434 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



knew the Acadians well and had business transactions with them for 

 more than sixteen years before the coming of the Loyalists. Stud- 

 holme commends the services of five members of the Martin family 

 (whom he mentions by name) who during the Revolutionary war 

 had great merit in exerting themselves for the good of the King's 

 service. The Acadians were not unknown. The only instance of 

 "British barbarity" which they suffered was at the hands of the troops 

 of Massachusetts in garrison at Fort Frederick in their midwinter 

 raid in 1759. 



When the 2nd New Jersey Volunteers proceeded to their location 

 above St. Anne's Point, in the present parish of Kingsclear, they were 

 under command of Captain Joseph Lee, a native of Trenton in New 

 Jersey. He is the officer referred to by Mr. Kavanagh as "one 

 Colonel Lee of Massachusetts, as it is said." Lieut. Col. Isaac Allen 

 on his arrival, a little later, became the leading man in the community. 



Complaints as to the misconduct of the disbanded soldiery 

 came from various quarters. Robert Smyth of Ireland claimed 

 possession of a lot of land in the lower part of the present city of 

 Fredericton, granted under the great seal of Nova Scotia in 1765. 

 Some improvements had been made by his tenant Philip Wade 

 as appears from Mr. Smyth's statement in his memorial to Carleton, 

 considered in Council July 13, 1785: — 



"In 1783 great numbers of Loyalists from New York arrived on the River St. 

 John's, some of whom have raised buildings for temporary accommodation on 

 your memorialist's lands, and in the same year Mr. Wade the memorialist's 

 attorney was prevented from making further improvements by the new comers 

 who took possession of the lands, burnt his fences, threatened his attorney's 

 person and even went so far as to give Wade formal notice, under the pretext 

 of the sanction of the Government, to desist from his improvements." 



The minutes of the Council indicate that the lands on which the 

 tenant resided were not sufficiently improved to save them from 

 escheat, but Mr. Smyth was told that "as soon as the needy are pro- 

 vided for Mr. Smyth, on becoming an inhabitant of this Province, 

 will be considered as entitled to a liberal grant." 



It was probably on the lands claimed by Robert Smyth that the 

 advance guard of the Loyalist troops passed their first winter in the 

 country. Some of them were able to build rude huts, but others 

 lived in canvas tents, only rendered habitable by the banks of snow 

 that lay six feet deep in the open spaces of the forest. 1 Most of those 

 who wintered at St. Anne's Point in 1783-4 were members of the 3rd 

 New Jersey Volunteers, others were of the Kings American Regiment. 



1 The terrible experience of these people during their first winter are narrated 

 in Raymond's History of the St. John River, Second Edition, 1910, pp. 547-550. 



