About this period a gloom was cast over the settlement by the news of the murder of the Hon. Edward How, one of the Council at Chignecto. "Captain How was employed on the expedition to Chignecto as knowing the country well and being acquainted both with the Indians and the inhabitants, and furthermore he knew personally their leaders, LeCorne and LeLoutre. His whole aim and study was to obtain a peace with the Indians, and get the English prisoners out of their hands, for which purpose he often had conferences with the French officers under a flag of truce. LeCorne one day sent a flag of truce by a French officer to the water side, a small river which parts his people from the British troops. Capt. How and the officers held a parley for some time across the river. How had no sooner taken leave of the officers than a party that lay in ambush fired a volley at him and shot him through the heart, an instance of treacherous brutality not to be paralleled in history, and a violation of a flag of truce, which had ever been held sacred, and without which all faith is at an end, and all transactions with an enemy." – [Cornwallis' letter 27th November.]
The spring of 1751 the five acre lots on the Peninsula were laid out; the people engaged in clearing the land. The uncertainty from surprise by Indians, however, much retarded the work; a large space, however, was cleared around the town before winter set in.
Another vessel having arrived on the 10th June, with German Palatine settlers, they were directed to be employed at Dartmouth in picketing in the back of the town. In July, the arrival of 200 more was reported, and they were ordered to be placed at the head of the N. W. Arm and mouth of the Basin; and those who owed work for their passage, were directed to picket in their stations. Monsieur Dupacquir, who had engaged to bring out 300 Swiss, brought but twenty this year, but more were expected in the following spring.
Ninth July, a proclamation issued to forfeit all lots of the town settlers who only put up slight frames of houses, unless they immediately proceeded to board them in and finish them as dwellings.
On the 18th June, Jas. Stephens and Wm. Harris were hanged for house-breaking; this was the second public execution which took place in the town.
William Piggot had a license granted him to open a coffee house on the 8th April the same year.
In January of this year the Council passed a series of regulations for the General Court and County Courts, and ordered them to be published by the Provost Marshal by reading the same after the beat of drum through the settlement, and on the first day of the next sitting of the General Court and County Courts.
The only matters further recorded worthy of notice during the year 1751, was the dismissal of Mr. Otis Little, the Commissary of Stores, for remissness in his office, and the resolution of the Governor and Council to pay a draft for £882, sent from Quebec, for the ransom of English prisoners taken by the Indians and carried to Canada. It appeared that Lt. Hamilton and upwards of sixty officers, soldiers and settlers had fallen into the hands of the savages, and Priest LeLoutre had agreed to ransom them for the sum above mentioned.
It may here be mentioned that several batteries have already been erected on George's Island,28 and expensive earth works had been thrown up.
Towards the close of the year Mr. Joshua Mauger, a gentleman from England, who came out at the commencement of the settlement to trade and distil rum for the soldiers, was charged by government with having attempted to make Halifax the repository for Louisburg merchandize, brought up secretly and to be carrying on an illicit traffic, he being at the time agent victualler to Government. Governor Cornwallis, upon information, caused Mr. Mauger's stores to be searched for contraband articles brought from Louisburg. Much discussion ensued, and the settlement was for some time thrown into commotion, by what Mr. Mauger called in his letter to England, the high-handed proceedings of the Governor.
CHAPTER III
In January, 1752, Mr. Collier, who had been acting as Chief Justice, and Captain Frotheringham, were called to the Council in place of Mr. Salisbury and Col. Horseman, who had returned to England. On 3rd February, a public ferry was established between Halifax and Dartmouth and John Connors appointed ferryman for three years, with the exclusive privilege, and ferry regulations were also established. At the same sitting of the Council, an order was passed for the recording of deeds and mortgages, making all papers unrecorded void against those which had been registered. Col. Horseman's stone building was purchased for a prison in place of that before used.
April 29th, Charles Morris, James Monk, John Duport, Robert Ewer, Joseph Scott, John Wm. Hoffeman and Leonard Christopher Redolf were appointed Justices of the Peace. It was resolved in Council at their sitting on 12th June, that a lottery should be held for building a Light House near Cape Sambro, to raise £450. One thousand tickets at £3 each. Prizes from one of £500 to £7 the lowest. Two hundred prizes, in all amounting to £3000, 15 per cent. to be deducted from the prizes, to be drawn publicly in the Town House at Halifax, under the direction of managers to be appointed by Government.
The winter of 1751-2 had been severe, but the harbour had not been frozen or at all impeded by ice, and the spring opened early, and preparations for prosecuting the fishery were soon in active operation.
The Government mills at Dartmouth, under charge of Captain Clapham, were sold at auction in June. They were purchased by Major Gilman for £310.
16th July – An order passed to strike off the victualling lists all the German and Swiss settlers, who had arrived in the Speedwell.
In the spring of 1752, a number of settlers arrived in the Nancy, under the charge of Lt. Young. About the same time the Marquis DeConte, a Sicilian nobleman, and a number of other foreign settlers, came to Halifax from the island of Tercera, one of the Azores, and settled in the town.
Governor Cornwallis having obtained permission to resign the Government, the Hon. Peregrine T. Hopson, was appointed his successor, and was sworn into office before the Council on Monday, 3rd August. Mr. Cornwallis, however, did not leave the province until after the 10th of October, as he appears to have attended the Council held on that day.29
In September, 1752, John Baptist Cope, commonly called Major Cope, a Mic-Mac chief, head of the Shubenacadie Indians, came in with terms of peace, which were agreed to. This bears date the 15th September, in that year. Immediately after this document was signed, Cope left town in a vessel, having requested Capt. W. Piggot should be sent to Indian Harbour, to meet the Indians there, to ratify the Treaty. Mr. Piggot was accordingly dispatched, and brought up with him two or three Indians, who appeared before the Council, after which they were sent back to Beaver Harbour, under the conduct of Mr. Piggot, with blankets, provisions, etc. The terms of the Treaty were agreed to and confirmed in Council, and the whole was engrossed on parchment and ratified on 22nd November, 1752. The names of the Indian delegates on this occasion were, Andrew Hodley Martin, Gabriel Martin and Francis Jeremiah. Mr. Saul received directions to issue provisions, according to the allowance of the troops for six months, for 90 Indians, that being the number of the tribe under Cope, occupying the eastern part of the province.
This treaty does not appear to have been respected by the Indian Chief, who we find, not more that eight months after its ratification, refusing to respect the pass of Governor Hopson to one Anthony Cartel, who had been captured by the Indians, in one of the harbours eastward of Halifax, and carried through the country to Shubenacadie, the head-quarters of Major Cope, from whom he was ransomed by a French inhabitant. It would appear that the terms of amity, entered into by Cope and his men with the Government at Halifax, had been in some manner without the sanction of Abbe LeLoutre, who, when Anthony Cartel was brought before Count Raymond at Louisburg, was present, and as Cartel expresses it, inveighed bitterly against Governor Cornwallis, and said if he wanted peace he ought to have written to him,