[RAYMOND] NOVA SCOTIA UNDER ENGLISH RULE 69 
The Founding of Halifax. 
We come now to consider the first really important move in the 
development of the province by the British government, namely the 
founding of Halifax. 
The credit of suggesting the establishment of a fortified post at 
Halifax, or Chebucto Harbour, as it was then called, belongs, perhaps, 
to Paul Mascarene, who wrote to the Lords of Trade in October, 1748, 
that it would be a wise step to establish a number of English families 
on the Atlantic coast and to erect fortifications necessary for their 
security." 
A few months later Shirley proposed a scheme for settling 2,000 fami- 
lies from Europe, 2,000 families from the Colonies in America and 2,000 
disbanded soldiers in various parts of Nova Scotia at an estimated cost 
of £131,700. He proposed to mix Protestant settlers with the Acadians, 
taking part of the marsh lands for the new settlers, the Acadians to be 
indemnified with woodland and upland. He believed that unless the 
French were intermixed with Protestant English they would remain a 
separate body and eventually become strong enough to subvert the 
King’s government. 
The Lords of Trade took the initial step in the direction recom- 
mended by sending out Cornwallis with a colony of 2,500 persons, many 
of them disbanded officers, soldiers and sailors. These immigrants 
sailed from England in thirteen transport ships in May, 1749, arriving 
at Chebucto about the end of June. They at once set to work and were 
comfortably settled in their log houses before winter. The population 
of the town was augmented during the summer by arrivals from Louis- 
bourg? and New England. A number of German Protestants from the 
Palatinate arrived in the course of the same year and were established 
at Dartmouth, whence they proceeded to Lunenburg in 1753. The 
founding of Halifax, however, was but the planting of a garrison, a 
military movement rather than an intelligent scheme of colonization. 
Nevertheless, in view of what followed, the founding of Halifax 
by Cornwallis in 1749 must be regarded as by far the most important 
step yet taken by the English in the development of Nova Scotia. 
It is right that due credit should be given to the Earl of Halifax, First 
Lord of Trade and Plantations, by whose energy and influence the 
ministry in England were led to establish the settlement. This ac- 
complished and far-sighted statesman was the only son of the second 
Earl of Halifax, whom he succeeded in 1739. He married in 1741 Miss 


1 Canadian Archives for 1894, p. 131. 
2? Louisbourg was evacuated by the English at this time under the provisions 
of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
