\ 
[RAYMOND] PRE-LOYALIST SETTLEMENTS OF NOVA SCOTIA 39 
In consequence of Lawrence’s advertisements his agent in Boston 
was plied with questions by Alexander McNutt and others concerning 
the terms of settlement—how much land each person would receive, 
what quit rents and taxes would be required, what encouragement 
would be offered to the settlers, what constitution of government 
prevailed, and what freedom in religious matters might be expected? 
In answer to these very natural inquiries a second proclamation was 
issued by the Governor in Council on the 11th January 1759. [See 
Appendix III.] This document is rightly regarded as a very important 
State paper. It contains the solemn assurance of the Crown in regard 
to constitution, protection, civil and religious liberty, and elective 
franchise. It has, therefore, not inaptly been called “the Charter of 
Nova Scotia.” ! 
In this second proclamation the Governor stated that he was 
empowered to make grants of the best lands in the province. That 
one hundred acres of wood land would be given to the head of a family 
and fifty acres additional for each person in his family, young or old, 
male or female, black or white. A quit rent would be required of one 
shilling per fifty acres, the rent not to begin until ten years after the 
issue of the grant. Grantees were to cultivate or inclose one third of 
their land in ten years, one third more in twenty years and the re- 
mainder in thirty years. No one person would be allowed more than a 
thousand acres, but on fulfilment of the terms of a first grant the grantee 
would be entitled to another on like conditions. 
The lands on the Bay of Fundy were to be distributed in such pro- 
portions of interval plow land, mowing land and pasture as would 
suffice to maintain the families settled thereon. 
The government was similar to that in the neighbouring colonies, 
the legislature consisting of a Governor, a Council and an Assembly. 
Townships of 100,000 acres, (about twelve miles square) if settled 
with fifty families, would be entitled to send two representatives to the 
Assembly. The courts of justice were constituted like those of Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut, and other northern colonies; and as to religion, 
both by the Royal Instructions and by a late Act of Assembly, full 
liberty of conscience was secured to persons of all persuasions, Papists 
excepted.” 
' Haliburton’s History of Nova Scotia, Vol. 1, p. 220. 
? Such an exception at this period is not a matter of surprise. Great Britain 
and most of her colonies were under the shadow of the penal laws. However, from 
the first organization of government, Roman Catholics, while labouring under civil 
disabilities, seem always to have enjoyed the free exercise of their religion. The 
Nova Scotia legislature in 1827 passed a Roman Catholic emancipation act largely 
through the influence of Mr. Haliburton, a grandson of one of the first settlers from 
Rhode Island. 
pecs LL. LOUD 4: 
