Category: History

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Mr. Popple to Lt. Governor Armstrong. Acknow ledges letters of 27th July and 24th Dec. 1726. Continues: — My Lords Commissioners having at present under their consideration the immediate settlement of the Province of Nova Scotia, you may expect shortly to hear from them upon this subject. [C.O. 218, 2. p. 56.] Ar. Gambell to the Council of Trade and Plantations. Some reasons and proposuals for settleing the main coast of Nova Scotia, with all imaginable speed etc. Urges importance of the Fishery, and the immediate building of forts at the three most commodious harbours,—Port Rossway, Cape Sambra and Owles …

America and West Indies Colonial Papers: June 1727 More…

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Statement of the case of Thomas Temple and William Crowne, and how they became proprietors of Nova Scotia. In 1656, when the Lord de La Tour was compounding with Cromwell to get his country of Nova Scotia again, but not being able to pay what Cromwell required, he requested Temple and Crowne to undertake it for him, and so by the advice of Sir Orlando Bridgeman, La Tour by deed conveyed all his right and title in Nova Scotia, with all his profits and privileges, to said Temple and Crowne and their heirs and assigns for ever, the consideration to …

America and West Indies Colonial Papers: June 1661 More…

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Council of Trade and Plantations to Committee of Privy Council. Representation upon petition of Mrs. Campbell. Continue : We have discoursed hereupon with Coll. Philips, H.M. Governour of Nova Scotia, and likewise with Mrs. Campbell the petitioner, who hath laid before us several papers and affidavits relating to her title to the aforesaid lands and quit rents in Nova Scotia, from whence it appears, That in 1631 the Most Christian King Lewis XIII gave the Government of Nova Scotia or Accadie to Monsieur Charles de St. Estienne, Sieur de la Tour, grandfather to the petitioner, who had Letters Patents granted …

America and West Indies Colonial Papers: October 1733, 16-31 More…

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Col. Thos. Temple to [Lord Fienes and Company]. Has received their letter and cargo by Capt. Middleton. Acknowledges their goodness in taking him and his affairs into their protection. The produce of the cargo, with a suitable profit, shall be sent to London as soon as trade will permit. Capt. Middleton has explored the country in a barque belonging to Col. Temple, with good pilots, but is now dangerously sick. Is emboldened to express his thoughts and knowledge of “this business.” Nova Scotia very considerable to England, from the staple commodities it may produce; the chief, fishing. Furs, all sorts …

America and West Indies Colonial Papers: December 1658 More…

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“Disaster is frequently the parent of legislation. In surveying the long history of Nova Scotia, we find this saying particularly true.” “The first recorded instance of illness in Nova Scotia is the account of Champlain of an outbreak of scurvy at Port Royal in 1606. His group of settlers had spent the winter of 1605 at St. Croix Island, where, of a group of seventy-nine, forty-four died of scurvy. In Port Royal in the following year twelve of forty-five died.” “Of all the epidemics, that of smallpox carried with it the greatest destruction and terror. In 1694 an epidemic was …

The Development of Public Health in Nova Scotia More…

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“Writing in the posthumously published final version of his historical chronicle of early Halifax town, lawyer-archivist Thomas Beamish Akins condemned the infamous 1820 state trial, R. v. Wilkie, in these memorable words: An anonymous pamphlet was published from the press of A.H. [Anthony Henry] Holland, charging the magistrates of the town with malpractices, which caused much excitement. It was discovered to have been written by Mr. William Wilkie, of Halifax. He was indicted for libel, tried at the Easter term of the Supreme Court [17 April 1820] and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labor in the House of …

Sedition in Nova Scotia: R. v. Wilkie (1820) and the Incontestable Illegality of Seditious Libel before R. v. Howe (1835) More…

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“Nova Scotia had found [in Joseph Howe] not only its John Wilkes but also its Charles James Fox.” — W.S. MacNutt, 1965 “In a seminal article published in 1974, Kenneth McNaught described Howe as one of Canada’s “two most significant cases involving political freedom of the press” — the other being Dixon for seditious libel arising from the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. McNaught failed to mention an important early New Brunswick case (Hooper, 1830), where the proprietor-editor of the British Colonist (Saint John) was prosecuted for seditious libel after publishing, under the author’s suggestive Puritan nom-de-plume (“Hampden”), a letter …

Sedition In Nova Scotia: R. v. Howe and the “Contested Legality” of Seditious Libel More…

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The Acadian Recorder lamented: “‘We don’t know each other. We have no trade with each other. We have no facilities or resources or incentives to mingle with each other. We are shut off from each other by a wilderness, geographically, commercially, politically and socially. We always cross the United States to shake hands.’” Joseph Howe, as usual, put it more pungently: “‘Take a Nova Scotian to Ottawa, away above tidewater, freeze him up for five months, where he cannot view the Atlantic, smell salt water, or see the sail of a ship, and the man will pine and die.’” “Unlike …

Unity/Diversity: The Canadian Experience More…

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“…to strengthen the Federal Parliament is to start Canada on the way to a dictatorship;” (Too late). “It has not been the purpose of this article to criticize the Privy Council for the part they have played in this, but merely to emphasize the fact that, to a large extent, the constitution is not so much a historical document as a series of legal decisions, many of them delivered with what would appear to be a certain bias.” Clark, E.R. “The Privy Council and the Constitution” Dalhousie Review, Volume 19, Number 1, 1939 https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/bitstream/handle/10222/62371/dalrev_vol19_iss1_pp65_75.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

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“As the Civil War began, most Nova Scotians favoured the northern cause. While little was known of Abraham Lincoln, it was generally felt that the Republican party was pledged to a crusade against the dreaded institution of slavery. This all Nova Scotians could support. As the war progressed, however, many Nova Scotians began to have second thoughts about the struggle. To begin with, it had become apparent that the Republican party was very reluctant to abolish the institution of slavery in its entirety” “While Wade had been saved, the Haligonians had to face the consequences of their action. The Northern …

Second Chesapeake Affair: 1863-1864 More…

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“The agricultural produce of the fertile Island found a ready market in industrial New England between 1854 and 1865. Exports to the United States fell from £120,928 in 1865 to £21,633 in 1866, while imports only slipped slightly.16 The cheap food that fed immigrant workers in New England mill towns during the Civil War now came from other sources. Stagnation gripped the Island economy, in spite of minor illicit trading with American fishermen. While Canada had been able to open some alternate markets after the collapse of reciprocity,1 7 Prince Edward Island had virtually no place to turn. Canadian farmers …

Annexation in the Maritimes? The Butler Mission to Charlottetown More…

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“Canada has not one but three national games. First and foremost is ice hockey. Secondly, there is the sport of determining whether a particular area or piece of legislation ought to be under federal or provincial jurisdiction. In both of these games a winner emerges periodically before the next series begins. Canada’s third national game-assessing the Canadian identity never ends and has never declared a winner.” “…historically one very important ingredient in the Canadian identity has been an attitude which can best be labelled as “anti-Americanism”.” “In Nova Scotia, the Halifax merchants and the military establishment strenuously opposed the Revolution. …

The Anti-American Ingredient in Canadian History More…

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“THE American war of independence against the German despot George III of England lasted, in the opinion of an early American historian, eight times as long as it need have done, because the thirteen colonies fought as sovereign states. In Fiske’s words: “Had there been such a government that the whole power of the thirteen states could have been swiftly and vigorously wielded as a unit, the British might have been driven to their ships in less than a year.” “What exactly was the fundamental difference between the confederation or “league of friendship” and the federal constitution drafted by the …

Federal Union in America More…

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“In the general election campaign of 1935, eight of Canada’s nine provincial Prime Ministers, all heading Liberal administrations, urged the election of the Liberal Party, headed by Mr. King, to Ottawa. The citizens of Canada heeded this advice only to find, less than three years later, internal strife multiplied. In the interim, moreover, only one province, Quebec, has changed the political character of its administration. Apparently, the deplorable state of national disunion, so evident at the present time, is caused by circumstances and conditions far removed from the labels of political parties” Shane, H. “Canadian Disunion” Dalhousie Review, Volume 18, …

Canadian Disunion More…

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“However, our chief interest in this matter lies not in the practical actions of statesmen but rather in the editorial opinion on this subject as expressed by the Halifax newspapers. Of these the Acadian Recorder was one of the first and most persistent champions of inter-provincial consolidation.” “By 1864 the question of B. N. A. Union had not yet become a strong political issue between parties. Both Liberal and Conservative party organs favored the scheme in principle, realizing that it was “pregnant with weal and woe to the people of British America.” As to the difficulties involved in the achievement …

The Halifax Press and B.N.A. Union 1856-1864 More…

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