NOVA SCOTIA.
PRELIMINARY NOTES.
By E. D. BACON.
Nova Scotia is a peninsula between 43° 46′ N. lat., and 61° 67′ W. long., connected with New Brunswick by an isthmus about 14 miles wide. Its length is about 300 miles, and its breadth about 100 at its widest, with much variation. The island of Cape Breton, separated by the Gut of Canso, forms part of the province. It contains an area of 20,907 square miles, about one-fifth part of which consists of lakes, rivers, and inlets of the sea.
Nova Scotia was discovered by John Cabot in 1497; it was colonized by the French in 1598, who gave it the name of Acadia. It was taken by the English, and a grant of it made to Sir W. Alexander by James I. in 1627; and it was this monarch who altered the name to Nova Scotia. In 1632 it was restored to France, with Quebec, by the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, but again ceded to England at the Peace of Utrecht, in 1714. After the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, a settlement of disbanded troops was formed there by Lord Halifax, and the city which now bears his name is the capital of the province. Cape Breton was not finally taken from the French until 1758. From 1784 to 1819 it formed a separate Colony.
Thanks to Mr. Donald A. King’s persevering assiduity in hunting up official notices, and other particulars connected with the stamps of this Colony, we have from him what may be considered almost a complete history of their introduction and use. His papers are most interesting and valuable, as they elucidate many previously obscure points in regard to these stamps, and I think the Society has acted wisely in republishing them as they originally appeared in The Halifax Philatelist. Amongst other information Mr. King gives from the Report of the Postmaster-General of Nova Scotia for the year 1852 occurs this sentence: “Postage stamps valued at One Shilling, Six Pence, and Three Pence have been procured from Trelayney Saunders, Esq., stationer, of London.” Trelawney (as the name should be spelt) Saunders is given in Kelly’s Post Office London Directory of 1851 as a “mapseller, publisher, and stationer, agent by appointment for the ordnance maps and admiralty charts,” &c. &c.; and his address was 6, Charing Cross. He it was who evidently received the order from the Colony for a supply of postage stamps, which he must have entrusted to Messrs. Perkins, Bacon, and Co. to carry out, as it was this latter firm who engraved the stamps.
Mr. King gives an extract from one of the Reports, which authorizes the bisection of the Three Pence to allow the prepayment of the 7½d. rate to England; but the Report states distinctly the Three Penny stamp was alone to be used for that purpose. As in the case of New Brunswick, both the Six Pence and One Shilling are found bisected. The Nova Scotia varieties are probably due to the same causes as those I have given for the former Colony. The following particulars found in the Report of the Postmaster-General of Great Britain, published in 1857, will give us the early postal rates of Nova Scotia:
“In 1842, ’51, ’53, ’54, and ’56 measures were successively adopted for the establishment of a low rate of postage.