Читать книгу History of Halifax City - Akins Thomas B. - Страница 2

The winter of 1749-50, as has been before mentioned, was spent in continual apprehension of Indian and French invasion, and in preparations to receive the enemy. On the 7th January, 1750, a number of the inhabitants petitioned that Martial Law should be declared, but the Governor and Council did not consider the danger so great or imminent as to make it necessary. However, stringent regulations with regard to the militia were enacted, and an ordinance was issued compelling all settlers able to bear arms between 16 and 60, to be formed into 10 companies of 70 men each,21 and a guard of – officers and 30 men to assemble every evening near the parade to keep guard until sunrise, and all militia men called upon to labour at the fortifications, were to be allowed 1s. per day. Labourers were constantly employed in raising a barricade and continuing it to the water side, and block houses were erected between the forts.

During the winter intelligence frequently arrived from Minas, Pisiquid, and the eastern shore, of attacks being made by the Indians upon stragglers, and several young Acadians were brought from Minas to Halifax for trial, having been found in arms with the Indians. A large reward was offered for the apprehension of LeLoutre, the Indian missionary, and also £10 sterling for every Indian scalp or Indian prisoner. Capt. Sylvanus Cobb, an active and bold sea captain from Massachusetts, was taken into Government employ, and sent to Chignecto with his armed sloop for the purpose of surprising LeLoutre and his gang, and afterwards to search the harbors along the coast for Indians, and bring with him all he captured as prisoners to Halifax. Troops under Capt. Bartilo and others were sent into the interior and other active proceedings taken by the Governor and Council during the months of January and February for the peace of the province. A courier having been stopped at Cobequid, Priest Gourard and the French Deputies, were all brought to Halifax, by Capt. Bartilo, for examination before the Governor and Council; Gourard was detained at Government House until the courier returned, but the deputies were dismissed. He disclosed the fact to the Council that the Mic-Mac Indians of Nova Scotia went every year to Quebec, to receive clothing from the French Government, and that LeCorn had made the French of Acadia take the Oath of Allegiance to the French King. Gourard on this occasion took the Oath of Allegiance to the Crown of Great Britain, and thereupon received a licence to officiate as Priest to the Acadians, and promised not to leave the province without special leave from the Governor.

Among the municipal regulations this winter, was an ordinance that all persons found breaking the liquor license law, should be put one hour in the public stocks, and for the second offence receive twenty lashes. These severe regulations were found to be absolutely necessary, in consequence of the demoralized state of the settlement from settlers and others who infested the town and who were not settlers.

On the 2nd February, 1750, an ordinance was passed in Council, prohibiting the recovery of any debt contracted in England or elsewhere prior to the establishment of the settlement or to the debtor's arrival in Halifax, in any Court of Law within the province, except for goods imported into the Colonies. There appears to have been some difference of opinion at the Board on the subject; the Council divided, and the ordinance was carried by a small majority.

It was proposed in Council about this time, to build a quay along the shore in front of the town, but several merchants – Mr. Saul, Mr. Joshua Mauger and others, having applied for water lots, and liberty to build wharves on the beach, the subject was referred to Mr. Morris the surveyor, and Mr. Bruce the engineer. They thought the quay was a work of time and required means from England. Licences to build wharves were therefore granted, with a reservation of the right of the Crown in case the quay should be resolved on or the frontage required for government purposes. This scheme was afterwards abandoned by Government, and the licences remained unrepealed. At this period the line of the shore was so irregular, as in some places to afford only a footpath between the base line of the lots, which now form the upper side of Water Street and high water mark;22 at the Market the tide flowed up nearly to where the [old] City Court House stood, forming a cove, the outlet of a brook which came down north of George Street. Near the Ordnance Yard another cove made in, and this part of the shore was low and swampy many years after the batteries were built.23

The winter passed without any attack on the settlement, and the people were all quite healthy. The number of settlers was daily augmented by almost every vessel which arrived from New England and elsewhere; every thing required was provided for them, that they should be tolerably comfortable before the cold weather set in. The winter was very fine, very few extreme bad days, no heavy snow storms, the navigation never stopped in the slightest degree. More fine days and fewer bad ones (says the Governor) than I ever saw in winter. Spring opened early with fine warm days and thaw, and the fishing schooners began early in March to go upon the Bank.24 The snow lay all the winter, from the middle of January; it was, however, only three feet deep in the woods. The healthy condition of the settlers may be inferred from there never being more than 25 in the hospital ship at any one time.

By the 19th March, a place had been erected for a public Hospital, and a school building commenced for the orphan children. The French from the interior engaged freely for money to square timber for the erection of the blockhouses, and preparations were in progress for the completion of the Church.

A meeting of the Governor and Council took place on 19th April, when the French Deputies again appeared with a petition to be permitted to sell their lands and leave the country. The names of these deputies were Jaques Teriot from Grand Pre, Francois Granger from River de Canard, Battiste Galerne and Jean André.

Mr. Cornwallis was continually embarrassed by letters from the Board of Trade, finding fault with the expenses incurred in planting the settlement. £40,000 had been voted by Parliament, and £36,000 of excess had been demanded as a further vote; this could not be considered so great an expenditure under all the circumstances, as it included the pay and equipment of two regiments of infantry. In his replies, he says, "Not a pound shall be expended by me unnecessarily, but without money you could have had no town, no settlement, and indeed no settlers. 'Tis very certain that the public money cleared the ground, built the town, secured it, kept both soldiers and settlers from starving with cold, and has brought down above 1000 settlers from the other Colonies. Lots in Halifax are now worth 50 guineas. If there was no public money circulating, lots would be given for a gallon of rum. The money is laid out in building forts, barracks, store houses, hospitals, churches, wharves, etc., public works all that seem absolutely necessary. According to your Lordship's directions, I have discharged the two Government Apothecaries and shall discharge some of the Surgeons' Mates that may be spared. As for the saw mill, we never had one board from it – it has been a constant plague from the beginning. Thirty men have been constantly kept there ever since the affair of the Indians. Gilman has behaved so ill I shall have to discharge him from all service. I have laid in a quantity of lumber in the King's yard this spring at a reasonable price. For want of stock I have been sometimes obliged to pay £5 per M. The settlers have paid £6. I have got them lately at £3 10s., £3 and £2 15s. No new boards are given to settlers."

The salaries to the public officers of Cornwallis' Government appear exceedingly small in comparison with the arduous duties which devolved upon them in organizing the settlement. His Aides-de-Camp, Capt. Bulkely and Mr. Gates,25 had no allowance except some trifling commission on the issue of molasses and spirits.

In June, 1750, the Governor and Council assigned as a site the spot on which the [old] City Court House stands, for a market for black cattle, sheep, etc., and made market regulations. In July, the settlers were ordered to clear the streets in front of their respective lots to the centre. They had begun to clear George's Island and to erect block-houses. Seven 32-pounders had been mounted upon it, and a palisade carried all around the works. The frame of the Church, which had been brought from Boston, was erected and was being covered in, the estimated cost of finishing the edifice being £1000 sterling. The temporary barricades were removed, and the palisades carried completely round the town. 30,000 bricks had been manufactured in the neighbourhood and found very good. The meeting house for Dissenters had not yet been commenced. The town was increasing every day in settlers and the number of its houses, but no improvement of the lands in the neighbourhood had been made beyond a few small gardens. The fishery was prosperous and produced 25,000 quintals the first year.

In the month of August, 1750, three hundred and fifty-three settlers arrived in the ship Alderney; and in September following, three hundred German Protestants, from the Palatinate, in the ship Ann. The Governor and Council were embarrassed in providing for their support, and found it necessary to enter into pecuniary arrangements with the merchants of the town, who at this early period had formed themselves into an association for the benefit of trade. Those who came in the ship Alderney, were sent to the opposite side of the harbour, and commenced the town of Dartmouth, which was laid out in the autumn of that year. In December following, the first ferry was established, and John Connor appointed ferryman by order in Council.

In the spring of the following year the Indians surprised Dartmouth at night, scalped a number of settlers and carried off several prisoners. The inhabitants, fearing an attack, had cut down the spruce trees around their settlement, which, instead of a protection, as was intended, served as a cover for the enemy. Captain Clapham and his company of Rangers were stationed on Block-house hill, and it is said remained within his block-house firing from the loop-holes, during the whole affair. The Indians were said to have destroyed several dwellings, sparing neither women nor children. The light of the torches and the discharge of musketry alarmed the inhabitants of Halifax, some of whom put off to their assistance, but did not arrive in any force till after the Indians had retired. The night was calm, and the cries of the settlers, and whoop of the Indians were distinctly heard on the western side of the harbour. On the following morning, several bodies were brought over – the Indians having carried off the scalps.26 Mr. Pyke, father of the late John George Pyke, Esq., many years police magistrate of Halifax, lost his life on this occasion. Those who fled to the woods were all taken prisoners but one. A court martial was called on the 14th May, to inquire into the conduct of the different commanding officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned, in permitting the village to be plundered when there were about 60 men posted there for its protection.

There was a guard house and small military post at Dartmouth from the first settlement, and a gun mounted on the point near the saw mill (in the cove) in 1749. One or two transports, which had been housed over during winter and store ships were anchored in the cove, under the cover of this gun, and the ice kept broke around them to prevent the approach of the Indians. The attempt to plant a settlement at Dartmouth, does not appear to have been at first very successful. Governor Hobson in his letter to the Board of Trade, dated 1st October, 1753, says, "At Dartmouth there is a small town well picketed in, and a detachment of troops to protect it, but there are not above five families residing in it, as there is no trade or fishing to maintain any inhabitants, and they apprehend danger from the Indians in cultivating any land on the outer side of the pickets."

There is no record of any concerted attack having been made by the Indians or French on the town of Halifax. Many stragglers were cut off during the first years of the settlement, particularly along the western side of the Basin, where the best firewood was to be obtained. It was at length found necessary to send out an armed body when fuel or lumber was required. The enemy usually retired before a regular organized force. The Ranger companies under Goreham and Bartelo, were most efficient for this purpose; they were usually recruited in New England, where men for that service were more readily found.

The German settlers who came in the ship Ann, were employed in the public works at 2s. per day, besides a supply of beer and other liquors to each. It was decided that all settlers who came in the previous year, should cease to draw provisions after the 15th September, 1750. This order was afterwards repealed on 29th, and it was determined that all settlers already in the town or who should come before 1st December, should be entitled to one year's provisions from the time of their names being entered on the victualling book.27

It was the intention of Government that the Germans should be sent into the interior of the province; but they having arrived so late in the season, and the want of a sufficient supply of provisions then in store to sustain them through the winter rendered it impossible, and they were retained in the town. They were very sickly, many of them old and unfit for settlers, and their passages not being paid, and there being no person to purchase them, they were employed on the public works to work out their passage money.

About this period a gloom was cast over the settlement by the news of the murder of the Hon. Edward How, one of the Council at Chignecto. "Captain How was employed on the expedition to Chignecto as knowing the country well and being acquainted both with the Indians and the inhabitants, and furthermore he knew personally their leaders, LeCorne and LeLoutre. His whole aim and study was to obtain a peace with the Indians, and get the English prisoners out of their hands, for which purpose he often had conferences with the French officers under a flag of truce. LeCorne one day sent a flag of truce by a French officer to the water side, a small river which parts his people from the British troops. Capt. How and the officers held a parley for some time across the river. How had no sooner taken leave of the officers than a party that lay in ambush fired a volley at him and shot him through the heart, an instance of treacherous brutality not to be paralleled in history, and a violation of a flag of truce, which had ever been held sacred, and without which all faith is at an end, and all transactions with an enemy." – [Cornwallis' letter 27th November.]

The spring of 1751 the five acre lots on the Peninsula were laid out; the people engaged in clearing the land. The uncertainty from surprise by Indians, however, much retarded the work; a large space, however, was cleared around the town before winter set in.

Another vessel having arrived on the 10th June, with German Palatine settlers, they were directed to be employed at Dartmouth in picketing in the back of the town. In July, the arrival of 200 more was reported, and they were ordered to be placed at the head of the N. W. Arm and mouth of the Basin; and those who owed work for their passage, were directed to picket in their stations. Monsieur Dupacquir, who had engaged to bring out 300 Swiss, brought but twenty this year, but more were expected in the following spring.

Ninth July, a proclamation issued to forfeit all lots of the town settlers who only put up slight frames of houses, unless they immediately proceeded to board them in and finish them as dwellings.

On the 18th June, Jas. Stephens and Wm. Harris were hanged for house-breaking; this was the second public execution which took place in the town.

William Piggot had a license granted him to open a coffee house on the 8th April the same year.

In January of this year the Council passed a series of regulations for the General Court and County Courts, and ordered them to be published by the Provost Marshal by reading the same after the beat of drum through the settlement, and on the first day of the next sitting of the General Court and County Courts.

The only matters further recorded worthy of notice during the year 1751, was the dismissal of Mr. Otis Little, the Commissary of Stores, for remissness in his office, and the resolution of the Governor and Council to pay a draft for £882, sent from Quebec, for the ransom of English prisoners taken by the Indians and carried to Canada. It appeared that Lt. Hamilton and upwards of sixty officers, soldiers and settlers had fallen into the hands of the savages, and Priest LeLoutre had agreed to ransom them for the sum above mentioned.

It may here be mentioned that several batteries have already been erected on George's Island,28 and expensive earth works had been thrown up.

Towards the close of the year Mr. Joshua Mauger, a gentleman from England, who came out at the commencement of the settlement to trade and distil rum for the soldiers, was charged by government with having attempted to make Halifax the repository for Louisburg merchandize, brought up secretly and to be carrying on an illicit traffic, he being at the time agent victualler to Government. Governor Cornwallis, upon information, caused Mr. Mauger's stores to be searched for contraband articles brought from Louisburg. Much discussion ensued, and the settlement was for some time thrown into commotion, by what Mr. Mauger called in his letter to England, the high-handed proceedings of the Governor.