"As Governor, he exerted his uncommon abilities with unwearied application, and the most disinterested zeal in projecting and executing every useful design that might render this Province and its rising settlements flourishing and happy. He encouraged the industrious, rewarded the deserving, excited the indolent, protected the oppressed and relieved the needy. His affability and masterly address endeared him to all ranks of people, and a peculiar greatness of soul made him superior to vanity, envy, avarice or revenge.
"In him we have lost the guide and guardian of our interests, the reflection on the good he has done, the anticipation of great things still expected from such merits, and circumstances which, while they redound to his honour, aggravate the sense of our irreparable misfortune."
About the end of October, Commodore Lord Colville arrived in the harbor with the Northumberland and three other ships of the line and several frigates from Quebec. The Sloop-of-War England also arrived from England with dispatches and next day sailed for Louisburg and Quebec. Several transports also came in about the same time with Col. Montgomery's Highlanders to relieve the two battalions of the 60th Royal Americans.
Among the advertisements in the Halifax Gazette of 1st November, 1760, is the following:
"To be sold at public auction, on Monday the 3rd of November, at the house of Mr. John Rider, two Slaves, viz.: a boy and girl, about eleven years old; likewise, a puncheon of choice old cherry brandy, with sundry other articles."
1759. Among the town officers nominated by the Grand Jury this year were, John Fillis, Richd. Wenman, Richd. Gibbon and Wm. Schwartz as Commissioners of the poor for the town.
Surveyors of Highways, Chas. Morris, Esq., Chas. Proctor, Esq., Mr. Wm. Prescott and Mr. John Rider.
This year an Act of the Legislature was passed to regulate the Sambro Light House at the entrance of Halifax Harbor, which had been erected the previous year at the expense of £1000. The Work House was also erected this year. Firing guns within the town and peninsula was forbidden in 1758 under a penalty.
The accession of King George the Third was proclaimed at Halifax on the 11th February, 1761, with great ceremony. The proclamation was first read at the Court House door,[38] then at the north gate of the town,[39] at Government House, at the south gate,[40] and lastly on the Parade, where the troops were drawn up and a salute fired by the artillery. Lord Colville's fleet being in the harbour at the time, "each ship fired a Royal Salute, beginning with his Lordship's flagship the Northumberland."
The order of the procession on this occasion was as follows:—1st, A Company of Grenadiers; 2nd, Constables of the Town; 3rd, Magistrates; 4th, Civil Officers of Government; 5th, Constables; 6th, The Provost Marshall with two deputies on horseback; 7th, a Band of Music; 8th, Constables; 9th, The Commander-in-Chief of the Province, the Honorable Jonathan Belcher, with Admiral Lord Colville and Colonel Foster, commandant of the Garrison, and the members of His Majesty's Council; 10th, the Speaker and the members of the House of Assembly, followed by the principal inhabitants. At three o'clock the company waited on the Commander-in-Chief at Governor Lawrence's head tavern, where a very elegant entertainment was provided for them, and after dinner His Majesty's health was drunk under Royal Salute from the Batteries, also other toasts, and the evening concluded with great rejoicings and illuminations, bon-fires and artificial fire works, played off by the Royal Artillery. A sermon was afterwards ordered to be preached (13th February, 1761) in St. Paul's Church, on account of the decease of the late King, and all public amusements were ordered to cease for one month from that day. The 17th was accordingly set apart and the sermon preached by the Rev. T. Wood, the Curate. Part of St. Paul's church was hung in black, and minute guns were fired for an hour and a half, and the flags on the Citadel and George's Island were half-mast during the day.