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49

To His Excellency Major General Sir Colin Campbell Knight Grand Class of the Most Honorable Military order of the Both — Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chief in and over his Majesty’s Province of Nova Scotia and its dependencies &c &c &c

The Memorial of

      John Chamberlain, Alexander Lyle, Alexander Farquarson, Frederick Major and Allan McDonald

      Humbly Serveth

      That your Excellencys Memorialists reside in the neighborhood of the people of Colour settled in Preston — have had opportunity of becoming acquainted with their habits and circumstances and address your Excellency on the present occasion from motives of humanity —

      That the land on which these people are located, was granted as early as the year 1784 but was abandoned by the original proprietors, and laid in a wilderness state untill the year 1815, at which time it was escheated, and divided into lots containing from seven, to ten acres, on which the Blacks were settled.

      That these lots are too small for a family to subsist in this country, if the land was of a fertile quality, but with very few exceptions these lands are sterile and unproductive in the extriam; insomuch that it would be impossible for any persons to support families on them — And no class of settlers, let their habits be ever so industrious could possibly maintain their families on lots of the same size and quality, without being reduced to suffering and perhaps to starvation.

      That there is no part of the Province where employment as labourers can be obtained as readily as it can in Halifax and its vicinity — but the general want of manufacturing