized at length that steps must be taken to strengthen the English hold on Nova Scotia. It was determined to recruit the English, or at any rate the Protestant, element in the population from Europe, from the North American colonies, and from the ranks of the men who were withdrawn from Louisbourg; and Chebucto harbour on the Atlantic coast of the Nova Scotian peninsula was selected as the scene of a new township to be well fortified and strongly garrisoned.
| The first settlers at Halifax. Cornwallis. |
Here was created the city of Halifax, called after the Earl of Halifax, at the time 'First Lord of Trade and Plantations.' In founding it, the English had regard to the methods by which the French had established their colonies on the St. Lawrence. Halifax was in its origin a military colony. The first settlers consisted largely of officers and privates of the army and navy, who, when peace was concluded, received their discharge and who were supplemented by a certain number of labourers and artizans. Parliament voted £40,000 in aid of the initial expenses. Free passages, free grants of land, and the cost of subsistence for a year after landing were provided, privileges which secured a considerable number of colonists; 1,400 immigrants were landed from the first batch of transports at Chebucto harbour,2 and others followed. A good Governor was appointed, Colonel Edward Cornwallis, uncle of Lord Cornwallis who surrendered at Yorktown and ruled India.
2 It is difficult to make out the numbers. The above figure is given by Cornwallis in a letter to the Lords of Trade, July 24, 1749 (see Mr. Brymer's Catalogue of Canadian Archives, 'Nova Scotia,' p. 142). On the other hand passages were taken for over 2,500 (p. 138). Haliburton says, 'in a short time 3,760 adventurers with their families were entered for embarkation.' Parkman puts the number at about 2,500, including women and children, Kingsford at 1,176 settlers with their families. Parliament for some years continued to make annual grants for the colonization of Nova Scotia, 'which collected sums,' says Haliburton, 'amounted to the enormous sum of £415,584 14s. 11d.'
| The Lunenburg settlement. |
Old soldiers do not always make good colonists, and Cornwallis wrote home complaining of their want of industry, contrasting the English unfavourably with a few Swiss who were among the newcomers, and suggesting that an effort should be made to introduce Protestant emigrants from Germany. Accordingly, German Lutherans were brought over through an agent at Rotterdam, the majority of whom were, in 1753, planted out at Lunenburg, a little to the south-west of Halifax, on the same side of the peninsula. Thus the outer margin of Nova Scotia was being sparsely colonized with English, Swiss, and German Protestants, while on the side towards the mainland, along the shores of the Bay of Fundy, the Roman Catholic Acadians remained French in heart and sympathies.
| The commissioners to fix the limits of Acadia. Designs of the French on Acadia. |
For three years following the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the French and English commissioners, appointed to determine the limits of the French and English possessions in North America, wrangled at Paris, William Shirley being one of the English delegates; but they never came to any conclusion. The French now refused even to concede that the whole of the Acadian peninsula belonged to England, and wished to confine English sovereignty to its southern coasts. They were in fact resolved by bluff or by force either to regain Acadia, or, in default of attaining that object, to make its condition one of permanent insecurity and unrest. As related in the last chapter,3 immediately after the Peace of Utrecht the intention of the French Government had been to transplant the Acadians to French soil, to Cape Breton Island and to Prince Edward Island, then known as Île St. Jean. For this policy they subsequently substituted the more dangerous plan of not removing the Acadians, but encouraging them to consider themselves still as French subjects while remaining under the British flag. After the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed, however, they reverted to their project of transplantation, finding that the British Government were resolved no longer to treat their subjects in Acadia as neutrals, and realizing that the Governor had now force at his back.
3 See [above].
| Position of the Acadians. Attitude of Cornwallis. |