Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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CHAPTER
III
Fragments
of
Empire
THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION
had
an effect
upon
the
British
colonial
empire
that
was the
very opposite
of
what
it
had
upon
the
mother
country.
It turned
back
the hands of
the clock.
Generations
were
to
pass
before
the
empire
was
again
as
large,
as
mature,
and
as self-
governing
as
it
had
been;
and
a
reactionary
colonial
policy
prevailed
for
more
than
half a
century.
How
greatly
the
development
of
the
empire
was set
back,
we
may
see
by
observing
that
the old
empire
had
grown
ripe
for
some
such
fundamental
change
as
that
which
has
only
recently
produced
the
British
Commonwealth
of Nations.
The
reduction
in
the size
of
the
empire
is
striking.
What
was left
in
1783
was almost
entirely
confined
to the
North
American
continent
and
its
neighboring
islands.
True,
the
East India
Company
had
begun
to
establish
British
rule
in
India,
but
as
yet
it
had
acquired
scarcely
more
than
a foothold
in
that
subcontinent;
and the
only
other
British
possessions
in the
whole
of
the eastern
hemisphere
were two
square
miles
of
rock
known
as
Gibraltar,
and
a small
handful
of
trading
posts
on
the
west
coast
of
Africa
which had
little
or
no value
except
to
America,
since
they
existed
to
supply
slave labor
for
plantations
in the
New
World.
The
Negro
colony
of
Sierra
Leone
was
not
begun
until
1787,
when
a few
hundred
blacks
discharged
from
the
army
and
navy
were
planted
at
Freetown.
South
Africa
still
belonged
to the
Dutch;
it
was
not
until
1786
that
a merchant
captain
raised
the
British
flag
in
Penang,
from
which
the Straits
Settlements
grew
in later
years;
and
all
of
Australia
was
a no
man's
land
until,
as
a
by-product
of the
Ameri-
can
Revolution,
1
the
convict
settlement
of
New
South
Wales
was
1
Convicts
had
been
deported
to the
southern
colonies,
where
they
fetched about 10
a
head.
26
CHAPTER
THREE:
founded in
1788. The British
empire
was still
an
American
empire,
but
its
solid
central
body
had
been
torn
away,
leaving
behind
only
the
outlying
fragments,
the
disjointed
northern
and
southern
extremities,
British
North America
and
the
British
West
Indies.
Britain
had come
very
close
to
losing
all her
West
Indies,
but
not
by
their revolt.
Though
they
felt
much
sympathy
for
the
American
cause,
it was
physically impossible
for
them to
join
in
the Revolution.
They
were
individually
too
weak and too
isolated,
and
no effective
American aid
could have reached them. What
nearly
broke
their
Brit-
ish
connection was
foreign
conquest,
for
it
should
not
be
forgotten
that
the
American
war
grew
into
a
world
war
in which
Britain
fought
without
any
ally
against
a
ring
of enemies.
Of
these,
France was
by
far the
strongest;
her
naval
strength
was
then at
its
peak,
while
that
of
Britain,
though
not
neglected
or
mismanaged
as
much
as
tradition
has
asserted,
was
not
yet
near
its
peak.
French
sea
power
was there-
fore able to
tip
the
scales of
war
against
the British.
The result
was
not
only
the
crowning
American
victory
of
Yorktown
but also
the
French
capture
of
island after island
in
the
West Indies
until
Britain
held
only
Jamaica,
Barbados,
and
Antigua
in
the
early spring
of 1782.
A
combined French
and
Spanish expedition
was on the
way
to
con-
quer
Jamaica,
the
biggest
and
strongest
of these three
surviving
colo-
nies,
when
Admiral
Rodney intercepted
and broke
up
the
French
fleet
in the
"Battle of
the
Saintes" between
Guadeloupe
and
Dominica.
That
turned
the tide
in
those
waters,
but the
damage
then inflicted
on the
French
fleet was
not
sufficient
to
establish the
supremacy
of
British sea
power.
The
French
navy
was
still so
strong
that,
as
Mahan
has
pointed
out,
France
might
have
been
able
to
keep
her
island
con-
quests
at
the
peace
settlement,
already
being
negotiated,
if
her
treasury
had
not
become
so
hopelessly
bankrupt.
What
Britain
had
lost
in
the
West Indies
as a
consequence
of French
naval
strength
she
was
able
to
recover at
the
peace
table as
a
consequence
of
French
financial
weakness
all
save
Tobago,
which she
recovered
finally
in
1803.
The
British
West
Indies
on the
morrow
of the
American
Revolution
included
the
Bahamas,
an
archipelago
of
small
islands
strung
out
for
630
miles
along
a
line
between
Florida and
Haiti;
most
of
the
Leeward
Islands,
beginning
with
the
Virgins, just
east
of
Puerto
Rico,
and
ending
with
Dominica,
300
miles to
the
southeast;
to
the
south
again,
the
Windward
Islands
of St.
Vincent,
the
Grenadines,
and
Grenada;
Barbados,
off
by
itself,
150
miles to the
east;
and
1,200
miles
to
the
west,
just
south
of
Cuba,
the
island
of
Jamaica,
which
had
a
few
small
Fragments
of
Empire
27
outlying
dependencies.
Most of
the
islands
were
known
as "old colo-
nies,"
having
been
acquired
by
England
in the second and
third
quar-
ters
of the
previous
century
all
by
settlement
except
Jamaica
and
the
Virgin group,
which
had
been
taken
from
the
Spaniards
and
the
Dutch
respectively.
The
remainder
were known as the "ceded
islands,"
which
Britain
had
gained
from
the
French
by conquest during
the
Seven
Years' War
and
by
formal
cession
at
the close of it
Dominica and
the
Windwards.
The total area
of all the
British
West
Indies
was about
10,000
square
miles,
of which
Jamaica,
by
far
the
largest,
accounted
for
nearly
4,300
and the
Bahamas
nearly
4,500.
The
most
thickly
settled
was
Barbados,
which
had
early
been
a
base for
the colonization
of
otter
islands.
Its 166
square
miles contained
about
16,000
whites
and
55,000
blacks.
The most
populous
of all
these colonies
was,
of
course,
Jamaica,
which
had
approximately
18,000
whites
and
215,000
blacks.
Of
the
other
islands,
the
largest populations
were
in
three
of
the
Lee-
wards:
Antigua,
with
some
40,000,
more
than 90
per
cent of
them
black;
Dominica,
about
3,500
whites and
20,000
blacks;
and St.
Christopher,
better
known
as St.
Kitts,
which had
about
5,000
whites
and four times as
many
blacks. The
Bahamas
were
the
most
sparsely
settled,
and at
the
close of the
war their
population
was some
4,000.
With
the
arrival of
the
Loyalists,
mostly
southern
planters
accompanied
by
their
slaves,
the
population
of
the
Bahamas
leaped
to
10,000,
only
a
third
of which
were whites. These
newcomers
introduced
cotton
cultivation,
which
was the
staple
industry
of
the
colony
for
the next
quarter
of
a
century.
Jamaica
attracted
the
only
other
considerable
Loyalist migration
to tie West Indies.
This
migration
was likewise
from
the
planter
South
and so
brought
twice as
many
slaves
as whites.
These newcomers
were
two or
three
times as
numerous
as
those
in
the
Bahamas.
They
wrought
no
corresponding change
in
Jamaica,
however,
for
they
added
only
a small
minority
to
its
population.
A few
of
them tried to raise
indigo,
and some of
them
coffee;
but
they
were
only
repeating
the
rather
discouraging
experience
of other
Jamaican
planters.
2
Sugar
was
king
and
his
rule
was
a curse.
With
the
exception
of
the
Bahamas,
the
soil of
which was
not suitable
for
the
growth
of
cane,
the
British
West
Indies
were
given
over
almost
entirely
to the
pro-
2
W.
H.
Siebert,
The
Legacy
of
the
American
Revolution
to
the British West
Indies
and the
Bahamas
(Columbus,
Ohio, 1913).
28
CHAPTER
THREE:
duction of
sugar.
The reasons for
this
specialization
lie
in the
fiscal
arrangements
of the mother
country,
which
gave
to
British
Caribbean
sugar
but
to no
alternative
crop
a
monopoly
in
the
home
market,
and then
milked
this
monopoly
through
the
collection
of
heavy
customs
duties on the
sugar.
3
Not all
the
profits
of
the
monopoly,
extracted
from
consumers
in
the mother
country
in the
form
of
higher
prices
than
prevailed
in
France and other
continental
countries,
were
gathered
into
the
British
Treasury.
Enough
was
left
to
the
planters
to
keep
the
precious
sugar flowing
and
the curse
operating.
British colonization in
the West
Indies
had
long
since
been
blighted.
Time
was in
the
previous
century
when
these islands
contained
a
population
that was
predominantly
white and
considerably larger
than
that
of
the
mainland
colonies. Now the
slave
population
of these
same
islands was well
over
400,000,
the white
about
50,000;
and
the former
was
swelling
while the
latter was
shrinking,
for
sugar
fostered
slavery.
The
small
freeholders had been
pretty
well crowded
out
by
large
estates
owned
by
single
families
and
worked
by
gangs
of servile
labor,
and
the
planters
themselves
were
disappearing
from
the islands. Most
of
those
who
could afford
it
and
many
who could not were
living
in
England,
where
the
amenities of life were much more
abundant. There
they spent
all
the income
they
could drain
from
their
West
Indian
estates
through agents
who
had
no
interest
in
preserving
the
property
and
less
in
improving
it.
The
plantations
were
running
down,
the
soil
was
running
down,
the
society
was
running
down,
the
West
Indies
were
running
down.
The
deepening
shadow
cast
by
sugar
had also
perverted
the
nature
of British
political
institutions in
the
West
Indies.
These
colonies
all
had
assemblies,
the
largest
with
about two
dozen
members;
and
these
assemblies,
which
had been
democratic
when
they
were
established
in
the
early
days
of
British
settlement,
came
to be
filled with
slaveowners.
As
might
be
expected,
the
councils,
which
were
never
intended to
be
democratic,
were
also soon
dominated
by
slaveowners.
Government
of
free men
by
free
men
had
degenerated
into
government
of
slaves
by
their
masters.
Because
the
whites
were
a
small
minority
of
the
popu-
lation,
they
were
haunted
by
a
feeling
of
insecurity.
This
bred
fear,
and fear
bred
cruelty;
and
because
their
minority position
was
steadily
growing
worse,
so
was
this
reaction.
According
to
Adam
Smith,
it
was
8
The
tariff
also
blocked
the
development
of
a
refining
industry
in
the
colonies,
the
rate
on
the
finished
article
being prohibitive
for the
benefit of
the
London
refiners.
Fragments
of
Empire
29
generally
conceded
that
the
evil institution
was
not so evil
in
the
French
sugar
colonies,
where,
under an
"arbitrary"
form
of
govern-
ment,
the
planters
neither
enacted
nor administered
the
laws,
as
they
did
in
the British colonies. It
should also be observed
that
government
in
these colonies was
being
more
or less
crippled
by
the absentee
habits
of
assemblymen,
councilors,
and
other
local
functionaries,
and
by
the
growing
difficulty
of
finding
residents
who
were fit
for
public
office.
That
Great Britain should
curb
rather than
encourage
self-govern-
ment
in her
West Indian colonies
was
obviously
in
the interest of
the
large
black
majority
and even of the little
white
minority,
though
the
latter
could
not
see
it,
for
slavery
corrupts
the
masters
no less
than
the
slaves. As
slavery
was
already beginning
to trouble
the conscience
of
the mother
country
and was to trouble
it
more as
the
years passed
by
imperial
control
over
the
governments
of
these
colonies
was
bound
to
grow
tighter.
Of course
this
outside
interference
was
resented,
but
resistance
by
force
was out of
the
question.
Being
small
and
divided,
and
sprinkled
widely
over
the
sea,
the
colonies
were
helpless
against
the
power
on
which
they
were
dependent
for
protection
not
only
against
foreign
foes,
who
had convenient
bases
all
around
them,
but
also
against
a domestic
upheaval
of
blacks,
the
worst
nightmare
of
all.
The
economy
of
these islands
also
bound
them
tightly
to
the
mother
country.
If
they
lost
the
monopoly
of
the
British
sugar
market,
they
would
face
financial
ruin.
The best the
planters
could
do to
guard
their
interests
was to
buy
their
way
into
parliament,
which
was
then
possi-
ble,
and
there
work
in combination
with the
wealthy
British
merchants
who
handled
the West
Indian
trade.
Already
there
was
a
strong
West
Indian
pressure
group
in
England,
and
it exerted
a
powerful
political
influence
until the
purge
of
parliament
by
the
great
reform of
1832.
4
One
small
fragment
of
the
British
Empire
in
the New World
was
neither
in
the West
Indies
nor
in
British
North
America.
This was
Bermuda,
or
the
Bermudas,
for
it
is a
little
cluster
of
islands
with
an
area
of
not
quite
twenty
square
miles,
a
population
of
scarcely
15,000,
and
the
second
oldest
colonial
assembly,
dating
from
shortly
after
that
of
Virginia.
Tobacco
had
once
been
the
mainstay
of
the
Bermudian
colony
of
freeholders;
but
agriculture
had
long
been
neglected
and
left
to
slaves,
while
the
white
settlers
took
to
building
ships
and
trading
in
American
waters,
the
principal
article
of com-
*
L.
J.
Ragatz,
The
Fall
of
the
Planter
Class
in
the
Caribbean,
1763-2833
(New
York,
1928).
30
CHAPTER
THREE:
merce
being
salt from
the
Bahamas
and
Turks
Islands.
At
the
close
of
the
Revolutionary
War,
the
prosperity
and
population
of
Bermuda
began
to
decline,
and
a
whole
century
was to
pass
before
they
were
up
again
to
where
they
had been.
British
North
America
in
1783
comprised
the
old
Province
of
Quebec,
not
to be confused
with the modern
province
of
that
name,
though
it covered
much the same
territory;
Nova
Scotia,
which
then
included
what soon
became
New
Brunswick;
the
Island
of Saint
John,
now
Prince Edward
Island;
Newfoundland;
and
Rupert's
Land,
or
the
domain of
the Hudson's
Bay Company.
These
British
possessions
were
as different
as
they
could
be
from
the West
Indies.
The latter
belonged
to
the
past,
the former
to the future. The
tropical
climate
had
forced,
and
the small
size of the
islands
had
cramped,
the
growth
of
the
Carib-
bean
colonies,
and
their
value
was
steadily
falling.
Nevertheless,
they
were then worth
many
times
the whole
of
British
North
America,
which had
not
yet
begun
to
disclose the enormous
potentialities
in
its
continental
expanse.
Because these northern
parts
of the
empire
in
America
were
the land of the
future,
they
merit closer
attention;
and
because there was much
more
diversity
between them
than
between
the
British West
Indies,
it
is
impossible
to
describe
them
collectively.
The
territory
of the
Hudson's
Bay
Company
was
a vast
land
of
emptiness.
It was
a
commercial
game
preserve
that
stretched
from
the
Rockies
to the
Atlantic
and
from the
frozen
Arctic
to
the
northern
parts
of the
present
Minnesota
and
North
Dakota,
for
it
was
coexten-
sive
with the
drainage
basin
of
Hudson
Bay
and
Strait.
The
monopoly
of the
trade,
the
ownership
of the
land,
and the
right
of
government
throughout
all
this
region
were
vested
in
this
company
of
London
merchants
by
its
royal
charter
which
the first
governor
or
head
of
the
company,
Prince
Rupert,
had
procured
from
his
cousin
Charles
II
in
1670.
But
as
yet
the
land
had no
value;
the
government
was
merely
what
was
necessary
for
the
management
of
the
company's
servants,
and
the fur
trade
was
all that
mattered.
The
only
reason
white
men
were
in
this
wild
country
was
to
get
the
pelts
gathered
by
the
Indians,
and
there
were
many
traders
there
who
had
nothing
to
do
with
this
English
company.
The
establishment
of
the
company
had
commenced
the
his-
toric
rivalry
between the
fur
trade
based on
Hudson
Bay
and
the
fur
trade
already
based on
the
St.
Lawrence,
a
bitter
struggle
that
ended
only
a
century
and
a
half
afterward
with
the
complete
victory
of
the
former
in
1821.
It
was
now
half
a
century
since
French
traders,
who
could
not
Fragments
of
Empire
3
1
recognize
the
English
charter,
had
penetrated
beyond
their
rivals
into
the
richer
fur
region
of
the
West,
along
the
Saskatchewan.
The
con-
quest
of Canada
checked
this
invasion.
It was
soon
renewed
more
vigorously,
however,
by
British
enterprise,
which
was
attracted
to
Montreal
by
visions of
fortunes in furs
and
was
equally
scornful
of
the
old
charter. Then
the
Canadian
trade
also
indulged
in
fierce
in-
ternal
competition,
which
caused much
liquor
and
not
a little
blood
to
flow
in the
West,
until
the
Montreal
leaders
ended
this fratricidal
strife
in
1784
by
combining
their
interests
in the North
West
Company.
This
new
Canadian
company,
possessing
a
driving
power
and
a
ruthless
efficiency
seldom
if ever
surpassed
in
the later
history
of busi-
ness
corporations
in
America,
roused
the old
English
company
to
fight
for
its life. Within a decade the
intense
competition
between
them
planted fur-trading
posts
along
the
waterways
of
the
far
Northwest,
even
beyond
the watershed of Hudson
Bay.
It
was
spreading
British
influence
and control over
this immense
no
man's land
and
was
laying
the foundations
for the Canadian
acquisition
of
the
West
nearly
a
century
afterward.
As the
only
way
into the
country
was
over
Hudson
Bay
or
the
long
canoe
trail from
Montreal,
no
settlement
was
yet
possible,
nor
any
real
government.
The
white
men
were
ruled
by
their
respective
companies,
and
neither
organization
attempted
to
exercise
jurisdiction
over
the red men.
Newfoundland
was
little
more
developed
than
Rupert's
Land
in
1783.
Ten
years
afterward
it was
described
by
William
Knox,
former
undersecretary
of
state,
as
"a
great
English
ship
moored
near
the
Banks
during
the
fishing
season
for
the convenience
of
fishermen/'
The
mother
country
had
long
discouraged
settlement
there,
lest
it
under-
mine
the
fishing
industry
conducted
from
England;
and the
land itself
was too
rocky
and
barren
to offer
a
living
by
agriculture.
All its
popu-
lation
of
15,000,
chiefly
Irish,
lived
along
the coast
on
the southeast
corner
of
the
island;
and
fishing,
principally
cod,
was almost
the sole
occupation.
There
was
no
settled
government
in
the
colony.
An admiral
or
other
naval
officer
of
approximate
rank
held a commission
as
gover-
nor
for
three
or
four
years,
but
he
resided
there
only
for
some four
months
in
the
summer
when
fishing
activities
were
at their
height.
He
had
power
to
appoint
judges
and
justices
of
the
peace,
and
this
system
was
used
from
1763
to
provide
a
rudimentary judicial
system.
Its
incompetence
and
corruption,
and also
the lack
of
any
authority
to
try
cases
involving
property,
caused
such
complaints
that the naval
governor
created
a court
of common
pleas
in 1789, As
the
legality
of
32
CHAPTER
THREE:
this
action met
a
prompt
challenge
that was sustained
at
home,
parlia-
ment
had
to
repair
the fault
by
an act
of 1 79 1
establishing
a
court
with
a resident
chief
justice.
There was
no resident
governer
until
1818,
and
no
council
or
assembly
until
1832.
The
explanation
of all
this
apparent neglect
is
that
Newfoundland
was
very
much more than
the
little
colony
in it.
The
fishermen
who
dwelt
there were
greatly
outnumbered
by
others
who
swarmed
around
its
shores
and over its
Banks
every
summer.
Of
these
there
were,
in
1783,
some
9,000
whose homes
were
in
England.
They
alone
were
more
numerous than
the
resident
fishers
and,
what
was
of
paramount
importance,
they
alone
represented
the
sole interest
in
Newfoundland
that
England
had
always regarded
as
worth
fighting
for
the
fisheries
as a
nursery
of seamen essential to
maintain her sea
power.
Fishermen
who resided
on
the island confined
their
operations
to
small
boats in
which
they
rarely
ventured far
from shore.
They
were
lost
to the
Royal
Navy.
Newfoundland
was also a bone of international
contention,
though
in 1713 France had
surrendered
to Britain all
claim
to
sovereignty
over it.
Again
and
again,
as the
price
of
peace,
France had forced
Britain
to share the
use of
the
shores of
Newfoundland,
for France too
would
fight
rather than
be excluded from
this
valuable
training ground
for sailors.
Treaty
definitions of what
part
of the shore French
fisher-
men could use
led
to
troublesome
disputes
over
the
extent of
this
"French
shore"
and over the French
attempt
to
exclude British
fisher-
men
from it.
Now the
disruption
of
the
empire
added
a third
party
to
the
international
problem
of
Newfoundland;
for
New
Englanders,
as
British
subjects,
had
played
a
large part
in
the
development
of
these
fisheries
and
they
insisted,
against
French
as well as
British
pressure,
on
retaining
a share in
them. The
diplomatic
triangle
of
forces
thus
pulling
on
Newfoundland
during
the
peace
negotiations
was
resolved
as
follows: The
French
shore
was
redefined
as
extending
along
all the
west
side
of
the
island,
around the
north,
and
down the
east as
far as
Cape
St.
John.
France
failed
to
get
from
Britain
a
treaty
recognition
of
her
exclusive
right
to this
shore,
which
she
had
already
exacted
from
the United States as a
condition of
the
alliance
of
1778;
but
the
British
government,
again
as
the
price
of
peace,
gave
France
a
solemn
assur-
ance that
British
subjects
would
not
be
allowed
to
interfere
with
Frenchmen
on
the
French
shore.
British
fishermen
could
therefore
use
only
the
south
shore,
off
which
the
French
retained
the
two
little
islands
of St.
Pierre
and
Miquelon,
and
the east
shore
up
to
Cape
St.
Fragments
of Empire
33
John;
and
these
shores
they
had
to share
with
Americans.
There the
latter
could catch fish
but
could
not land to
dry
or
cure. Newfound-
land
was
caught
in
an
international
tangle
that
became
more
compli-
cated
as
a
result of
the
American Revolution and was not
finally
unraveled
until
the
early years
of the twentieth
century.
In
1783,
and
for
many
years
afterward,
the
chief
responsibility
of
the
naval
governor
of
Newfoundland
was
not the
management
of the
little
colony
but the
preservation
of
British interests
in this
tangle,
The
Island of
Saint
John,
better known
by
its later
name of Prince
Edward
Island,
5
was
an
infant
colony
that
already
had been delivered
into
bondage.
In
1767,
shortly
after the island
was ceded
by
France,
the
British
government
granted
the
whole of
it to
a few favored
friends,
among
whom it
was
parceled
out
in
big
estates. The
grantees
possessed
such
political
influence
that
two
years
later
they
had
their
island
severed
from
the
government
of Nova
Scotia,
to
which it had been
annexed
after the
cession,
and
erected into
a
separate
colony
with
its
own
governor,
council,
and
assembly, though
it
had
scarcely any
population.
When
the
land became
British,
it had
only
two
or
three
hundred Acadians left in
it;
by
1783 its
English-speaking
settlers
had
risen
to
only
about a
thousand,
and
then it attracted
a mere
six
hundred
Loyalists.
There
was
nothing
wrong
with
the
soil
or the
climate
of the
island,
which later became known as the
smiling
"garden
of the
Gulf."
The little
colony
was
simply
suffering
from
the
proverbial
curse
of
absentee
proprietors,
who were
loath to
spend
money
in
developing
their estates
and
apparently
thought
they
could
make more
by
merely
holding
them for
speculation.
Moreover,
these
privileged persons
were
allowed
to
keep
their titles even
though
they
did
not
pay
their
quit
rents,
which were
to
have
financed the
administration
of the
island.
The curse
was not lifted until 1873.
Nova Scotia
was a
real
colony
and had
just
acquired
a
definite
British
character
after
seventy
years
of continuous
British
possession.
It
was the
land
of
the
Acadians,
until 1749
a French
colony
held
by
a
little
British
garrison
and without
any
English-speaking
settlers. In
that
year
the
mother
country
sent
out
2,500
colonists
to
found Halifax.
But
Nova Scotia still remained
predominantly
French. These
original
Haligonians
(residents
of
Halifax)
and the few other newcomers
were
only
half as
numerous
as
the Acadians
when the
governor
and
his
5
Given
in
honor
of the
Duke of
Kent,
Queen
Victoria's
father. The
change
of
name
from
saint to
sinner
occurred
in
1798.
34
CHAPTER
THREE:
council decided
to
expel
the
latter.
The
tragic
deportation
of
1755
effected
a
permanent
revolution
in
the
character of
Nova
Scotia,
which
thenceforth
was
an
English-speaking
land.
It also
wrought
two
other
important
changes
there: the
establishment
of an
assembly
and a
further
alteration in
the character of
the
population.
The
removal
of
the
Acadians,
who
had
refused
to take the
oath
of
allegiance
and were
legally incapacitated
from
holding
any
public
office
and
even
from
exercising
the
franchise
because
they
were Roman
Catholics,
made
officials
in
London
think that
Nova Scotia was
ready
for
government
as
an
ordinary
English
colony.
The
governor
in
Halifax did
not think
so,
but he
bowed
to
peremptory
orders
from the
secretary
of state
and
called an
assembly
in
1758.
The
other
change began
as soon as
the
Acadians
were
driven
from the
homes
they
had
built
and
the
lands
they
had
improved.
These
were
inviting
berths,
and settlers
arrived
from
New
England
to
appropriate
them. Thus
began
a
stream
of
immigration
that
swelled
when the
British
capture
of
Louisburg
in
1758
made
Nova
Scotia
a
safer
place
to
live
in.
By
1775,
when
the
outbreak
of hostilities
stopped
this
immigration,
three
quarters
of the
population
were
New
Englanders.
Why
did
not
these
newly
arrived
Yankees
who
formed such a
large
majority
in
Nova
Scotia
throw
this
colony
into the
American
Revolu-
tion?
They
would
have
done it
if
they
could,
but
they
could
not.
They
were
living
in
little
isolated
communities
that
were
scattered
around the
coast of
what,
for
all
practical
purposes,
was
then
an
island.
No
American
aid
could reach
them,
and
without
it
they
were
help-
less
against
the
power
that
the
mother
country
could
bring
to
bear
upon
them
at
any
time.
They
were
trapped,
as
die
Acadians
had
been
before
them;
and
they
reacted
in
the
very
same
way,
begging
to
be
allowed
to remain
neutral.
Like
the
British
West
Indies,
the
colonies
of
Nova
Scotia,
Prince
Edward
Island,
and
Newfoundland
were
be-
yond
the
grasp
of
the
American
Revolution;
and,
unlike
the
West
Indies,
they
were
never
seriously
threatened
by
French
capture
in
this
war.
The
sugar
islands
of the
Caribbean
were
then
much
richer
prizes.
The
American
Revolution
gave
Nova
Scotia
its
definite
British
char-
acter.
The
"Neutral
Yankees"
were
not
expelled,
nor
did
they
seek
to
depart
when
the
war
ended.
They
were
swamped
by
the
immigration
of
Loyalists
in
1783.
The
arrival of
these
people
some
30,000
of
them
increased
the
population
threefold.
About
9,000
settled
on
the
St.
John
River,
forming
the
nucleus
of the
province
of
New
Bruns-
wick,
between
2,000
and
3,000
in
Cape
Breton
Island,
and
almost
all