20 PAST AND PRESENT OF

Brunswick or the Island of St. John’s. He was honored, and rightly honored, for his noble resolve, and to this day to be the de- scendant of an United Empire Loyalist is in itself a claim to distinction. The other, poor and ignorant, driven from his home, went to his own, and his own received him not. To him no kindness was shown, no reverence or honor extended. Truly, his was a hard lot.

There is little more to be said of those who remained. From a memorandum, dated 22d March, 1764, relating to the number of French families then remaining in Nova Sco~ tia, and who had agreed to take the oath of allegiance, we learn that “In addition to the above (i. e., the families in Nova Scotia) there are three hundred on the Island of St. John’s, who have lately in a solemn manner, declared the same intention as those men- tioned, to the officers there in command.”

Colonel Haldimand, after whom Haldi- mand county in Ontario is named, wished to take them to his property there. On the 2d of December, 1765, Governor Wilmot writes from Halifax to Captain Williams, that “Col. Haldimand having applied to me for leave to take the Acadians on St. John’s Island, to settle them on his lands in the province of Canada, I very readily give my consent for so good a purpose, as under his care and inspection there’s great reason to hope that they will soon be brought over to their duty and allegiance.

“Colonel Haldimand’s undertaking being a public good, in order to enable him to suc— ceed more effectually, it will be necessary that the people shall be at liberty to take with them a proportion of their cattle, and that they may build as many shallops as may be suflicient to carry them up the River St.

Lawrence.”

This design was not carried out, and l. thenceforth, the remaining French settlers; were allowed to dwell in peace.

On the conclusion of peace, in 1763, the: Island ‘of St. John’s was annexed to Nova Scotia, and continued to form a part of that : province until I 769, when it was erected into > a separate government.

ANNEXED TO NOVA SCOTIA.

In a sense, the fair appearance of the: Island and the known fertility of its soil were: not unmixed blessings. Scarce was the ink: on the Treaty of Paris dry, when persons off influence in Great Britain, or who hadl claims, real or supposed, upon the govem-— ment, began to petition for grants of thee Island. Of these, the first and most Quixoticc was that of John, Earl of Egmont, made int December, 1763, to His Majesty, the King,:, in which he modestly states that he “desiress from His Majesty a grant of the whole 15-- land of St. John’s, estimated at two millionn acres, with all rights, royalties, privileges,;, franchises and appurtenances, with all CM“ and criminal jurisdiction.” The jurisdictionn was not to differ from the known rules of thee common and statute law of England. Fifi- teen thousand two hundred acres of landd were to be reserved for a capital town andd for principal places of trade.

The Earl, whose name is preserved im Egmont Bay, was the first lord of the admii- ralty. He proposed to introduce the fen-l- dal system into the Island, where he was too be Lord Paramount. His memorial, which iss of great length and detail, sets out the va+- rious tenures he proposed to establish, andd the gradations in rank which were to be im- troduced. He summarized his proposition ass follows: '