Augt 7th: I set out a second time to make the Tour of that part of the Island that ly’s to the Eastward of Fort Amherst, 4 Leags E S E [from Isle Du Bois] ly’s the 3 Rivers the best Harbour in the whole Island, for it receives of 4 or 500 Tons, no Settlem‘S yet made but very good Land & plenty of fine Ship Timber and very large. 3 Leag': N E of this ly’s Cap a L0urs only a remarkable Head Land but not

Fine timber at Three Rivers.

The best timber

at Cape Bear. Settled, at this place is the best Ship Timber in the Isla" 3 Leag’: N E b [by?] N: ly’s bay of Fortune, very fine land & remarkably Commodious for a Fishery.

The fire in the Backwards into the Country, it is almost entirely clear even to the Bay of St

North-east. Peters, from a Fire which happen'd in the Year 1750. From thence I proceed N

1/2 E 3 Leag to Newfrage a small Harbour fit only for Shallops and but thinly Settled, the Lands much of the same Quality with the other parts of the Island. To Point East, it is 6 LeagS N N E, and is only taken notice of as ye most Easterly point of the Island: The Lands thickly Cover'd with a small Specie of Birch, From hence we begin to proceed to the westward, for St Peters 9 Leagues W 1/2 North,

lpp. 96v—97I

Succession after fire ?

1. The Hardwicke papers relate to Philip Yorke, first Earl of Hardwicke (1690-1764) who was at times lord chancellor of England and chief justice — according to Bumsted (p. 28), they are an invaluable source for events of the 17605. The Earl of Egmont's first memorial (1764), containing a proposal for the settlement of St. John's Island, is found among these papers, and the above report is likely to have been a fellow-traveller. From a catalogue reference to a letter in the Hardwicke papers, ’a letter of Hardwicke to Vice-Admiral George Amson 1755’ (Anon. (1975) inventaire Géne’ra/ des Sources Documentaires, p. 303), — it is evident that someone of that name, perhaps the Earl himself, had an interest in the military activities going on in the Maritime region at this time.

2. There exists in the P.E.l. PARO copies (0,450 and 0,549) of two other maps which are closely related to the map associated with the above report. Map 0,549 appears to be derived from the Hardwicke map: it is virtually an exact tracing of the map on the same scale, but with most of the place names given in English, and with added pictorial detail representing sub-divided fields on the supposedly cleared area with the uncleared land being dotted with trees. In the margin it states that it was enclosed in a letter of 24 June 64 to the Lords of Trade, and it bears the catalogue number: B. 7'. Maps, Vol. .9, No. 35. The letter referred to must be the one that Governor Wilmot of Nova Scotia (which also at the time had jurisdiction over St. Johns Island) sent to the Lords of Trade and Plantations on 24 June 1764 ICEA: J.-H. Blanchard papers: 22.1-19: pp. 1-4, citing PAC: Series M, Vol. 462, p. 113]. In the letter Wilmot says that he has sent a "proper officer to make an accurate survey of the Islands of Breton & St. John”, and he encloses yet another anonymous ’Description of the Island of St. Johns’ — "the best” that he "cou‘d obtain of the Island” [CEA: 22.1—19: pp. 3—4, citing PAC: Series M, Vol. 462, p. 159]. This ‘Description' makes no reference to the forest — l deduce that it was composed by Charles Morris, the chief surveyor of Nova Scotia, based on the fact that the two short quotes of Morris cited by Brebner (1937) (p. 101) are found in the ‘Description’. Brebner cites his source as the Nova Scotia State Papers (A74, 159, June 1764).]

Could Wilmot’s ’proper officer' be the person who produced the 1762 report, and could Wilmot be ’the General’ of the Hardwicke description? This is not possible: although Wilmot was a military officer, he arrived at Halifax only in September 1763. It is also very evident that the written ’Description’ of the Island enclosed with Wilmot’s letter is independent of the Hardwicke description. So, perhaps what might have happened is that when a report on the island was requested by the Lords of Trade in 1764, Governor Wilmot turned to Charles Morris, the chief surveyor, who went to his files for a copy of the 1762 map, at the same time providing a brief description, while an officer was despatched to the island to make a more accurate survey. But if this is so, is there then yet another survey report, that of the ’proper officer’, lying undiscovered in some archives — or was his work overtaken by that of Captain Samuel Holland, who in the previous March had been assigned the task of surveying the Island by the Board of Trade in London? To clear the matter up, a thorough examination of the relevant records is required.

The other map (PARO 0,450) is also a close copy of the Hardwicke map. It has the same pictorial detail as map 0,549 but it differs both from that and from the Hardwicke map in some of its details: more place-names are given and some errors in the other two maps are corrected (e.g. St. Peters Island and Governors Island are no longer reversed). In the P.E.l. PARO index it is dated 0.1760, but this is obviously a guess — otherwise its origin and provenance are not known by the staff at the PARO.

REFERENCES:

Rigg, J. M. (1900) Yorke, Philip (first Earl of Hardwicke). Dictionary of National Biography, LXIII: 347—51. Brebner, J. B. (1937) The Neutral Yankees of Nova Scotia. Columbia University Press. 388 pp. (reprinted 1970, Russell & Russell, New York).

Blakeley, P. R. (1974) Wilmot, Montagu. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Ill: 663-64.

Anon. (1975) Inventaire Géne'ra/ des Sources Documentaires sur les Acadiens. Vol. 1 . Centre d'Etudes Acadiennes, Université de Moncton, N. B.