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APPENDIX E XCI 
During the present year the Historian of the Society spent a month 
at the Archives Department at Ottawa, in a search for historical and 
biographical data concerning Loyalists who settled in New Brunswick 
at the close of the War of the American Revolution. His report to this 
Society was to the effect that he received every courtesy and assistance 
from the Chief Archivist and staff, but that, while a large and valuable 
collection of historical material is being rapidly gathered by the depart- 
ment, the collection is still painfully incomplete as regards the records 
needful for furthering the aims and objects for which this Society was or- 
ganized. Accordingly a series of resolutions was passed at a largely 
attended meeting of our New Brunswick Loyalists’ Society, held on the 
fourth day of May last, inviting the attention of the Minister of Agri- 
culture and of the Manuscripts Commission, including the Dominion 
Archivist, to the following facts: namely, that there are in the Public 
Record Office in London, England, a number of bundles of valuable 
papers known as the Loyalist Series, relating to the claims of the Ameri- 
can Loyalists at the close of the American Revolution; that in the event 
of the destruction by fire or otherwise of the said records an irreparable 
loss would ensue to the student of Canadian history; that over 100,000 
Loyalists left what is now the United States of America at the close of 
the Revolutionary War, the greater number of whom settled within the 
territory now known as the Dominion of Canada, where their descen- 
dants to-day constitute a large and influential section of the population; 
that the historical data relating to the Loyalists available for the purpose 
of the student of Canadian history on file at the Canadian Archives is 
meagre in comparison with the very valuable and rapidly growing col- 
lection relating to the French period, the value and importance of which 
this Society does not by any means desire to belittle. 
In accordance with a further resolution passed at the same meeting, 
our Secretary communicated with the Minister of Agriculture, and also 
with the various other members of the Manuscripts Commission, urging 
that immediate action be taken to have copies nade of these Loyalist 
records, such copies to be available at the Archives Department at 
Ottawa for the purposes of the Canadian student. 
During the present month, a movement inaugurated some years 
ago by our Society, was, thanks to the generous financial assistance given 
by the Government of the Dominion of Canada and others, carried to a 
successful issue. ‘On the Sth instant a bronze statue of the late Sir 
Samuel Leonard Tilley, for many years Governor of New Brunswick, one 
of the Fathers of Confederation and the first President of this Society, 
was unveiled in the presence of a large gathering and with appropriate 
ceremonial at King Square in the City of Saint John. 
During the past year the Society has lost by death one of its most 
