[RAYMOND] PRE-LOYALIST SETTLEMENTS OF NOVA SCOTIA ia 
Si 
large land holders. Many of these, McNutt says, would not have 
scrupled to steal from him his settlers as tenants for their lands: The 
idea of establishing an Irish tenantry would, perhaps, not have been 
distasteful to Belcher, who observes in one of his letters to the Lords 
of Trade, “they will be satisfied with small distributions of lands.” 
The Lieut. Governor may really have considered that they would 
succeed better as tenants, but it seems more probable that he feared 
the prospect of being landowners would bring them to Nova Scotia 
in ever increasing numbers, and that he would be obliged to expend 
more than the sum placed at his disposal by parliament to provide 
them with the necessaries of life after their arrival and to assist them 
in getting on their lands. The British Government had already spent 
half a million pounds sterling in the establishment of Nova Scotia, and 
was disposed to retrench. Belcher had been repeatedly censured for 
the large expenditures consequent upon the immigration policy insti- 
tuted by Governor Lawrence. Whatever may have been his faults the 
Lieut. Governor does not appear to have been guilty of peculation!. A 
man of hasty temper and a tory of the olden time, there is nevertheless 
nothing to show that he was self-seeking or that he profited by his 
position. Had such been his character he could hardly have filled for 
more than twenty years the office of Chief Justice of Nova Scotia. 
On the 19th November, 1762, a few days after Colonel McNutt’s 
departure for London, the Lieut. Governor and Council took under 
consideration the impropriety and inconvenience of. having settlers 
brought into the Province who immediately became a burthen to the 
Government. The majority agreed that it was not desirable that 
such settlers should be brought into the Province. The Lieut. Governor 
thereupon declared that he should construe their resolution as con- 
demnatory of Colonel Mc Nutt’s proceedings, that he had already made 
a representation to the ministry in England against the schemes of 
McNutt and should do so again. One of the Council ventured to suggest 
that the resolution declaring it inexpedient to admit settlers who were 
liable at the outset to require assistance, should serve as the basis of a 
request of Council that the Lieut. Governor should apply to the Lords 
of Trade for a fund to assist indigent settlers at their first coming into 
the province. To this Belcher replied that he would save the Council 
the trouble of giving him any such advice by assuring them that he 
should not comply with it. The four members of the Council, Messrs. 
Collier, Morris, Newton and Francklin, in their letter to Governor Ells, 
above referred to, state that Lieut. Governor Belcher was anxious to 
! The Nova Scotia legislature, June 29, 1781, voted a pension of £50 sterling 
for life to Elizabeth Amelia Belcher, the orphan daughter of the late Chief Justice 
Belcher. 
