SECTION ITI., 1912. [201] Trans. R. S. C. 
Colonel Alexander McNutt and the Pre-Loyalist Settlements of Nova Scotia. 
By VEN. ARCHDEACON Raymonp, LL.D. 
Read May 15, 1912. 
Since the paper on Colonel Alexander McNutt and the Pre-Loyalist 
Settlements of Nova Scotia was presented at the last meeting of the 
Royal Society, additional facts have come to light which seem of suffi- 
cient interest and importance to warrant their inclusion in a supplemen- 
tary paper. 
Some years ago the writer discovered in the Boston Public Library 
a curious pamphlet entitled “The Constitution and Frame of Govern- 
ment of the Free and Independent State and Commonwealth of New 
Ireland.” The sentiments expressed in the pamphlet and the phrase- 
ology are so characteristic of McNutt that any one familiar with the 
style and tenor of his memorials to the Lords of Trade would inevitably 
suspect him to have been the author. That such a supposition is quite 
correct we shall presently see. 
The copy of the pamphlet in the Boston Library comprises thirty- 
nine pages, with five unnumbered pages of advertisement at the end. 
It was printed towards the close of the American Revolution by Robert 
Aitken of Philadelphia, who was a firm friend of the revolutionary 
party’. The pamphlet bears no date and, except in the advertisement, 
gives no intimation of the name of the author. To the advertisement, 
however, there is appended the signature “A. M’N. of J. P.” The 
initials are those of Alexander McNutt, and the letters J. P. are suggest- 
ive of Jamaica Plain, at that day a village a few miles out of Boston. 
There is in the Harvard University Library another copy of the New 
Ireland pamphlet, which contains some additional printed matter and 
has some variation in the cabalistic letters appended to McNutt’s initials. 
His name is written on the title page. It is evidently an autograph 
copy, which he gave to a friend who lived in Salem. 
In his pamphlet Colonel McNutt sets forth a scheme of government 
of the most puritanically religious and democratic order for the State 
and Commonwealth of New Ireland. He cordially invites settlers and 
engages to give, without quit rent forever, to those who shall first come, 
two hundred acres of land to ae nen head of family and to sogih 

‘McNutt is known to have been in Philadelphia in 1781 posing before the 
Continental Congress as an agent for their sympathizers in Nova Scotia. 
