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NOVA SCOTIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY. |
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This has been on the stocks these two weeks, waiting a launching. I had an eye to the hand it comes by.
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For the REV. DR. ANDREW BROWN, Halifax.
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Honored by MR. M. COGSWELL.
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½ past 8 o'clock, taken up at Gallagher's and forwarded by
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Revd. sir,
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Your very obed’t. servant.
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REV. HUGH GRAHAM TO REV. DR. BROWN.
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CORNWALLIS, Sept. 9th, 1791.
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REV. DR. BROWN,
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My Dear Sir,
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Your friendly and farewell epistle was duly received. I had only heard the concerning notice of your sickness a few days before it came to hand. I was, therefore, in weekly expectation of seeing you here from the end of July till, I may say, the end of August; owing to this I deferred writing. I pleased myself with the hopes of having the honor of leading you to the fountain head of my intelligence respecting Acadian affairs, I still owe you something on this score. However much I owe, it is little that I can pay, and I really think that I can produce nothing that is new or of any great consequence. In general, I may say, as you already know, that the French Acadians lived in the dft. settlements like so many great families, “happily united in their views and interests.” If a young couple married — conarried off, a New England man would say — scarcely any separation took place between the parent stock and the branches. Now this voluntary marriage union of the branches was not supposed to interfere with nor to break off the original and natural connexion between the parent stock and both branches. In this mode of life the two branches of connexion naturally braced and strengthened each other. Accordingly upon the occasion of a marriage settlement of a young couple not only the immediate parents, but the whole community, contributed in various proportion as the ability of the donors could, and as the exigencies of the case required. By this means the young people were in this very first outset in life placed in a state of independence, with all the satisfaction and ease which arise from a competency already possessed; they must have labored
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