[RayMonp] PRE-LOYALIST SETTLEMENTS OF NOVA SCOTIA SI 
The Lords of Trade intimated their willingness to give McNutt some 
compensation for the losses he had incurred in consequence of not being 
permitted to bring any more settlers to Nova Scotia from the north 
of Ireland and they asked him to submit full particulars of the loss and 
damage he alleged to have been sustained. The Colonel unfortunately 
was not a good practical man of business, and he found it a very diffi- 
cult matter to obtain the proofs and vouchers required. Some accounts 
from his agents were submitted at Halifax and were considered by the 
Governor and Council as “very blind and imperfect.” However, the 
Lords of Trade thought it would be reasonable, in consideration of his 
diligence and his expenses and disappointments, to grant him a certain 
quantity of land in Nova Scotia proportioned to his services. 
Far from being discouraged by his experience the Colonel now began 
to launch out into other schemes on a scale of equal magnitude. Already 
he had been the means of introducing a large number of settlers into 
Nova Scotia. The establishment of one of his colonies—Maugerville on 
the River St. John—was the cause of not a little correspondence between 
Lieut. Governor Belcher and the authorities at home.' As this was 
farther removed from Halifax than any other settlement, and became 
later an important township, its story may be briefly told. 
The French war was virtually at an end when, in the year 1761, a 
number of people of Essex County, Massachusetts, formed an associa- 
tion, at the instigation of Alexander McNutt, to establish a township 
in Nova Scotia. Their advance agents visited several places in the 
peninsula, but eventually gave the preference to the interval lands 
on the River St. John, where the Acadians had formerly made some 
attempt at cultivation. These lands had been recommended by the 
late Governor Lawrence as a reservation for disbanded soldiers of the 
army. The Massachusetts people, however, were ‘not looking for any 
objection to their settlement on that ground and proceeded to survey 
the lands, after which they reported their situation to the authorities 
at Halifax. Lieut. Governor Belcher was very indignant at McNutt’s 
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extensive a Plan of Settlement is the preventing its operating to the encouragement 
of the migration of any considerable number of your Majesty’s subjects from the 
northern parts of Ireland, where the ill effects of such migration to the American 
colonies have been severely felt, and therefore we beg leave humbly to propose that 
it should be a further condition of the grants that no person should be settled within 
the said Townships but Protestants from such parts of Europe as are not within your 
Majesty’s dominions, or such persons as have resided in your Majesty’s colonies in 
America for two years antecedent to the date of the grant.” 
1 Lieut. Governor Belcher wrote to the Lords of Trade, 3d November, 1761, 
“Many proposals have been made to me for Settlements on St. John’s River, but I 
shall not, my Lords, proceed to any grant of those lands or of any forfeited townships 
without your Lordships approbation and orders first received.” 
