MISCELLANEOUS. 1181 



tinguish all sorts of mines of gold and silver," and gave him the 

 monopoly of the trade in furs. He seems to have confined his atten- 

 tion to measures to secure the latter; yet fish were caught, cured, and 

 carried to France. A permanent fishery was established at Can- 

 seau. Acadia soon passed from De Monts into Catholic hands, while 

 the English grant to Sir William Alexander, in 1621, embraced a 

 large part of it. As the events connected with our subject at this 

 time appear in the account of the French fisheries, there is nothing to 

 demand our attention until after Nova Scotia was permanently 

 annexed to the British crown, by the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713. 



Down to the period of our Revolution, Nova Scotia was hardly 

 known except for its fisheries. The resident English population was 

 so small in 1719, that Phillips, the military governor, was compelled to 

 select the council required by his instructions from his garrison. 

 Thirty-six years later, the whole number of inhabitants was estimated 

 at only 5,000. In 1760, the township of Liverpool was settled by 

 persons from Massachusetts, who designed to prosecute the salmon 

 fishery, and who, successful in their labors, caught a thousand barrels 

 in a season. They were followed in 1763 by about one hundred and 

 sixty families from Cape Cod, who selected the spot called Barrington, 

 transported thither then* stock and fishing vessels, and founded one 

 of the most considerable fishing towns at present in the colony. The 

 whole value of the imports at this period was less than five thousand 

 dollars. In truth, the House of Assembly asserted in 1775, that the 

 amount of money in Nova Scotia was 1,200, (or $4.800) of which 

 one-fifth was in the hands of farmers. Such was the general condition. 



The settlement of Halifax, the capital, requires a more particular 

 notice. Thomas Coram, a famous projector of the time, whose name 

 occurs often in the history of Maine, engaged in a scheme to commence 

 a town on the site of this city as early as the year 1718, and his peti- 

 tion for a grant of land received a favorable report from the Lords of 

 Trade and Plantations; but the agents of Massachusetts opposed his 

 plans, because they interfered with the freedom of the fisheries, and he 

 was compelled to abandon his purpose.* 



At the restoration of Cape Breton, in 1748, the founding of a capital 

 for Nova Scotia was undertaken as a government measure. "As a sub- 

 stitute" for Louisbourg restored to France, said Mr. Hartley in the 

 House of Commons, "you settled Halifax for a 'place d'armes, leaving 

 the limits of the province as a matter of contest with France, which 

 could not fail to prove, as it did, the cause of another war. Had you 

 kept Louisbourg, instead of settling Halifax, the Americans f could 

 not say, at least, that there would not have been that pretext for 

 imputing the late war to their account." The new city was named 

 in honor of the Earl of Halifax, the president of the Lords of Trade 

 and Plantations. \ "The site," says Haliburton, "about mid-way 

 between Cape Canseau and Cape Sable, was preferred to several 



* It is said, in Burke's Commoners of England, that Major William Markham, (of the 

 family of Markham of Becca Hall,) who was born in 1686, built the first house in Halifax, 

 Nova Scotia. 



fThis speech was in 1775. 



j Horace Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann, in 1749: "Half our thoughts are taken 

 up that is, Lord Halifax's are with colonizing Nova Scotia; my friend, Colonel 

 Cornwallis, is going thither command er-in-chief. The Methodists will scarce follow 

 him, as they did Oglethorpe " to Georgia. 



