[ganong] historic SITE8 IN NEW BRUNSWICK 321 



ants upon the great grants which were made in this period. During the 

 early part of the revolution all of the New Brunswick settlements suf- 

 fered greatly from the attacks of privateers, which is a polite name for 

 those vultures who use great causes as a cloak for the most dastardly and 

 cowardly of outrages. After Fort Howe was built in 1778, the settle- 

 ments on the St. John were safe, and many settlers from more exposed 

 places went there, while war vessels in the Bay of Fundy partially pro- 

 tected the others ; but the traders on the Miramichi, Nepisiguit and Eesti- 

 gouche were well nigh or quite ruined by them. Finally, after the 

 peace of 1783, this period at Passamaquoddy and on the St. John was 

 brought to an abi'upt end by the arrival of the Loyalists. They pro- 

 duced, however, comparatively little effect in Sackville and Cumberland, 

 at the head of the Bay of Fundy, and practically none at all anywhere 

 on the North Shore, in which the English period may be considered to 

 have merged gradually into the Post-Loyalist period. 



Of the greatest importance in the history of this period is the attempt 

 to settle the Province by the introduction of tenants through immense 

 grants made to officers and others. It is not within the function of this 

 paper to trace the history of this most important and interesting subject, 

 and I can but indicate here a few of its leading points. Shortly after 

 1760 it was decided to reserve most of the rich lands of the St. John for 

 officers of the Eoyal service. So markedly was this the policy of Govern- 

 ment that it was only through an exception made in their favour that the 

 Maugerville settlers wei"e able to hold the lands they had taken possession 

 of in 1763. In 1765 the St. John and Passamaquoddy were surveyed by 

 Morris, and there began a series of immense land grants to individual 

 officers and to associations of disbanded officers and others. The larger 

 of these grants were established as townships of some 100,000 or more 

 acres, and during 1765 no less than eleven of these townships, thot^e of 

 Francfort, Amesbury, Burton, Sunbury, Newtown, Conway, Gagetown, and 

 one other on the St. John, and Monckton, Hopewell and Hillsborough on the 

 Petitcodiac were granted, with numerous smaller grants in their vicinity. 

 Maugerville and Cumberland had already been granted to genuine settlers, 

 and Sackville was later similarly granted. The history of these three 

 townships differs from all the others in that they were settled before they 

 were granted. In later years other large grants were made, but not again 

 in such abundance and size as in 1765. A condition of all these grants was 

 the settlement upon them of a given, and considerable, number of settlers 

 within a certain time, and there is abundant evidence in old records, such 

 as newspaper advertisements, colonization broadsides, etc., that many of 

 the grantees made vigorous efforts to obtain settlers, offering them most 

 liberal inducements. But settlers were very hard to obtain, and in many of 

 these townships few or none were settled, and in none of them whatever 

 were the conditions complied with sufficiently to hold the land. In some 



