One important military measure, meanwhile, the Government did take. The number of men disbanded from fleet and army was so large that it was deemed prudent, in the interests alike of humanity and of public security, to make some provision for them. Accordingly fifty acres of freehold land, with an additional ten acres for every child, were offered to all veterans who would emigrate as settlers to Nova Scotia; their passage outward being likewise paid, and immunity from taxation guaranteed to them for ten years. The system was copied from the model given by the French in Canada, and by them doubtless borrowed from ancient Rome; but it was successful. Four thousand persons, with their families, took advantage of the offer, embarked under the command of Colonel Cornwallis and landed at the harbour of Chebucto, from thenceforward called, in honour of the President of the Board of Trade and Plantations, by the name of Halifax. Three companies of rangers were formed for the defence of the settlement, in addition to which two battalions of regular troops were detailed for the garrisons of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. For it was intended that Halifax should be not only a refuge for disbanded soldiers, but a fortified station in counterpoise to the French fortress at Louisburg. The French in Canada instantly took the alarm, and after their unscrupulous manner incited the Indians to murder the settlers, sparing no pains meanwhile to alienate the hearts of the Acadians from the British. The priests were their instruments in this treacherous policy, and their proceedings were fully approved at Versailles. What was called an Indian war was, in the plain words of Governor Hopson of Nova Scotia, no other than a pretence for the French to commit hostilities on British subjects. Yet through the trying years that followed, the British officials behaved always with exemplary patience and forbearance, though, owing to the incessant intrigues of the French, occasional skirmishes between French and English were unavoidable. But British settlers had touched French America elsewhere on a more tender point even than in Acadia. British traders had found their way across the Alleghanies to the Ohio, and had stolen the hearts of the Indians on the river from their French rivals. To Canada this was a serious matter, for the chain of French posts that was designed to shut off the British from the interior ran from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and if the British should sever this chain at the Ohio French America would be parted in twain. In 1749 a French emissary was despatched from Montreal to vindicate French rights on the river and to bid the English traders depart from it. His reception by the Indians was not encouraging, and even while he was on the spot a company was formed by some capitalists in Virginia to settle the country about the Ohio. The Governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia quickly perceived the importance of the