Annapolis, King's, Hants, Queen's, Yarmouth, Cumberland, and
Colchester, especially in the beautiful townships of Cornwallis and
Horton, where the Acadian meadows were the richest. A small number also
settled at Maugerville and other places on the St. John River.

During the few years that had elapsed since the Acadians were driven
from their lands, the sea had once more found its way through the ruined
dykes, which had no longer the skilful attention of their old builders.
The new owners of the Acadian lands had none of the special knowledge
that the French had acquired, and were unable for years to keep back the
ever-encroaching tides. Still there were some rich uplands and low-lying
meadows, raised above the sea, which richly rewarded the industrious
cultivator. The historian, Haliburton, describes the melancholy scene
that met the eyes of the new settlers when they reached, in 1760, the
old homes of the Acadians at Mines. They came across a few straggling
families of Acadians who "had eaten no bread for years, and had
subsisted on vegetables, fish, and the more hardy part of the cattle
that had survived the severity of the first winter of their
abandonment." They saw everywhere "ruins of the houses that had been
burned by the Provincials, small gardens encircled by cherry-trees and
currant-bushes, and clumps of apple-trees." In all parts of the country,
where the new colonists established themselves, the Indians were
unfriendly for years, and it was necessary to erect stockaded houses for
the protection of the settlements.

No better class probably could have been selected to settle Nova Scotia
than these American immigrants. The majority were descendants of the
Puritans who settled in New England, and some were actually sprung from
men and women who had landed from "The Mayflower" in 1620. Governor
Lawrence recognized the necessity of having a sturdy class of settlers,
accustomed to the climatic conditions and to agricultural labour in
America, and it was through his strenuous efforts that these immigrants
were brought into the province. They had, indeed, the choice of the best
land of the province, and everything was made as pleasant as possible
for them by a paternal government, only anxious to establish British
authority on a sound basis of industrial development.

In 1767, according to an official return in the archives of Nova Scotia,
the total population of what are now the provinces of Nova Scotia, New
Br