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.
[Footnote 21: The Artificers formed one company by themselves, and the
whole militia amounted to about 840 men. The Officers behaved well, but,
says the Governor in his dispatch, "I cannot say so of the men."]
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 L.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]
[Footnote 22: According to the original plan of the Town published in
October, 1749, a space appears to have been reserved between the line of
the lots and the shore, but no Water Street was laid out--the upper side
of the present Bedford Row being the western limit. There were five
forts, having each four quadrangular blockhouses, with a barrack in the
centre; these were connected by wooden palisades or pickets.]
[Footnote 23: A number of licences to erect wharves and buildings along
the beach had been granted by Government to individuals engaged in trade
and the fishery, before the idea of a general Government breastwork had
been abandoned. These titles continued to be held good; a number of
wharf proprietors, however, obtained conformation grants from time to
time as they required water extension. Mr. Charles Morris, the
Surveyor-General, who had the sole management of the land office, in his
reports to the Government, advised small spaces to be reserved on both
sides in making these conformation grants as well as in subsequent water
grants in fee, which have been found of much inconvenience to trade, and
a drawback on the progress of the City. No reservation of water was
originally made at the foot of the cross streets or hills. At the close
of the last and the commencement of the present century, when
conformation or extension water grants were asked for, he marked on his
plans narrow strips or reservations on the sides of many of these water
grants, which for there being in many instances inaccessible, have since
proved of no value to the public and a great injury to the proprietors
of water property.]
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.
[Footnote 24: Cornwallis' letter of 19th March.]
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 Andre.
Mr. Cornwallis was continually embarrassed by letters from the Board of
Trade, finding fault with the expenses incurred in planting the
settlement. L.40,000 had been voted by Parliament, and L.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
L.5 per M. The settlers have paid L.6. I have got them lately at L.3 10s.,
L.3 and L.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.
[Footnote 25: This was the well-known Horatio Gates, afterwards a
Revolutionary General.]
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 L.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.
[Footnote 26: The Governor in his letter to England mentions 4 men
killed, 6 soldiers prisoners who were not upon guard, and our people
killed 3 Indians, and had they done their duty well, might have killed
many more.]
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]
[Footnote 27: See victualling list in the appendix.]
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 L.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.
[Footnote 28: This Island is called in the old French maps Isle Racket
or the Snow Shoe Island, being in the shape of a snow shoe.]
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.