[RAYMOND] PRE-LOYALIST SETTLEMENTS OF NOVA SCOTIA 67 
expence a number of people from the North of Ireland, a distance much 
greater and a voyage attended with infinitely more charge and hazard 
than from New England to this its bordering Province. The same 
proposal has within these few days been renewed by Captain McNutt 
at this Board, and we inclose you an extract of our Journal containing 
our proceedings thereupon. . . . . . The value of these lands is 
now so well known in England that we are in daily expectation of receiv- 
ing proposals from persons of considerable substance to introduce, 
not at the Public expence but at their own, a number of settlers into 
different parts of the evacuated lands.” ! 
VII.—Col. McNutt and the Lords of Trade. Trish Immigration. 
Truro and Onslow. 
Colonel McNutt arrived at London in February, 1761, with a letter 
from Lieut. Governor Belcher and his Council to the Lords of Trade, 
recommending him as a proper agent to bring over settlers from Ireland. 
The tide of Irish immigration to America had already set in and it was 
not viewed with favor by the British government. It speaks much for 
the persuasive powers of Alexander McNutt that he overcame the 
prejudices of the Lords of Trade in regard to his mission and was able 
to make them his advocates with the ministry. This is the more sur- 
prising in view of the fact that McNutt was very outspoken in his 
criticism of the administration in Nova Scotia, and that he made 
proposals of so radical a nature as to stamp him, even at this early 
stage of his career, as a man of republican proclivities. A few only of 
his proposals need here be instanced, e.g., That each township, as 
soon as it should consist of 50 freeholders, should elect two representatives 
in the General Assembly: That all Protestants should enjoy equal 
privileges both civil and religious: That no Sacramental test should be 
imposed upon any Protestant Dissenter who should fill the office of a 
magistrate, militia officer, ete.: That any one coming into the Province 
as a settler might, if called upon to give evidence in a court of justice, 
be permitted to hold up his hand in testimony of the truth of his state- 
ment instead of being required to take the customary oath. He also took 
exception to the section in the Royal Instructions to the Governor of 
1 That the Lords of Trade were right is shown by Belcher’s letter of the 3d 
November, 1761, in which he writes: “I have the pleasure to inform your Lordships 
that many of the original contractors very soon transported themselves at their own 
expence in full confirmation of your Lordships opinion that from the value and 
fertility of the lands they would not incline to risque their grants to a forfeiture, and 
it may be expected that the rest will follow their example.” 
