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CHAPTER 3

The Loyalists Who Followed

You will expect to hear how it fared with me and the rest of the English in the time of the siege. 1

NATHANIEL SMITH AND the other Yorkshire people living near Fort Cumberland were suffering more than most during the American War of Independence (1775–83), having been subjected to regular attacks by American privateers (legalized pirates) and to an actual siege by a small group of rebels. Understandably, as their houses and barns came under attack, many left the area, including the families of Nathaniel and John Smith who moved to Cornwallis (Kings County) and Newport (near Windsor) respectively, and Christopher Harper and family who relocated just a short distance to Sackville.²

Faced with marauding privateers and a population dominated by New Englanders, whose loyalty to Britain was questionable, Governor Legge tried to take preventive action. Although the risk of an all-out invasion by an American army seemed slight, Legge felt that the Atlantic region required a localized defence capability. So, shortly after the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, he called for a provincial militia and a tax to support it, but such was the outcry from local inhabitants that the legislation had to be dropped. Two hundred and forty-six people in Cumberland County, a group that included fifty-five Yorkshiremen, signed a petition stating that they did not wish to enlist for military service. Having just arrived a year or so earlier, the Yorkshire settlers said they needed to establish their farms. They stated that the raising of a militia would deplete the area of its men and compound an already serious labour shortage, thus jeopardizing their livelihoods. When a regiment of British soldiers arrived at Halifax, the need for a homegrown militia subsided, but the continuing discontent of American sympathizers ensured that turmoil would persist.

In the summer of the following year, a small band of rebels formed under Jonathan Eddy, a long-term resident of the Chignecto Isthmus. Having failed to persuade George Washington, the American commanderin-chief, to mount an invasion of Nova Scotia, he recruited a private army himself, finding his men chiefly from Machias (now in Maine) and Maugerville (now in New Brunswick).³ In all, Eddy gathered around 180 men, only a minority of whom were residents of the Cumberland area. His group made their way toward the British outpost at Fort Cumberland in November, where, joined by a few local residents, they mounted an attack. But the siege was quickly suppressed by British reinforcements who had rushed to the fort. Two hundred marines and Royal Fencible Americans swiftly overcame Eddy’s men and then scoured the countryside in search of rebels, torching the houses and barns of anyone whose loyalties were felt to be suspect.⁴ Some rebels escaped behind American lines, leaving behind wives and families to be abused and sworn at until they could be exchanged for Loyalist prisoners three years later.⁵

Hit-and-run attacks by American privateers were widespread in the Atlantic region from 1776 to 1782. Defenceless coastal communities were plundered and vessels at sea had their provisions and valuables looted. Guerrilla raids brought commerce to a halt and caused severe food shortages, especially in Newfoundland and the Island of St. John (Prince Edward Island). Back in England, the Poole merchant Benjamin Lester learned through his Newfoundland agent that cargoes of seal skins and seal oil were ready to be loaded in his vessels anchored at Trinity Bay but that privateers were lurking. They had already seized the ship of someone known to him and boarded two of his other ships. Fleeing with a salt cargo and much of the ships’ rigging and guns and ammunition, the privateers gave Lester one crumb of comfort in that “they did not injure the ships.”⁶

Plaque at Fort Beauséjour, erected in 1927. Built by the French in 1751, the fort was captured by the British in 1755 and renamed Fort Cumberland. The plaque commemorates the loyalty of the Yorkshire people who supported the British side.

In these troubled times an evangelist by the name of Henry Alline emerged and made his mark in the region. Of New England extraction, he had come to Falmouth, Nova Scotia, as a child with his family during the Planter migration of the 1760s. Having been weighed down for many years by “a load of guilt and darkness, praying and crying continually for mercy,”⁷ Alline suddenly found himself, at the age of twenty-six, being called by God. He would go on to lead a popular religious revival known as the “Great Awakening” of Nova Scotia. Its beginnings can be traced back to March 26, 1775, a day when Alline, having read the 38th Psalm in the Bible, felt as if “redeeming love broke into my soul … with such power, that my whole soul seemed to be melted down with love.”⁸ After a year of intense agonizing he decided to go forth and preach about God’s redeeming love. He confined his preaching circuit to the Annapolis Valley until after 1779, when he gradually extended his reach to Nova Scotia’s south shore, the Island of St. John, and parts of the territory that would become New Brunswick. He attracted large crowds and usually preached outdoors, since most church buildings were closed to him.

Alline’s rejection of tradition and embracing of an individual’s inner feelings made him particularly appealing to New World settlers. He spoke of a loving God before whom all people were equal. It was essentially an egalitarian message that transcended the harshness and tribulations of everyday life. And his conviction that all people were capable of salvation in the next world brought enormous comfort to countless people who were caught up in the chaos and economic uncertainty of the war years. Organizing two churches in the Minas Basin region, one in Annapolis County and others in Liverpool and Maugerville — all areas where traditional churches were weak or absent — he roused nonconformist Nova Scotia to its core. But the so-called “New-Light” churches that he founded in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick did not remain true to his teachings, reverting, after his death in 1784, to Baptist churches that adopted more sober and conservative ways.⁹

Memorial stone to Henry Alline, United Baptist Church, Falmouth.

Following Britain’s defeat in the American Revolutionary War, officially recognized by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, around forty thousand people who had taken the British side (known collectively as Loyalists) fled from what became the independent country of the United States and sought sanctuary in the British-held northern colonies. The Loyalist influx had an explosive impact on the Atlantic region’s population.

Receiving land grants and financial help under the British Loyalist Assistance program, about thirty-five thousand refugees moved to Nova Scotia, while another five thousand went to the old province of Quebec.¹⁰ When New Brunswick was divided from the peninsula as a separate colony in 1784, around fifteen thousand Loyalists would find themselves in it, and around nineteen thousand would be in Nova Scotia. Taken together, these Loyalists doubled the population of peninsular Nova Scotia and swelled the population count to the north of the Bay of Fundy by fivefold.¹¹ Only about six hundred Loyalists were allocated land in Prince Edward Island, but, because of great difficulty in obtaining grants, many left.¹² This was the case despite attempts by the island’s proprietors and government to attract Loyalists. It was a similar situation in Cape Breton, created as a separate colony in 1785. Having acquired about four hundred Loyalists initially, it probably only had around two hundred by 1786.

About half of the thirty-five thousand Loyalists who came to the Maritime region were civilian refugees. The other half were disbanded British soldiers and provincial soldiers¹³ who had served in regiments raised in North America, including the New Jersey Volunteers, King’s American Regiment, Queen’s Rangers, Loyal American Regiment, Royal North Carolina Regiment, King’s Carolina Rangers, and the Loyal Nova Scotia Volunteers. Men from the provincial corps were known as the “Provincials” to distinguish them from civilian refugees, although the difference was not always clear since many civilians had also served during the war, in regiments.¹⁴ Most civilians went to Nova Scotia while the Provincials were mainly sent to New Brunswick. In addition to being provided with free land, Loyalists could also claim provisions and other help from the government. Former soldiers were granted land according to their rank, with the usual amount ranging from one thousand acres for officers to one hundred acres for privates. Civilians normally received one hundred acres for each head of family and fifty additional acres for every person belonging to the family.

The origins of those who made their way to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were roughly similar, with the majority coming from New York and New Jersey. Just over 60 percent of New Brunswick Loyalists originated from these two colonies, but they represented only a slim majority in Nova Scotia. New Brunswick had a higher proportion of Loyalists from Connecticut (13 percent), but Nova Scotia had more southerners (about 25 percent), who came principally from North and South Carolina.¹⁵ A full 10 percent of Nova Scotia Loyalists were Blacks who fared badly in spite of the varied skills that they brought with them.¹⁶

Loyalists began to pour into the Maritimes throughout the summer and fall of 1783, but their first year was marked by hardship and uncertainty. As winter approached, many lacked proper shelters and, because of difficulties in transporting provisions to them, they suffered severe food shortages. Civilian refugees in Halifax were said to be living in deplorable conditions, while, according to the Anglican clergyman Jacob Bailey, there were 1,500 distressed people in the Annapolis Valley who were “fatigued with a long stormy passage, sickly and destitute of shelter from the advances of winter. Several hundred are starved in our Church and larger numbers are still unprovided for.”¹⁷

Men from the 38th and 40th Regiments were accommodated in huts during their first winter, the Duke of Cumberland’s Regiment in tents in the woods outside Halifax, while men from the 60th Regiment were accommodated in a ship off Falmouth until severe weather forced them to come ashore.¹⁸ They were all British regulars who had been disbanded in the province, and were entitled to the same land and provisions as exiled Americans.

Loyalists were widely dispersed in the southwestern peninsula of Nova Scotia,¹⁹ but in New Brunswick they were mainly concentrated along the St. John River valley and its tributaries (see Map 4).²⁰ By 1785, Halifax, Nova Scotia’s capital, had acquired about 1,200 Loyalists. Another two thousand were settled in the Annapolis Valley, especially in Annapolis, Clements, Granville, Wilmot, and Aylesford, and another thousand were scattered about the fertile Minas Basin, especially at Parrsboro in Kings County (now Cumberland County). Around 1,300 went to Digby, while Shelburne (formerly Port Roseway) suddenly gained ten thousand Loyalists, making it the fourth largest town in North America, after Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. There were further Loyalist population clusters to the southeast of Truro in Hants County²¹ and on the east side of the province, especially at Pictou,²² Merigomish, Guysborough (formerly New Manchester) on Chedabucto Bay, and Country Harbour. Men from the Duke of Cumberland’s Regiment settled at Guysborough, while men from the disbanded South Carolina Regiment, King’s Carolina Rangers, and North Carolina Volunteers were allocated land at Country Harbour, but a good many drifted away from the area.²³ After the American war ended, the Antigonish area acquired disbanded soldiers from the Nova Scotia Volunteers,²⁴ who founded a settlement at Town Point (renamed Dorchester) and gradually moved upriver to the present site of Antigonish.²⁵

Uniform of the 60th Regiment of Foot Guards, 1756–95, watercolour by Frederick M. Milner (1889–1939).

Most of the Loyalists who settled in New Brunswick were directed to the fertile land to be found along the St. John River valley. Military Loyalists were allocated land above Fredericton, and some along the Nashwaak River,²⁶ while civilians were sent mainly to the lower St. John.²⁷ However, this separation was never fully realized, since many ex-soldiers rejected their allocations and moved downriver to join the civilian refugees in the lower St. John Valley.²⁸ Meanwhile, another large group of displaced Loyalists from the Penobscot region of Maine²⁹ settled mainly in St. Andrews and along the St. Croix River (Charlotte County) in the Passamaquoddy Bay area, at the southwestern corner of New Brunswick.³⁰ They were joined by men from the Argyll Highlanders (74th), who were given lots on both sides of the Digdeguash River, and the Royal Fencible Americans, who were allocated land in the parish of St. George on Passamaquoddy Bay.³¹

The uniform of the Cumberland Regiment of Foot (34th) in 1844. Detail is taken from a pencil drawing by Lloyd Scott (1911–68).

Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1973-8-814. From Miss Lulu Dodds, Lakeview Manor, Beaverton, Ontario, through Munroe Scott, Manotick, Ontario. Reproduced by permission of Munroe Scott, Peterborough, Ontario.

With its excellent harbour at the mouth of the St. John River and an extensive fertile valley as its hinterland, it was inevitable that the future city of Saint John would experience a rapid rise in its fortunes. The neighbouring towns of Parr and Carleton were incorporated as the City of Saint John in 1785, and three years later the city was said to have “near 2,000 houses.” According to Edward Winslow, a prominent Loyalist leader, it was “one of the best cities in the New World.”³² And unlike Shelburne, which quickly went into a downward spiral, Saint John prospered and became the largest urban centre in New Brunswick.³³

Memorial Stone to the United Empire Loyalists at the gate of the Old Burial Ground in St. Anne’s (later Fredericton). Being the highest point on the St. John River that was navigable for large vessels, Fredericton was chosen as the capital of the province in 1785. It was named after Prince Frederick, the third son of King George III.

Shelburne’s rapid demise seems difficult to comprehend. Jacob Bailey thought its harbour in 1786 was “not being exceeded by any one in America,” having three thousand houses and thirteen thousand people. He observed the “greatly improved lands” and the “great number of shipping belonging to the merchants, nearly equalling that of Halifax … several of which are employed in the whale fishery, a still greater number in the West Indies and the rest in the cod fishery along the banks.”³⁴ Sawmills had been erected and large quantities of cut timber were being exported to the West Indies. Shelburne appeared to be on its way to becoming a major commercial centre, and yet 120 men and their families took one look at the place and left for Prince Edward Island soon after their arrival. Claiming that they had been enticed by offers of good land on the island by an agent of Governor Patterson, they relocated themselves in the summer of 1784. After much delay in securing their grants, they settled at Bedeque Harbour.³⁵ But why did they leave Shelburne?

It seems that Shelburne had acquired the wrong balance of people. They were mainly New Yorkers, too many of whom were carpenters, tailors, and other types of craftsmen, and too few were farm workers and fishermen. People suited to a city life lacked the hardiness and practical skills needed to tame a wilderness. Moreover, Shelburne’s land was not particularly good: possibly the 120 families who left for Prince Edward Island in search of greener pastures were its potential farming community.

As a result Shelburne was short of people to clear its hinterland and create the farms that were necessary to support the town’s economy. It had acquired a few merchants, but they were self-focused men who neglected to organize the town’s overall economic framework. Also, those farmers it did have were naively optimistic about the future and built fine houses before securing the income stream that would pay for them.³⁶

Lord Selkirk noticed how Loyalists in Prince Edward Island were inclined to fall into debt. John Laird, who settled at Lot 50 along the Vernon River, was typical. “He could not deny himself luxuries” and thus bought expensive goods on credit. It took him six to seven years before he paid off his debts, “and in that time he built a comfortable house, acquired cattle and sheep and cleared about 50 acres.”³⁷ However, Shelburne Loyalists could not take such a long-term view. They had to limit their losses and leave. Money had been squandered on grandiose, ill-conceived schemes and too little had been invested in providing a workforce that could catch fish, build ships, grow crops, and cut timber.

Shelburne’s isolated location on the Atlantic side of the peninsula was another disadvantage. It was eclipsed by the rapid growth of Saint John and was only a minor player in the timber trade, since the industry’s prime focus was much farther to the east along the Northumberland Strait. Although Shelburne had been well placed to take advantage of the lucrative West Indies trade, it was badly hurt economically by American traders who flouted the Navigation Acts that were intended to exclude them. The mushrooming growth in timber exports to Britain, which occurred from 1815, would benefit Pictou, Charlottetown, and later the Miramichi, but it would completely bypass Shelburne. Lieutenant Colin Campbell of the Argyll Highlanders Regiment (74th) wanted to live in a town but rejected Shelburne on hearing “some unfavourable accounts” about it, settling instead in nearby St. Andrews, which he was told “has a good harbour and is well situated for the fishing and lumbering business.”³⁸ Campbell made up his mind about Shelburne by August 1783 — only months after it had been opened up to settlers. Many more Loyalists would have done the same.

With the ending of provisions and portable pensions in 1787, Shelburne emptied quickly. It had fewer than three thousand inhabitants by the following year. To add to its economic woes it suffered from severe droughts and fires, a smallpox epidemic, and its black Loyalists, the principal source of cheap labour, were leaving for Sierra Leone.³⁹

When the Reverend Munro visited in 1795 he found that Shelburne had only 150 families and that there were fewer that two thousand people in the vicinity. By the time the Methodist minister, William Black, visited in 1804, its population had shrunk to one-tenth of its original size.⁴⁰ The Reverend W. Bennett, an Anglican missionary appointed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to Liverpool (Nova Scotia), observed its “small settlements along the sea coast … many of the houses much demolished and without inhabitants, having been under a necessity of removing through the poverty of the Country.” It had “a neat English Church and a small Baptist Meeting House” and a dwelling house used by Methodists for their services. “The society of Whites and Blacks” numbered between fifty and sixty, living in circumstances that “in general are low,” with “most of their living” being derived from fishing.⁴¹ Joshua Marsden, a Methodist preacher, found Shelburne “almost deserted” in 1815, a description confirmed by the Reverend Gavin Lang, a Presbyterian missionary, when he saw it nearly fifteen years later:

The harbour of Shelburne is well known in America as being one of the most beautiful and secure…. When viewed in the distance Shelburne looks somewhat considerable, but alas, on closer inspection, desolation and decay manifest themselves all around. Shelburne has fallen, I am afraid, never more to rise, for the few who remain neither possess wealth nor influence, and are in our mind strongly contrasted with the active and highly polished sons of Caledonia.⁴²

Loyalists drawing lots for their lands in 1784, watercolour by C.W. Jefferys.

The fortunate Sons of Caledonia had settled on the east side of the province, which by this time was benefiting from the growing timber trade with Britain. Like Shelburne, Digby was almost entirely Loyalist, although smaller in size. And, like Shelburne, it had a naturally good harbour but had mediocre land, and it, too, ended up in a spiral of economic decline. Its badly organized and demoralized settlers suffered terribly from the confusion and delay they experienced over their land allocations. The Connecticut-born Amos Botsford, agent for the New York Refugee Association, had the task of organizing their grants, but he was an autocratic and divisive character who left in 1784, having made a bad situation considerably worse.⁴³ With the delayed arrival of provisions in the following year, tempers frayed, and the disturbances that broke out had to be quelled by troops sent from Halifax. It would take some fifteen years before the settlers finally resolved their land ownership rights.⁴⁴

Despite this turmoil, Digby had impressed Jacob Bailey when he visited in 1786. It was “a very handsome town … the situation of it is [an] exceedingly well chosen site both for the fisheries and every other trade adopted to the Province.” With the arrival of Loyalists the town grew sixfold to a population of 2,500 and “the country about it [was] clearing fast of the woods.⁴⁵ Some three hundred families were to be accommodated around St. Mary’s Bay and the Sissibou River, but more than one-third never reached their lands, and by 1795 only sixty-eight families remained.⁴⁶ By 1802 a consortium had been formed to market Digby properties to the outside world.⁴⁷ Digby’s Loyalist residents were selling up and moving on:

[A]s it is probable that the peace which has lately taken place, may occasion many military and other transient persons to look for settlements in these provinces and some such may incline towards Digby … several gentlemen of that place [Digby] have associated for the purpose of removing … such difficulties as are most likely to oppose themselves to new settlers … they have selected and secured a number of commodious house lots … a proportion of these adjoining the water are adapted to trading persons — others are calculated for mechanics — and a few more for such as are only concerned in having an agreeable spot for a house, and room for a garden. The first applicant will have the first choice, and so on with other applicants in succession, until the whole are sold at the prices fixed.⁴⁸

The Loyalists who streamed into the Maritimes created an instant population, but their relocation was far from straightforward. They had come as refugees and occupied land, principally in the Bay of Fundy region to satisfy the British government’s defence concerns, this being an area of prime military importance. However, although ex-soldiers could act as guardians of territory and take up arms quickly if need be, their training and experience did not necessarily prepare them for the rigours of pioneer life. Also, a location chosen for its military value did not always provide top-quality land. Beyond this was the seething discontent felt over the government’s failure to administer land grants satisfactorily. The problem was compounded in Nova Scotia by the fact that most of the best agricultural land had already been granted to New Englanders. Another problem was the shortage of women. A substantial number of Loyalists were young, single men who had served in the disbanded Loyalist regiments or as regulars in the British Army. Men from the Duke of Cumberland’s regiment went as far as asking the government for help in getting wives, as there were few eligible women in the district in which they lived. There were only ten married women in the regiment. Solving this severe gender imbalance was a pressing concern in many parts of the Maritimes.⁴⁹

Loyalist grievances and complaints fed a festering resentment toward Britain and growing dissatisfaction over land allocations.⁵⁰ These factors, plus an ongoing desire for a better situation, stimulated a constant movement of Loyalists both within and from the Maritime provinces. In fact, the most remarkable feature about the Loyalist influx was the speed and extent of the exodus that followed it.⁵¹ Within a year of their arrival, even while provisions were being supplied, nearly two thousand Loyalists are believed to have left Nova Scotia, almost half from Shelburne, although other districts, like Antigonish and Pictou in the eastern side of the province, actually saw their populations grow.⁵²

These were defeated and demoralized refugees who had come down in the world with a jolt. Some, having left relative comfort back in the United States, faced the daunting and strenuous task of hacking out a farm from the wilderness. They were more fortunate than most settlers in being entitled to free land, food, and clothing allowances, as well as farming and building supplies. Yet, this, too, had its downside.

Resentful and antagonistic neighbours, jealous of their provisioning and other advantages, often made their lives a misery. Greatly disillusioned, thousands of Loyalists simply gave up. Some went to other areas of the Maritimes or other parts of British America, a few returned to Britain, but most of those who left went back to the United States, where they normally received a cordial welcome.⁵³

Map 4. Based on Wynne, “A Region of Scattered Settlements,” 322.

However, despite early disappointments and setbacks, many Loyalists remained and benefited from the region’s improving economic growth. In due course, the 1871 census would go on to reveal a striking predominance of people of English ancestry in the Loyalist strongholds of the Bay of Fundy region. The English were concentrated in western Nova Scotia, the St. John River valley, and Charlotte County in New Brunswick, mirroring exactly the principal areas chosen to accommodate Loyalists (see Map 4). Although their number cannot be quantified, it appears that the English represented a high proportion of the Loyalist intake in these areas. However, while many had English roots, most Loyalists had been born in the United States. The Chignecto Isthmus also acquired large English concentrations, but this stemmed from the large intake of Yorkshire immigrants just before the outbreak of the American Rebellion.

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was always anxious to send Anglican missionaries to areas of the New World where Church of England congregations might be formed. In fact, Anglican churches had been built in Nova Scotia long before the Loyalist influx reached Nova Scotia. St. Paul’s Church had been founded in Halifax in 1749, while churches at Lunenburg, Annapolis, and Windsor followed soon after. Lunenburg is particularly interesting since its congregation was composed of former Lutherans, who were indisputably German. Yet Lunenburg County became strongly Anglican, its German population having adopted the Church of England from the time of their arrival in the town of Lunenburg in the early 1750s.⁵⁴

Thus, support for the Church of England in itself is not a reliable indicator of the predominance of English settlers. In fact, the Church of England was fairly accommodating in accepting non-Anglicans, being driven strongly by the desire to exert its influence within communities generally. Oozing respectability and conservative values, Anglican missionaries sought to dissuade people from supporting the emotional evangelism that was sweeping the area, but they were no match for the charismatic preachers who spoke the language of ordinary people.

The Anglican bishop Charles Inglis, who arrived in Halifax in 1787 as the first North American bishop of the Church of England, hoped that loyalty to Britain would translate into support for Anglicanism, but he was sadly disappointed. He soon discovered that there were more nonAnglicans than Anglicans among the Loyalists. He also discovered even less support for Anglicanism amongst the pre-Loyalist communities.

There was a small but powerful Anglican presence in Halifax, but beyond this, Nova Scotians had shown only patchy support for the Anglican faith. Over 60 percent of its population was made up of New England Congregationalists who later joined Baptist churches. Apart from the Chignecto Isthmus, where Methodism prevailed, there was little church presence anywhere in New Brunswick before 1784. Consequently, while the Church of England was an important denomination, it did not attract sufficient support from Loyalist immigrants to achieve numerical superiority throughout the region.⁵⁵

Undaunted, the Church of England persisted in its efforts to promote the Anglican religion in Loyalist areas. Principally through funding received in the form of government grants, new churches suddenly sprouted in 1783 at Cornwallis, Horton (Wolfville), and Parrsboro in Kings County, Digby, and Shelburne. Shortly after, the town of Halifax, Cumberland County, Sydney in Cape Breton,⁵⁶ and the town of Guysborough acquired their Anglican churches⁵⁷ (see Map 4). New Brunswick’s Loyalist churches were slightly later. Maugerville’s church appeared in 1784, and it was followed soon after by churches at Fredericton, Saint John, St. Andrews, and Kingston.⁵⁸ However, according to the Reverend Samuel Cooke, the Anglican missionary who visited St. Andrews in 1785, there were a good many Scottish Loyalists among the St. Andrews congregation. “The majority of settlers profess themselves to be Kirk of Scotland,”⁵⁹ but in spite of this, fully accepted his ministry.

Loyalists identified principally with the colony in the United States from which they had come rather than the part of England from which they or their forbears may have originated. As a result English Loyalists did not, as a rule, attract followers from England. In any case, most of the British immigration to Atlantic Canada that occurred immediately after the Revolution was dominated by Scots who mainly settled in eastern Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward Island. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, when emigration soared ahead, the English and Irish gradually overtook the Scots numerically, settling in all three Maritime provinces, although Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick attracted most of the English during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Around 150 English immigrants arrived in Nova Scotia in 1784, but they were Loyalists who, having returned to England the year before and not finding it to their liking, sought a better situation. They were immediately followed by English merchants and fortune seekers, and later by convicts who arrived in a ship from Liverpool. Needless to say, the governor of Nova Scotia put a stop to any further shipments of English convicts!⁶⁰ Relatively few English followed them. Skilled miners came from England to work in Nova Scotia’s coal mines but most of the growth in its English population was generated by its existing communities. Yet, in a sense Nova Scotia already was English. With its large Planter and Loyalist intake, Nova Scotia had a majority of native Americans with mainly English roots, some traceable over several generations.

British settlement in Nova Scotia was driven far more by power politics and war than by the province’s farming or timber trade potential. The struggles between Britain and France determined that colonization proceeded initially along its militarily strategic coastal areas. People of English descent were in the vanguard of this population movement as it gathered strength in the middle of the eighteenth century.