Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/485

 IN BRITISH AMERICA. 371 only a small portion of their losses. Many of the loyalists 1789 had gone to Nova Scotia and elsewhere in search of new homes, and were prepared to settle in any other country that might be thrown open to them in the King's dominions. ii^^,5^*^,u; Their readiness to do so was brought under the notice of ho'm^T the Government in a letter written in 1784 by Matra to Nepean, which is still in existence among the records."*^ Sydney and his colleagues were consequently in posses- sion of facts which would have enabled them, had they thought fit, to found a colony with free settlers of the very kind required for the purpose. Some idea of the results that might have been obtained in New South Wales had the Government resolved to turn the tide of American emigration towards it, through ever so small a channel, may be formed from the history of the British American provinces at that period. From the year 1783, when peace was declared with the insurgent colonies. Loyalists the tide flowed strongly towards the struggling settlements Bntwh in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton, which then offered the nearest asylum to the unfortunate loyalists. Nova Scotia, in particular, owed its subsequent prosperity almost entirely to their labours. Immediately after the treaty of peace had been signed, eighteen thousand of them settled within its borders, and laid the foundation of many successful enterprises. They brought with them, not only large sums of money, vessels, merchandise, cattle, and household goods, but the settled habits of industrious colonists. In 1785, a whale fishery whaie was established at Dartmouth in New Brunswick, by the ^^*^^'' settlers who came from Nantucket in Massachusetts ; three thousand of whom arrived at the river St. John in the spring succeeding the peace, followed by twelve hundred more in the autumn. ^' The town of Shelburne at Port Roseway rose up as by enchantment, having a population of twelve thousand in a few months, where no habitations had • Post, p. 549. Digitized byCjOOQlC