INDIANS IN NOVA SCOTIA— GILPIN. 2G0 



choose a chief who would communicate with the government, and 

 that the influence of the Catholic clergy, who were very well 

 disposed, should be sought. 



These various papers, all much decayed, and many dirty and 

 pocket-worn, are endorsed by Governors Wentworth, Prevost, and 

 Sherbroke. The strong, bold hand-writing of the latter, with the 

 initials J. C. S., are very characteristic. Louis Toney and Peter 

 Maurice, to their honor be it told, offer to fight for King George. 

 This petition is dated eighteen hundred and twelve. 



From memoranda of Sir John Sherbroke, we gather that they 

 were never called into service. He orders them to be clothed, but 

 arms and rations are nowhere to be issued. There are persons still 

 living who remember seeing two hundred in one body at Shuben- 

 acadie at that time, and Indians not long dead who boasted of being 

 captains then. To us in the nineteenth century, their being cause 

 of alarm seems more strange than their ingratitude, after being fed 

 for one hundred years. Petitions for grants of land now appear. 

 Reserves of one thousand acres in various pai-ts of the Province 

 and in Cape Breton were surveyed. The Francis Xavier settle- 

 ment at Bear River, Annapolis, seems to have been the most success- 

 ful, under the joint care of Mr. Justice Wiswell and the Abbe 

 Segoigne, in eighteen hundred and thirty-one. There are several 

 letters of this excellent gentleman preserved. 



In eighteen hundred and forty-two a commission was issued by 

 the Lieutenant-Governor, Lord Falkland, appointing the Hon. 

 Joseph Howe, Indian Commissioner ; and from his report, dated 

 eighteen hundred and forty-two, we learn their numbers at that 

 time to have been fourteen hundred and twenty-five. 



Mr. Howe, from statistics received, says the numbers at Pictou 

 in seventeen hundred and ninety-eight, were eight hundred, and 

 calculates their decrease by it ; but Mortimer's list to House of 

 Assembly for eighteen hundred, makes them only one hundred and 

 thirty-six. Mr. Howe's book contains his own report, a separate 

 plan of each reserve of land for the Indians, being in Nova Scotia 

 proper, ten thousand and fifty acres, and in Cape Breton, twelve 

 thousand ; numerous letters from various individuals, and ends in 



