the Province, from the first Reduction of it to the present time, tho’ some have attempted to setle in the Country; & to Keep out Inter-marriages between the French & his Majesty’s English Subjects, as that I never heard of any one Instance besides the before mentioned ones; And I would humbly submit it to your Grace’s Consideration if the free Exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion and an unlimited Toleration of Roman Priests in Nova Scotia should continue to have the same Effect in that Colony for the next succeeding forty years, as it has had within these last forty; the Inhabitants there are suffer’d to remain a distinct Body of French in the Neighbourhood of Canada, with the Ties of Consanguinity & Religion between _them_ & the Canadeans still growing stronger, untill they double or perhaps treble their Number (the French of Canada likewise at the same time increasing their Strength & Numbers) whether it may not prove in the End cherishing a Colony of Inhabitants for the subversion of the King’s Government in it, & the strengthening of the french Interest upon the 356 Continent. “The Treaty of Utrecht, my Lord, by which the cession of Accadie (or Nova Scotia) with its Inhabitants was made to the Crown of Great Britain does not seem to lay his Majesty under an Obligation to allow the french Inhabitants the Exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion; and as his Majesty is as yet under no Promise to do it, I should hope that Methods might be found for weakening the Ties of Consanguinity & Religion between even the present Generation of the french inhabitants of Nova Scotia & those of Canada, by beginning new ones between his Majesty’s English & french subjects there, and at the same time controuling the pernicious Power of the Romish Priests over the french Inhabitants & the Indians of that Province, which may possibly be cut off or at least obstructed by his Majesty’s making a Promise to continue the french Inhabitants in the free Exercise of their Religion. “Wherefore as his Majesty has been pleas’d to refer it to my Opinion to fix the Terms of the Declaration, which he has commanded me to make in his Name to the Inhabitants of Nova Scotia; whereby it became my Duty to avoid every thing in it, which appear’d to me to have a Tendency to disserve his Government within that Province, I have taken the Liberty to suspend promissing ’em the free Exercise of the Romish Religion, tho’ it is mention’d in your Grace’s Letter to have been part of what was at first propos’d to have been included in his Majesty’s intended Proclamation, till I could transmit my Sentiments to your Grace, and I should have his Majesty’s farther Directions upon it; & have in the mean time made a Declaration of such Points, as seem’d necessary to be ascertained to the Inhabitants for quieting their Minds, & would not admit of Delay.