children, from English cities like Liverpool and Birmingham, who were sent to the Maritimes a century later. They were the so-called “home children,” whose relocation had been arranged by an assortment of English do-gooders who believed that such children needed to be saved from the corrupting influences of their families and guardians and given a fresh start in life. In addition, there were those people who were assisted to immigrate to Atlantic Canada by their parishes.29 Assistance was justified on the grounds that it offered them an escape from their poverty and it reduced the burden on the ratepayers who were having to contribute to their maintenance. However, only a minority ever received financial help, and those who did originated mainly from East Anglia, this being one of the regions that experienced disturbances during the Swing riots of 1830–31.30 Impoverished labourers agitating for better wages and the removal of the new threshing machines that threatened their livelihoods failed to win these changes and were dealt with severely. Just after these disturbances a large group from Suffolk immigrated to Prince Edward Island, although shortly thereafter people from this county switched their allegiance to Upper Canada.
After the 1830s, when Upper Canada acquired its internal routes and became more accessible, it became the prime destination of most British immigrants. The Maritime provinces could not match its better land and job prospects and each lost their already-established settlers to it. People bypassed Nova Scotia, since most of its good land had already been snapped up by Planters, early Yorkshire settlers, and Loyalists, and they were deterred by Prince Edward Island’s semi-feudal land system, since it denied them the freeholds they sought.
This was the stark reality that the Colonial Office sought to address in 1832 when it advised that “Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton … do not contain the means either of affording employment at wages to a considerable number of emigrants or of settling them upon land.”31 New Brunswick’s better land opportunities, especially those being marketed at the time by the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company, made it still a viable destination, but, because of the loss of most of the province’s customs data, the number of immigrant arrivals will never be known with any accuracy. Meanwhile, this preference for Upper Canada suited the British government. English Protestants streaming into Upper Canada offered a welcome counterbalance to the very large French-speaking, Roman Catholic population in Lower Canada. Preserving its hold on British America always remained a top priority.
William Cobbett, the radical journalist and champion of the English agricultural labourer, had strong views on emigration.32 He was opposed to it. To him, Prince Edward Island was “a rascally heap of sand, rock and swamp … in the horrible Gulf of St. Lawrence … a lump of worthlessness … [that] bears nothing but potatoes,” and he was equally scathing about the other provinces.33 Having served as a soldier in the British Army in New Brunswick for a few years, he had first-hand knowledge of the region, but being a fiery opponent of emigration, his purple prose must be taken with a pinch of salt. However, his words probably reflect the received wisdom of the day. Vessels lined up almost daily at large ports like London and Liverpool to take people to Quebec, but few were heading for Maritime ports.34
Nevertheless, as is so often the case, most ordinary people made up their own minds. Many English, particularly those living in the West Country, streamed into Prince Edward Island during the 1830s and 1840s, hoping to benefit from its burgeoning shipbuilding industry.35 Meanwhile, Nova Scotia’s mining industry attracted a growing number of English coal miners during the second half of the nineteenth century and still more arrived later with the province’s growing industrialization.36 The views of people already settled carried far more weight than official advice or outspoken commentators, and this, more than anything, drove the later influx to the Maritimes.
The British government’s land policies, such as they were, promoted everything under the sun except effective colonization. Land speculators were thriving, but ordinary colonists found it extremely difficult to cope with the many obstacles that were placed in their way. They had low priority. Since the late eighteenth century the government had been granting huge quantities of wilderness land as rewards to favoured individuals. Most recipients sold their land on to speculators, who amassed huge holdings but did nothing to further colonization. Settlers had the residue, which was often inferior, and what holdings they could obtain were relatively small and scattered over huge distances. It was a bureaucratic muddle that favoured the rich and privileged while hindering the growth of compact settlements. Conditions were especially bad in Prince Edward Island, where settlers were actually prevented from purchasing land. The land on the island had been divided and sold off by lottery in 1767 to various claimants, irrespective of their willingness to promote settlements.37 They simply waited for their land to increase in value, and, in the meantime, sought people willing to take up leaseholds.
Late eighteenth-century portrait of Walter Patterson, who became Prince Edward Island’s first governor in 1769. His corrupt and incompetent handling of land transactions following the 1767 lottery made him a controversial figure, and, after seventeen years as governor, he was forced to leave office. In 1798, Patterson died in poverty at his lodgings in London.
When Lord Seymour of Ragley took possession of Lot 13 in Prince Edward Island, Charles Morris, the surveyor, selected “1,000 acres of the best land” for him and allocated the remainder to his future tenants. This was all going to be very beneficial to his lordship, since the rents collected from tenants would more than pay for the quit rents — land fees that were payable to the Crown.38 Lord Seymour grabbed most of the economic benefit for himself, denying his settlers the prospect of owning land. This aspect of Old World thinking caused considerable resentment in Prince Edward Island, and many settlers left the province.
The situation in Newfoundland had been even worse. There the West Country merchants had an iron grip on the island’s economy and did what they could to stop colonizers, fearing that they would interfere with the smooth functioning of the fishery. They wanted Newfoundland to be a British off-shore fishery with no other function than to make them wealthy and benefit the West Country economy. However, the young lads and men who took up temporary employment in the fishery had other ideas. Once they appreciated the province’s benefits, some voted with their feet, thus setting in train a small but regular supply of immigrants who contributed greatly to its development.
The city of St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 1892, lithograph by an unknown artist. The cityscape reveals a metropolis focused around a busy harbour. Water Street and the Military Road, running parallel to the waterfront, were the earliest streets; they once linked two forts.
A recurring theme in emigrant letters and official reports is the sheer hard work involved in becoming a pioneer farmer. An advertisement in the Berwick Advertiser in 1843, aimed at “persons desirous of obtaining cleared or uncleared farms” in Prince Edward Island, stated that no one need apply who could not “command £100 upwards to commence cultivations.”39 Settlers with capital could buy already-established farms in settled areas, but they were a fortunate few. Most people were like William Grieve, a shepherd from Whittingham in Northumberland, who planned his transformation to pioneer farming in the Harvey settlement in New Brunswick very carefully. The writer J.F.W. Johnston was clearly awestruck by the man’s resilience and staying power:
He landed at Fredericton in 1837 with a family of ten and only 7 [shillings] and 6 [pence] in his pocket. He did not come out to Harvey along with the other settlers but, having received his grant of land, he hired himself as a farm-servant to Colonel Shore at Fredericton at £30 a year; and such of his children as could do anything he hired out also. Supporting the rest of his family out of his earnings, he saved what he could and whenever he had a pound or two to spare he got an acre or two of his land cleared. In this way, he did good to the other
