96 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
plans is called Roseneath.! It remained for a considerable time in the 
hands of the Colonel’s relatives, several of whom were grantees of Shel- 
burne. 
We hear little of Alexander McNutt in Nova Scotia after the year 
1770. Circumstances were against him. He had rivals at Court, both 
in England and in Nova Scotia, and finally the outbreak of the American 
Revolution blasted his prospects. His attitude during that contest 
ruined him, but the Nova Scotia of to-day is none the less his debtor 
for many of the pillars of her foundation. The colony at Port Rose- 
way, bereft of his guidance and leadership, fell into confusion. The 
few settlers placed there were not sufficient to prevent its escheat. 
On the 11th of January, 1775, New Jerusalem, or Port Roseway, 
with its 100,000 acres was advertised for sale at public auction at the 
house of Mr. John Rider in Halifax? 
MeNutt’s Island remained in possession of Benjamin McNutt, and it 
is quite possible that he, and not Colonel Alexander, may have been the 
McNutt whom tradition states to have been drowned in crossing from 
the Island to the mainland. A number of Colonel McNutt’s kinsmen 
remained in Nova Scotia and some of their descendants have filled 
high positions in the province as well as in the army and naval service, 
among them Admiral Cochrane of the British navy. 
Colonel McNutt was living at Port Roseway at the commencement 
of the American Revolution. The outbreak of hostilities placed him 
in a difficult position. His natural instincts were republican and led 
him to sympathise with the majority of the people of America in the 
conflict. But to join with them openly might mean the sacrifice of 
all his prospects. He concluded to await further developments. The 
developments came in due time, and very unwelcome they were. 
They suffice, however, to add another chapter to the story of a very 
romantic career. Our source of information in this connection ‘will 
be the archives of Massachusetts. It appears from a memorial written 
in the Colonel’s usual energetic style and addressed to the Honourable 
Council of the State of Massachusetts Bay, that a Boston privateer, 
called the Congress, Thomas Francis, master, paid an unwelcome visit 
1 In a plan in the Archives Department at Ottawa, of the year 1785, the Island 
is marked “survey’d, laid out and granted Benjamin McNutt and 87 others.” 
2 In the advertisement the township is described as granted to Alex. McNutt, 
but lately the property of Benjamin Gerrish. 
3 The writer is indebted to Dr. A. W. H. Eaton for calling his attention to the 
memorials of Alexander McNutt, which were presented to the Council and House 
of Representatives of Massachusetts in 1778 and the two years following. These 
memorials, with other papers, are printed in the “ Annals of Yarmouth and Barring- 
ton in the Revolutionary War,” by Edmund Duval Poole (1889), pp. 45-49. 
