234 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
in the Basin of Minas, on that Branch of it called Cobequid Basin, are 
the two townships of Truro and Onslow. Onslow has about fifty fami- 
lies. These are the most indigent as well as most indolent people in 
the colony. Several families suffered severely last winter and some 
were famished.' If they are not relieved this winter there will be great 
danger of their starving or quitting the colony. They have but a small 
proportion of stock compared with the other inhabitants of the Province, 
and there are very few people of any substance among them—500 bush- 
els of corn will be scarce sufficient to keep them from starving. If 100 
bushels of wheat for seed were sent them early in the Spring it would 
in a great measure alter their circumstances. Truro has about sixty 
families. These are Irish Protestants, mostly from New England, a 
very industrious set of people; have large stocks, and tho’ they have 
been settled but two years will this year raise grain sufficient for their 
support, except a very few families. None of these settlers have as yet 
any Grants of their land. About fifteen settlers, Protestants from 
Ireland, are settled on the north side of Cobequid Basin. These are 
industrious and doing extremely well considering they had neither 
money nor stock. Some little assistance they will want from Govern- 
ment. Justices have been appointed and militia settled in these 
Townships.’’? 
A later report from the first Governor who actually visited the town- 
ships gives a much more agreeable account of the character of the Col- 
chester settlers. Governor Mariot Arbuthnot in 1776 went to Windsor, 
Horton, and Cornwallis, and then sailed up Cobequid Bay to the Col- 
chester townships to review the volunteer militia in’each of these places. 
Writing to Lord George Germaine on the 15th of August, 1776, he says: 
“T proceeded up Cobequid Bay and landed at Londonderry, Onslow, and 
Truro, three townships inhabited by the offspring of those Irish emi- 
grants who first settled Londonderry in the Massachusetts, Scotchmen 
and Irish people, who have been brought hither soon after the place 
began to be settled,—a strong, robust, industrious people—bigotted 
dissenters, and of course great levellers. But my lord, how can it be 
otherwise, for to my astonishment no governor had ever visited these 
poor people, or sent any person among them, so as to form a judgement of 
the necessary steps to make those men useful subjects; but on the con- 
trary they have been left to be the parent of their own works. I found 
full five hundred were capable of bearing arms, the first men in the 
province, settled on the best land, and the most flourishing, because they 
are the most industrious.” 


‘It is said that Joel Camp died of starvation, his last meal being the end of a 
tallow candle. : 
2 This extract is quoted in Dr. Raymond’s first monograph, p. 72. 
