To which his Excellency the Lieutenant Governor was pleased to make the following answer:
"Mr. Chief Justice and gentlemen of the Supreme Court and grand jury:
"I have the highest sense of this testimony of your zeal for the public welfare and your esteem for me. I should be much wanting in my duty if I did not embrace this opportunity of returning my thanks for the late pious, learned and eloquent charge from the Bench, and I doubt not, gentlemen, but your vigilance and fidelity in the service of your country will have its desired effect.
"While I have the power to sit in the chair, be assured the authority of Government shall be ready to support the law, for the law, gentlemen, is the firm and solid basis of civil society, the guardian of liberty, the protection of the innocent, the terror of the guilty, and the scourge of the wicked.
Governor Lawrence in his letter of 12th January, 1755, says, "I am now preparing to build three batteries of 10 guns each in front of the town, and contemplate finishing them in good time. These batteries were erected along the line of the shore. The middle or King's battery stood where the Queen's wharf now is, there was another at the present Ordnance Yard, another near the site of Fairbanks wharf, and a fourth at the present Lumber Yard, which latter still remains."
The batteries along the front of the town were completed during the summer of 1755, and a plan of them sent to England in June of that year. They were twelve feet in height above high water mark, two hundred and forty feet in length, and sixty-five in breadth. The parapet raised on these was seven feet high, and the materials consisted of logs and timber framed and filled up with gravel, stones, earth and sand. The material consisted of 9500 logs of 25 feet, 1280 tons of square timber and 25,000 tons weight of gravel and earth, the whole expense about £5,300. The work was commenced in January, 1755, and completed late in the summer. 20 guns were mounted on these three batteries in July of that year – the other batteries were afterwards added.
An attempt was made this year to involve the Government in a dispute with the Indian tribes. Paul Laurant, an Indian Chief of the Mic-Mac tribe, appeared before the Council on 12th February, 1755, and informed them that he and another Indian Chief named Algamud, had set out from Beausejour for Halifax in order to treat of peace, but that the Chief had fallen sick at Cobequid and had intrusted him with the proposals. They demanded the whole eastern section of the Province, from Cobequid to Canso, to be set apart for them as feeding and hunting grounds. Being asked what security he could give that the Indians would keep the peace, he said he could say nothing to that, being only desired to bring in the terms. The Council dismissed him with a promise of an answer in writing. An answer in writing was drawn up and signed by the Governor on 13th February, 1755, which expressed a willingness on the part of the Governor and Council to allow them such lands as would be sufficient for their purposes. It mentioned the perfidious breaches of all former treaties on the part of the Indians, and where their conduct was complained of that the Tribes themselves had disallowed all authority on the part of their Chiefs to make such treaties, and that the Governor and Council demanded a full attendance of Chiefs before them, with full power to treat, before any further proceedings could be taken.
On the 3rd and 4th July, the Council was engaged with the French Deputies, again on 14th, 15th and 28th same month.
The defence of the settlement was the next subject of deliberation and the protection from the incursions of the French along the Bay of Fundy and from Louisburg, both nations being at the time arrayed against each other in open warfare.
On the 18th February, 1755, Mrs. Green, wife of Hon. Benj. Green, and her family, Captain Horatio Gates and Mrs. Gates, with Captain Hale and their servants and baggage, were received on board Captain Rogers' sloop for Boston. Captain Gates had been one of the Aides-de-Camp of Governor Cornwallis, he was afterwards a General in the American Revolutionary Army.34
The loss of the Mars, a 70 gun ship, occurred off the harbour in May, 1755. It was in an easterly gale and supposed to be the fault of the pilot. Guns and crew were all saved. The Mars rock at the western entrance of the bay marks the spot. The guns and stores were brought to Halifax. Admiral Holborn's letter announcing the loss of the ship bears date the 28th May, off Halifax Harbour.
30th December, 1755, Montague Wilmot and Charles Morris, having been appointed to the Council, were sworn in. The other members were John Collier, Mr. Cotterell, Robert Monkton and Captain Rous.
A number of French prizes, taken by the fleet under Admiral Boscawen, were this summer brought into Halifax. There were in these 19,998 gallons of rum and brandy.
A Mr. Ellis had for several years held the office of Governor of Nova Scotia, and received the emoluments, but never came out. Lt. Governor Lawrence received the appointment of Governor-in-Chief on the resignation of Mr. Ellis, and Colonel Monkton became Lt. Governor; their commissions were read and they sworn into office on 23rd July, this year.
The following census of the town appears to have been taken about 1755 or 1756: —
The only other event of this year worthy of notice was the following melancholy affair detailed in Col. Sutherland's letter from Lunenburg, dated 12th September. "Yesterday," he says, "I received the melancholy account of Mr. Payzant's house being burned in Mahone Bay, and that he himself and other people who were with him, were killed by the Indians. I immediately sent out an officer and party, which returned this morning, by whom I am informed that on Payzant's Island the house is burned, he with another young man killed and scalped, a woman servant and child also killed and scalped near the water side. His wife and four children missing. The young man was son to a family which lived on Captain Rous's Island. As his hands were tied the gentlemen immediately conjectured some further mischief was done there, and on their arrival they found the man thereto belonging, likewise scalped. It appears that Captain Rous's is the most advanced settlement, that they first came there and took the boy to conduct them to Payzant's." Mr. Payzant came to this country with a strong recommendation from Mr. Pownall, secretary to the Board of Trade. The death of James Payzant, Esquire, a clerk in the office of the Secretary of State, of the age of 100 years is announced in the London Gazette for 1757. This was probably the father of the gentleman who came out to Halifax, to whom Mr. Secretary Pownall's recommendation referred.
1756. January 26th, the term of Henry Wynne and William Manthorn's licences of the Dartmouth and Halifax ferry having expired, John Rock petitioned and obtained the same on the terms of his predecessors.
On the 30th June, 1757, Lord Loudon arrived at Halifax with the troops from New York, destined for the invasion of Cape Breton.
Saturday, 16th July, 1757, His Excellency acquainted the Council that the Earl of Loudon had this day represented to him that a fever had broken out among the troops, under His Lordship's command, occasioned by the great quantities of rum that were sold to the soldiers by unlicensed retailers, and if continued must prove of fatal consequences to the service; and unless steps were immediately taken to effectually stop the same, he would feel himself justified in ordering all liquors found in the possession of such unlicensed retailers to be destroyed. The Council empowered the Provost Marshal and his deputies to enter such houses, seize the liquors and place them in the King's store until the army and navy departed.
On the 1st November, 1757, the grand jury of the County of Halifax petitioned the Governor and Council on behalf of the inhabitants of the town, that the town should be put into some state of defence "for the preservation of the place, the inhabitants, their families and effects." They stated that the property, etc., was insecure from the want of proper defences; that the