It was clear that something would have to be done by the British government for the Loyalists’ relief. ‘It is utterly impossible,’ wrote Sir Guy Carleton to Lord North, ‘to leave exposed to the rage and violence of these people [the Americans] men of character whose only offence has been their attachment to the King’s service.’ Accordingly the British government made amends for its betrayal of the Loyalists by taking them under its wing. It arranged for the transportation of all those who wished to leave the revolted states; it offered them homes in the provinces of Nova Scotia and Quebec; it granted half-pay to the officers after their regiments were reduced; and it appointed a royal commission to provide compensation for the losses sustained. [Illustration: UPPER AND LOWER CANADA AND THE MARITIME PROVINCES AT THE TIME OF THE LOYALISTS SETTLEMENTS] CHAPTER VI THE EXODUS TO NOVA SCOTIA When the terms of peace became known, tens of thousands of the Loyalists shook the dust of their ungrateful country from their feet, never to return. Of these the more influential part, both during and after the war, sailed for England. The royal officials, the wealthy merchants, landowners, and professional men, the high military officers—these went to England to press their claims for compensation and preferment. The humbler element, for the most part, migrated to the remaining British colonies in North America. About two hundred families went to the West Indies, a few to Newfoundland, many to what were afterwards called Upper and Lower Canada, and a vast army to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. The advantages of Nova Scotia as a field for immigration had been known to the people of New England and New York before the Revolutionary War had broken out. Shortly after the Peace of 1763 parts of the Nova Scotian peninsula and the banks of the river St John had been sparsely settled by colonists from the south; and during the Revolutionary War considerable sympathy with the cause of the Continental Congress was shown by these colonists from New England. Nova Scotia, moreover, was contiguous to the New England colonies, and it was therefore not surprising that after the Revolution the Loyalists should have turned their eyes to Nova Scotia as a refuge for their families.