“The spirit of their Boston brethren”

“Of all the new settlers, the people of Liverpool seem to have been most imbued with the spirit of their Boston brethren. In the minutes of the council of Nova Scotia, under date of July 24, 1762, is a remarkable document drawn up by the inhabitants . . . insisting in no measured terms on their right to local self-government:

“We, your memorialists, proprietors of the township of Liverpool, look upon ourselves to be freemen, and under the same constitution as the rest of His Majesty King George’s other subjects, not only by His Majesty’s Proclamation, but because we were born in a country of Liberty, in a land that belongs to the Crown of England, therefore we conceive we have right and authority invested in ourselves (or at least we pray we may) to nominate and appoint men among us to be our Committee and to do other offices that the Town may want.

His present Excellency . . . and the Council of Halifax have thought proper to disrobe and deprive us of the above privilege, which we first enjoyed.

This we imagine is encroaching on our Freedom and liberty and depriving us of a privilege that belongs to no body of people but ourselves, and whether the alteration and choice of the Men you have chosen to be our Committee is for the best or not we can’t think so, and it has made great uneasiness among the people insomuch that some families have left the place and hindered others from coming, and we know some of the Committee is not hearty for the settlement of this place.””

Weaver, Emily Poynton, 1865- [from old catalog]. “Nova Scotia And New England During the Revolution”. New York, 1904. The American Historical Review, Vol. 10, No. 1 Oct., 1904, pp. 52-71. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1833814.pdf, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t0sq96b2h