62 JOHN GEORGE BOURINOT ON 
ever, the people had eventually a workable system of local government, which enabled 
them to make many improvements for themselves. The construction of canals and other 
important works of provincial importance, on an expensive scale, at last left so little funds 
in the treasury that the parliament of this province alone, among the North American 
colonies “was, fortunately for itself, compelled to establish a system of local assessment, 
and to leave local works in a great measure to the energy and means of the localities them- 
selves.” ' Still the system, as the country became more populous and enterprising, proved 
ultimately quite inadequate to meet the requirements of the people and to develop their 
latent energies. The legislature was constantly called upon to give power to local authori- 
ties to carry out measures of local necessity. Whatever taxation was necessary for local pur- 
poses had to be imposed through the inconvenient agency of courts of quarter sessions, 
over which the people exercised little or no control. If the people of a city or town 
wished to be incorporated, they were forced to apply to the’ legislature for a special act. 
The powers granted to these corporations were by no means uniform, and great confusion 
resulted from the many statutes that existed with respect to these bodies. “No lawyer,” 
says a writer on the subject,” “ could give an opinion upon the rights of an individual in 
a single corporation without following the original act through the thousand sinuosities 
of parliamentary amendment, and no capitalist at a distance could credit a city or town 
without a particular and definite acquaintance with its individual history.” It was not, 
however, until after the reunion of the Canadian provinces, that steps were taken to estab- 
lish in Upper Canada a larger system of popular local government in accordance with 
the wise suggestions made by Lord Durham and other sagacious British statesmen. But 
before we can refer to this part of the subject, I must first review the early local history 
of the maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. 
V.—THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 
When Nova Scotia became a possession of England ‘by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, 
the only place of any importance was Port Royal, originally founded by a French gentle- 
man-adventurer, Baron de Poutrincourt. The English renamed the place “ Annapolis 
Royal,” in honour of Queen Anne, and for some years it was the seat of government. The 
province in those days had a considerable French Acadian population, chiefly settled in the 
Annapolis valley, and in the fertile country watered by the streams that flow into the Bay 
of Fundy. For some years there was a military government in Nova Scotia. In 1719, the 
governor received instructions to choose a council for the management of civil affairs 
from the principal English inhabitants, until an assembly would be formed to regulate 
matters in accordance with the instructions given to the American colonies generally. 
This first council was composed exclusively of officers of the garrison and of officials 
of the public departments. The French inhabitants in their respective parishes were 
permitted, in the absence of duly appointed magistrates, to choose deputies from among 
themselves for the purpose of executing the orders of the government and acting as 


1 Lord Durham’s Report, p. 48. 
2 J. Sheridan Hogan, Prize Essay on Canada, 1885, p. 104. 
