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NOVA SCOTIA DOCUMENTS. |
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To the Right Honorable the Lord Carteret, His Majesty's Principal Secy. of State.
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The situation and state of His Majesty's province of Nova Scotia: is humbly represented.
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Upon the Isthmus which joins the East and West parts of the Province, and is in breadth in some places Six, and in others Ten or Twelve Leagues, most of the French inhabitants have their settlements. These are divided into Four Colonies, in number about 500 Families, besides another settlement of 100 Families about Annapolis Royal.
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The Fort of Annapolis Royal stands upon a river flowing into the Bay of Fundy from the Eastward, twenty leagues below the Isthmus, and thirty from Cape Sables but has no communication by land with those settlements tho' not difficult to be opened when it may be more convenient then at present. The Garrison there consists of five companies amounting in the whole to 200 men, exclusive of commissioned officers. There are (besides the aforementioned French settlement) about ten or twelve families of English, who live together in a small Fauxbourg, under cover of the Fort. * * *
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The French who are settled on the Isthmus, and the River of Annapolis Royal (as before related) are the old inhabitants
1st, dated 17th August, 1717, and afterwards the Government of Placentia, in Newfoundland. He arrived at Annapolis in the year 1720, and returned to England in 1722. He again visited Nova Scotia, and after inducing the Acadian French of Annapolis River to take the oath of allegiance to the British Government, he finally returned to England about 1731, leaving Mr. Doucette in command of the Fort. From his correspondence with the Government authorities, and other documents among the archives of the Province, he appears to have been in the early part of his career a very active and intelligent Governor. During the latter part of his life, which was spent in England, he apparently took very little interest in the affairs of the Province; and the regiment quartered at Annapolis and Canso, of which he was colonel, became at last so destitute of clothing, that his lieutenant colonel, Mr. Armstrong, was compelled at his own charge to furnish them with necessary supplies. — (Armstrong's letter to Secretary of State.)
Governor Cornwallis, on his arrival in 1749, found the companies of this regiment reduced to about thirty men each, and supplies furnished for twenty- six men only in each company; and there were but ten or twelve great coats in the whole corps, which in winter were exchanged by the men on relieving guard. Cornwallis observes, in his letter to the Secretary of State, that "no regiment in any service was ever reduced to the condition in which he found this unfortunate battalion," and that the General should be censured for his conduct regarding it. Philipps, in his memorial to the Secretary of State regarding the appointment of a Lt. Governor during his absence from the
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