Canada under British Rule 1760-1900Bourinot, John George
History
Canada under British Rule 1760-1900
Bourinot, John George
Canada -- History
The refugees who arrived in Halifax in 1783 were so numerous that
hundreds had to be placed in the churches or in cabooses taken from the
transports and ranged along the streets. At Guysborough, in Nova
Scotia--so named after Sir Guy Carleton--the first village, which was
hastily built by the settlers, was destroyed by a bush fire, and many
persons only saved their lives by rushing into the sea. At Shelburne, on
the first arrival of the exiles, there were seen "lines of women sitting
on the rocky shore and weeping at their altered condition." Towns and
villages, however, were soon built for the accommodation of the people.
At Shelburne, or Port Roseway--anglicised from the French _Razoir_--a
town of fourteen thousand people, with wide streets, fine houses, some
of them containing furniture and mantel-pieces brought from New York,
arose in two or three years. The name of New Jerusalem had been given to
the same locality some years before, but it seemed a mockery to the
Loyalists when they found that the place they had chosen for their new
home was quite unsuited for settlement. A beautiful harbour lay in
front, and a rocky country unfit for farmers in the rear of their
ambitious town, which at one time was the most populous in British North
America. In the course of a few years the place was almost deserted, and
sank for a time into insignificance. A pretty town now nestles by the
side of the beautiful and spacious harbour which attracted the first too
hopeful settlers; and its residents point out to the tourist the sites
of the buildings of last century, one or two of which still stand, and
can show many documents and relics of those early days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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