than was exercised by such consular officers at any other European port. The consul informed the commission that he insisted on rejections not only for trachoma and favus, but for less conspicuous physical defects as well. Experience at United States ports with emigrants from Fiume and Trieste indicates that, notwithstanding the great degree of authority exercised by the consul at the latter port, the inspection at Fiume is much more effective. In fact, the proportion debarred at United States ports among emigrants from Fiume is only 1 to 597, while the proportion debarred among emigrants sailing from Trieste is 1 to 318. The proportion debarred among emigrants embarking at the Greek ports of Patras and Piræus is large, being 1 to 175 in the case of the former, and 1 to 163 in the case of the latter.

BY

STANLEY C. JOHNSON

PRELIMINARY SURVEY (1763-1815)

Y THE Treaty of Peace, which was signed at Paris on February 10th, 1763, Great Britain gained possession of the whole of North America situated east of the Mississippi River, with the exception of the town of New Orleans and the neighboring district. She thus retained the original thirteen states, and added to her dominions the territory of Canada with all its dependencies, and the island of Cape Breton.

For some few years prior to these diplomatic arrangements, the original British Colonies had been welcoming a steady inflow of immigrants from the Mother Country, and, as these maritime states suffered little or no change of administration following on the terms of peace, the human stream continued to find its way into them unaffected by the redistribution of political power between France and England. No authoritative data concerning the statistics of this migratory movement were preserved or even collected, but it is safe to say that its strength was by no means insignificant. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine1 of 1774 gave figures to show that in the five years 1769-1774 no less than 43,720 people sailed from the five Irish ports of Londonderry, Belfast, Newry, Larne, and Portrush to various settlements on the Atlantic seaboard. These points of departure were thus responsible for an annual outgoing of at least 8740 1 1 Op. cit., p. 332, Vol. XLIV.

souls. Scotland was contributing even more,' at this time, to the exodus than was Ireland, whilst England was also furnishing colonists, but to a lesser degree. From these facts it seems fair to assume that the home emigration to the English states across the Atlantic resulted in a displacement of quite twenty thousand souls per annum.

The majority of the settlers within this area were drawn from the Highlands of Scotland and from Ireland generally. The Scots Magazine for the years 1771-1775 contains a number of references to the emigration of these early times.

We are informed [runs one paragraph],2 that upwards of five hundred souls from Islay and the adjacent islands prepare to migrate next summer to America under the conduct of a gentleman of wealth and merit whose predecessors resided in Islay for many centuries past, and that there is a large colony of the most wealthy and substantial people in Sky making ready to follow the example of the Argathelians in going to the fertile and cheap lands on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Another quotation 3 says:

In the beginning of June, 1772, about forty-eight families of poor people from Sutherland arrived at Edinburgh on their way to Greenock in order to imbark for North America. Since that time, we have heard of two other companies, one of a hundred, another of ninety, being on their journey with the same intention. The cause of this emigration they assign to be want of the means of livelihood at home through the opulent grasiers ingrossing the farms and turning them into pasture.

Perhaps a still more interesting quotation is the following: 5

In the beginning of September, the Lord Advocate represented to the commissioners of the customs, the impropriety of clearing out any vessels from Scotland with emigrants for America: in consequence of which, orders were sent to the several custom-houses injoining them to grant no clearances to any ship for America which had more than the common complement of hands on board.

1 Vide Annual Register, Scots Magazine, Gentleman's Magazine, etc., of a contemporary date.

2 Vol. XXXIII, p. 325, year 1771.

3 Vol. XXXIV, p. 395, year 1772.

4 The original spelling is preserved.

Scots Magazine, Vol. XXXVII, 1775, p. 523.

Original spelling.

ކ

Summarizing the substance of these and other passages of a • contemporary date, we may state that, between 1763. and 1775, emigration to the old British Colonies in North America was regularly and constantly practiced, that those who joined in the exodus were sometimes in possession of considerable sums of money,1 that changes in agricultural economy were usually the cause of the unrest, and that the local authorities feared, but with little reason, that the outward streams might eventually depopulate the country.

When Canada and its dependencies were placed under British rule, it became an obvious advantage for a proportion of our colonists to settle within this newly acquired territory. We find, therefore, that the Royal proclamation of 1763 authorized the free granting of land, within this area, to officers and soldiers who had served in the war; it also encouraged British settlers, generally, by providing a General Assembly.

The first to take up military settlements were the Frasers and Montgomeries, who chose Murray Bay as the site of their new homes; this they did in 1763. Farming was their chief occupation, but in 1775 they formed the first battalion of the Royal Highland Emigrants. Speaking of this regiment, the Scots Magazine for 17752 said:

A ship sailed lately from Greenock for America with shoes, stockings, plaids, belts, etc., for a regiment of emigrants now raising by Government in America to be called the Royal Highland Emigrants. Mr. Murdoch Maclean of Edinburgh is appointed captain in them.

Quickly following on the settlement of the Frasers and Montgomeries was that of a party of British colonists who had previously made their home in the New England states; they encamped at Maugerville, on the banks of the St. John River. A third group of colonists came from Belfast and Londonderry, where they had been engaged in the wool trade. In 1767, the whole of Prince Edward Island was allotted to sixty-seven proprietors, chiefly Scotch, on condition that they should settle European Protestants or British Americans on their domains, 166 People sailed from Maryburgh and took at least £6000 with them." Scots Magazine, Vol. XXXV, p. 557. 2 Vol. XXXVII, p. 690. J. D. Rogers, "Historical Geography of the British Colonies" (Lucas), Vol. V, part 3, p. 81.

a condition which they fulfilled by stocking the land exclusively with Highlanders, most of whom were of Roman Catholic faith,⚫ and with Dumfries men.1 In 1772-1774, a number of Yorkshire Methodists settled at Sackville, New Brunswick, and Amherst, Nova Scotia. Many other records of colonization in Canada may be mentioned, but it has been shown, with sufficient insistence, that the inflow from England, Ireland, and especially Scotland, during this period, was of an important nature.

Though Canada had received great numbers of emigrants from the United Kingdom, these were few in comparison with the crowds of men and women who entered this territory after the war broke out. The extent of this complex movement is but imperfectly understood. It is known, however, that the Loyalist migration into British territory flowed in two great streams, one by sea to Nova Scotia and the other overland to Canada. In this second stream were many Highland families which had only recently settled in the Colony of New York - Macdonells, Chisholms, Grants, Camerons, M'Intyres and Fergusons. Prominent among these Highland families were the Macdonells, who were Roman Catholics from Glengarry in Inverness. In 1773, they had settled in the Mohawk Valley, but, when hostilities began, had flocked to the Loyalist banner; they afterwards went to Ontario and made their new homes in a country to which they gave the name of Glengarry.3 This site was probably chosen because it bordered on the edge of Lower Canada, and so enabled the Highland Catholics to enter into a bond of religious sympathy with the adjacent French Catholics.

Treating the movement in greater detail, it may be said that the Loyalists first entered the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1783, and in the following year mustered 28,347 souls. The older settlers of British descent in this area, it may be mentioned in parenthesis, only totaled fourteen thousand. Cape Breton Island attracted, roughly, three thousand settlers, whilst other streams of exiled humanity poured into the peninsula of Gaspé and the seignory of Sorel. In Upper Canada and the present province of Ontario, the refugees numbered some thirty

1 J. D. Rogers, "Historical Geography of the British Colonies" (Lucas), Vol. V, part 3, p. 54. J. Murray Gibbon, "Scots in Canada," pp. 63-65.

2 Ibid., p. 57.