Note 147 — Chapter XLII

Tuttle's History of the Dominion of Canada, Chap. lxvi., p. 327.

"The Loyalists who settled at the St. John River did not agree very well with the original settlers. They grew angry with the Governor because their grants of land had not been surveyed. He in turn charged them with refusing to assist in the surveys, by acting as chainmen, unless they were well paid for it. Then they demanded additional representation in the Assembly. Nova Scotia was then divided into eight counties, and there were thirty-six representatives in the Assembly, the districts where a number of Loyalists had settled being included in the county of Halifax. Governor Parr opposed an increase of representation, as his instructions forbade his increasing or diminishing the number of representatives in the Assembly.

"The Loyalists then began to agitate for a division of the province—a policy which was strongly opposed by the Governor, and which gave rise to much excitement and ill-feeling. Parr went so far as to remove some of the Loyalists to the other side of the Bay of Fundy, in the hope that that would settle the agitation; but it only increased it, and the Loyalists, who had many warm and influential friends at court, urged a division so earnestly that the Ministry yielded to their wishes, and the Province of New Brunswick was created (in 1784), so called out of compliment to the reigning family of England. The River Missiquash was constituted the boundary line between the two provinces, and the separation took place in the fall of 1784, and the first Governor of New Brunswick, Colonel Thomas Carleton (brother of Lord Dorchester), arrived at St. John on the 21st of November. In the same year Cape Breton was made a separate colony[148]; and as the Island of St. John (Prince Edward Island) had been separated from Nova Scotia in 1770, there were now four separate governments in what at present constitute the Maritime Provinces." (Tuttle's History of the Dominion of Canada, Chap. lxvi., pp. 328, 329.)