38 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
nature which makes “far-off fields look green,” as well as by the seduc- 
tive language in which Lawrence had advertized them. The vision 
of a rich country beckoned them from afar, as the glitter of gold draws 
men to the Klondike to-day. The New Englanders belonged to a race 
which rejoiced in adventure and was ambitious of success. Those 
who in the French war had seen service at Louisbourg and Fort Cumber- 
land or had been employed in the expulsion of the Acadians, were 
ready to confirm the statements of Lawrence and his Council as to the 
fertility of the lands. The proclamation was widely circulated through- 
out New England and excited general interest. Thomas Hancock,! then 
the richest and most influential merchant in Boston, was appointed 
Lawrence’s agent for Massachusetts and Messrs. Delancey and Watts, 
agents for New York. The hard-headed puritans of the old colonies 
were too cautious to transplant themselves and their effects into a new 
region without due consideration, and in most instances those disposed 
to emigrate associated themselves in companies and sent agents to 
examine the lands and make choice of desirable locations. 
Lawrence at the time of his first proclamation stated that the 
lands from which the Acadians had been expelled contained “upwards 
of 100,000 acres of interval and plow lands, producing wheat, rye, 
barley, oats, hemp, flax, ete., which have been cultivated for more than 
a hundred years past, and never fail of crops nor need manuring. Also 
more than 100,000 acres of upland, cleared and stocked with English 
erass, planted with orchards, gardens, etc. These lands, with good 
husbandry, produce often two loads of hay per acre. The wild and 
unimproved lands adjoining, abound with black birch, ash, oak, pine, 
fir,etc. All these lands are so intermixed that every single farmer may 
have a proportionate quantity of plow-land, grass land and wood land, 
and are all situated about the Bay of Fundy upon rivers navigable for 
ships of burthen.” 
There was undoubtedly some exaggeration in this representation. 
The extent of marsh land reclaimed and cultivated by the French was 
at least doubled, and there was still greater exaggeration in regard to 
the quantity of cleared upland. “But,” as Dr. Allison quietly observes, 
“we must remember that to this day immigration agencies do not aim 
at absolute accuracy of statement. Good land there was and an 
abundance of it—a fact to which many a New Englander, who had 
served at Louisbourg or Beauséjour, or who had run trading ventures 
up the Chiganois or the Pisiquid could testify.” ” 
! Thomas Hancock was uncle of John Hancock, the first signer of the “ Declara- 
tion of Independence.”’ 
? Nova Scotia Historical Society Collections, Vol. VII, p. 63. 
