[RayMonD] PRE-LOYALIST SETTLEMENTS OF NOVA SCOTIA 
EX. 
Representation of the Lords of Trade to His Majesty upon Mr. Alexander 
McNutt’s proposals to send a number of persons to settle in the Province of Nova 
Scotia. 
To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. 
May it please your Majesty. 
Jonathan Belcher, Esq’r. Lieut. Governor and Commander in Chief of your 
Majesty’s Province of Nova Scotia, having transmitted to us very particular accounts 
of the state of the Settlements made and preparing to be made in that Province by 
Persons from other of your Majesty’s Colonies to the southward and partly by 
persons who went thither last year from the north of Ireland under direction, and 
principally at the expence, of Mr. Alex’r. McNutt in consequence of the proposals 
made by him to this Board in Febr’y, 1761, and by the then Lords Commissioners 
of Trade and Plantations laid before your Majesty for your confirmation on the 
5th of March following, and it appearing that Mr. McNutt was come to England 
with a view to the further prosecution of his Plan, We thought it our duty to call 
him before us, and having received from him very full Information, as well of what 
he has already done, as of what he further purposes to do in prosecution of the 
measures approved of by the late Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, we 
humbly beg leave to represent to your Majesty. 
That immediately after Mr. McNutt had been made acquainted with their 
Lordships approbation of his Plan in Nov’r., 1760, he went to the north of Ireland, 
and, having published his proposals, a number of Families soon engaged to accept 
thereof and to settle under his direction in Nova Scotia, and accordingly early in 
the Spring the heads of these Families, to the amount of about 300 persons, actually 
embarked with him for that Colony, and upon their arrival appointed a Committee 
to view the lands reserved for them by the late Governor Lawrence, the remainder 
employing themselves in the meantime in common day labour in and about the 
town of Halifax, which had the good effect to reduce the price of labour from 4 
shillings to 2 shillings per day. 
The Committee appointed to view the Lands, having made a very favourable 
report of those Lands and of the many advantages attending settlements in that 
country, and the whole body of these people having expressed their great satisfaction 
jn the conduct of Mr. McNutt, he immediately prepared to return to Ireland in 
order to prosecute his Plan, having as he has informed us entered into contract 
with some merchants at Londonderry for the hire of 10,000 tons of shipping, in 
order to carry over this year 7,000 or 8,000 persons from that Kingdom to Nova 
Scotia, and also contracted for 500 bushels of Hemp seed, with a view to encourage 
the production of that valuable material of manufacture in that Province. 
This, may it please your Majesty, is the present state of this measure, which 
in so far as it tends to the benefit, improvement and effectual establishment of the 
Colony of Nova Scotia (certainly a very desirable object) appears to us to have 
been wisely and properly adopted by the Commissioners of this Board, and we 
should do injustice to Mr. McNutt’s merit if we did not add that it has been as ably 
and faithfully executed on his part. But however reasonable and politick such a 
measure may appear when confined to a limited place of settlement, yet if it should 
extend itself to a larger number than Mr. McNutt has already engaged (which we 
apprehend would be beyond what the late Commissioners had in view) it appears 
to be a proposition of a different kind, and comprehends other considerations than 
merely that of the local advantages and benefits that will arise from it to the Province 
