[RayMonD] PRE-LOYALIST SETTLEMENTS OF NOVA SCOTIA 107 
of reducing the French Inhabitants of the Colony to that obedience which as Sub- 
jects under the faith of the Treaty of Utrecht they owed to Your Majesty’s Govern- 
ment, or forcing them to quit the Country, Charles Lawrence, Esq’r., Your Majesty’s 
Governor of the said Colony, availed himself of that conjuncture to try every means 
of inducing them to take the proper Oath of Allegiance to Your Majesty unqualified 
with any Reservation whatever. But they persisting in an unanimous Refusal of 
such Oath, the said Governor and Your Majesty’s Council assisted by the advice 
and opinion of Admiral Boscawen and the late Rear Admiral Moystyn, resolved it 
to be indispensably necessary to the security of Nova Scotia immediately to remove 
from that colony a set of people, who, refusing to become subjects to Your Majesty 
according to the stipulation of the Treaty of Utrecht, had ever since, under the 
name of Neutrals, either abetted every hostile attempt of the French by secret 
Treachery or countenanced them by open force. 
This Resolution being carried into effectual execution by transporting the said 
French Inhabitants to the amount of near seven thousand persons and distributing 
them in proper proportions among the colonies on the Continent of North America, 
vast quantities of the most fertile land, in an actual state of cultivation and in 
those parts of the Province the most advantageously situated for commerce in 
general and that of the Fishery in particular, became vacant and subject to Your 
Majesty’s disposal: And the filling them with usefull and industrious Inhabitants 
appeared to us to be of so great importance to the future security and prosperity of 
Nova Scotia that it became an immediate object of our utmost attention and sollici- 
tude. Accordingly we lost no time in recommending it to your Majesty’s Governor 
to consult with such of the neighbouring Colonies as abound in Inhabitants and 
whose cleared Lands are already taken up, and to use every other means in his 
Power toward inviting and procuring a proper number of settlers to seat themselves 
on the said vacated lands on the terms and conditions prescribed by Your Majesty’s 
Instructions. 
In pursuance of these directions, Your Majesty’s Governor, by private corres- 
pondence, at first, and afterwards by two publick Proclamations (of which we 
humbly beg leave to annex copies) made known the quantities, situation and nature 
of the Lands, and the conditions on which he was empowered to Grant them, ap- 
pointed Agents at Boston and New York to treat with all Persons desirous to become 
Settlers, and in consequence received several Proposals for settling Townships in 
different parts of the Province. And altho’ the execution of those proposals has 
been greatly delayed by circumstances the most unfavourable to such undertakings, 
which necessarily arise in time of war, and particularly by the dread of those incur- 
sions and cruelties of the French and Indians, with which this Province has con- 
tinually been harrassed; we have, nevertheless, the great satisfaction humbly to 
represent to your Majesty that the zealous endeavours of your said Governor have 
at length been crowned with a success greatly beyond our Expectations and almost 
equal to our wishes. 
It appears, may it please Your Majesty, by letters and papers which we have 
lately received from Mr. Lawrence, than an extraordinary disposition for settling 
in Nova Scotia having, in consequence of the said Proclamations, diffused itself 
thro’ the Colonies of the Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island—in the two 
last of which the Inhabitants are growing too numerous for their present possessions, 
the said Governor has availed himself of that spirit not merely to people the culti- 
vated Lands heretofore possessed by the French Inhabitants, according to the first 
idea, but also to grant out with them a very large proportion of wild and uncultivated 
country. That upon this Plan he has actually passed Grants of nine Townships, 
