bec and Montreal. The total British
population of the province of Quebec did not exceed 2000, residing for
the most part in the towns of Quebec and Montreal. No English people
were found west of Lake St. Louis; and what is now the populous province
of Ontario was a mere wilderness, except where loyal refugees had
gathered about the English fort at Niagara, or a few French settlers had
made homes for themselves on the banks of the Detroit River and Lake St.
Clair. The migration of between 30,000 and 40,000 Loyalists to the
maritime provinces and the valley of the St. Lawrence was the saving of
British interests in the great region which England still happily
retained in North America.

The refugees who arrived in Halifax in 1783 were so numerous that
hundreds had to be placed in the churches or in cabooses taken from the
transports and ranged along the streets. At Guysborough, in Nova
Scotia--so named after Sir Guy Carleton--the first village, which was
hastily built by the settlers, was destroyed by a bush fire, and many
persons only saved their lives by rushing into the sea. At Shelburne, on
the first arrival of the exiles, there were seen "lines of women sitting
on the rocky shore and weeping at their altered condition." Towns and
villages, however, were soon built for the accommodation of the people.
At Shelburne, or Port Roseway--anglicised from the French _Razoir_--a
town of fourteen thousand people, with wide streets, fine houses, some
of them containing furniture and mantel-pieces brought from New York,
arose in two or three years. The name of New Jerusalem had been given to
the same locality some years before, but it seemed a mockery to the
Loyalists when they found that the place they had chosen for their new
home was quite unsuited for settlement. A beautiful harbour lay in
front, and a rocky country unfit for farmers in the rear of their
ambitious town, which at one time was the most populous in British North
America. In the course of a few years the place was almost deserted, and
sank for a time into insignificance. A pretty town now nestles by the
side of the beautiful and spacious harbour which attracted the first too
hopeful settlers; and its residents point out to the tourist the sites
of the buildings of last century, one or two of which still stand, and
can show many documents and relics of those early days.

Over twelve thousand Loyalists, largely drawn from the disbanded loyal
regiments of the old c