Note 144 — Chapter XLII

Ib., p. 239.

"Lawrence was an active and able officer, and paid great attention to developing the resources of the province and promoting the welfare of the people. He opposed the Government scheme of making the colony a military settlement, and was permitted to invite a more desirable class of emigrants, farmers, mechanics, etc. A proclamation was issued, and inquiry soon followed as to the inducements offered to settlers. The terms were liberal. The townships were laid out at twelve miles square, or one hundred thousand acres each; and each settler was entitled to one hundred acres for himself, and fifty acres for every member of his family, on condition that he cultivated the land within thirty years; and each township was to have the right to send two members to the Legislature as soon as it contained fifty families. Agents from parties in Connecticut and Rhode Island visited Halifax in 1759, with a view to emigration, and selected Minas, Chignecto, and Cobequid, which had formerly been settled by the Acadians, as sites for townships. Emigration soon set in steadily towards the province; six vessels, with two hundred settlers, arrived from Boston; four schooners, with one hundred, came from Rhode Island; New London and Plymouth furnished two hundred and eighty; and three hundred came from Ireland, under the management of Alexander McNutt."—Ib.