268 INDIANS OF NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 



varied by the different writers' remarks. Edward Irish, Dorchester, 

 says : "In getting new blankets, they made breeches and stockings 

 by cutting up the old ones." This fact was verified by Charles 

 Glode, about eighteen hundred and thirty-three, using strips of 

 blanket for stockings, when in the woods with myself. G. Oxley, 

 Cumberland, says : "I knew no heads of families addicted to 

 drunkenness to any remarkable degree, nor any but will be drunk 

 when opportunity affords." This truthful remark remains good 

 yet. Joseph Marshall, Guysborough, says : "Very little in their 

 huts to subsist on, and as little on their persons to shelter them." 

 The government had spent £550 in one year upon them ; but two 

 years afterwards we find them curtailing their grants " to the young 

 Indians roaming to Quebec, when hard-working white men at 

 Halifax were supporting families at three or four shillings a day." 

 In eighteen hundred and seven, the year of the Chesapeake, 

 American frigate taken by the Leopard in time of peace, on an 

 alarm of an American invasion, these wandering beggars were 

 again the objects of alarm. 



The Province was divided into twelve Indian districts. Mr. 

 Monk, afterwards Justice Monk, was appointed Chief Indian Com- 

 missioner, who communicates to the twelve deputies, whom he 

 hopes will give gratuitous information " in the hour of alarm." 

 He had also the power to send confidential agents or spies to live 

 among the Indians. 



In Judge Monk's report to government, he places the fighting 

 men at between three and four hundred, says there is much war talk 

 among them ; that deputations had been sent to Canada, and that 

 American agents were making great war talk about them ; that 

 generally the feeling was neutral ; that they would wait to join the 

 strongest party ; except the Indians of Pictou, who would accept 

 nothing from government, but would scalp all the pale-faces in two 

 nights ; and those of Sable River, who had assembled in large 

 numbers, had menaced the Shelburne Indians, and insolently refused 

 to explain their meetings ; that in Cumberland they would fight for 

 King George, and that in Cape Breton the feeling was similar with 

 Xova Scotia. He also suggests that the twelve distiicts should 



