NEW BRUNSWICK PAST AND PRESENT

BY C. A. DUFF MILLER

(Agent-General, New Brunswick)

THE province of the British Empire with which I have to deal, and in which I take a very deep interest, is very little heard of, probably on account of its steadygoing good behaviour, and consequently is not so well known as many much less important countries of the world.

In the early days of the French and English settlements in America, the province of New Brunswick was a part of the French province or colony of Acadia, which included within its somewhat elastic and not very clearly-defined boundaries the countries now known as Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and the State of Maine.

I say somewhat elastic boundaries, as they were made to vary according to the changing fortunes of the English, the French, or the New England Settlements, but originally the extent of Acadia was as I have just described.

New Brunswick, which was made a distinct province in 1784, occupies that part of the great Dominion of Canada and of the Continent of America situated nearest to Great Britain.

As a practical illustration of this, it may be stated that the port of Chatham on the Miramichi River is nearer to Liverpool than any other port of any considerable importance on the mainland of America, its distance by shortest route through the Strait of Belle

Isle being about 2430 miles, whereas Halifax, in Nova Scotia, is distant 2450, Quebec 2633, and New York 3105 miles respectively.

INTRODUCTORY

New Brunswick is a very compact country, being almost square, and all its districts having at the same time easy access to the ocean, being practically washed by the sea on three sides, that is by the Bay of Chaleur, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and Northumberland Strait on the north and east, and by the Bay of Fundy on the south, whilst the grand St. John River and the St. Croix most effectively open up the western counties of the province to the sea.

It has good ports on all these waters, the city of St. John at the mouth of the river of the same name and that of Halifax being the two most important winter ports of Canada, whilst St. Andrews (also open all winter) is beautifully situated on the Passamaquoddy Bay.

This bay, covering an area of 100 square miles, forms a magnificent harbour, with easy access to the Atlantic Ocean, but the water is entirely sheltered, and here could lie in stately repose the navies of every country in the world.

New Brunswick adjoins the province of Quebec on the north, the State of Maine on the west, the province of Nova Scotia on the south-east, and is separated from the province of Prince Edward Island by the Strait of Northumberland.

Now, with regard to the size and population of the country, I may say that it contains about 28,000 square miles of territory, making it considerably larger than the two kingdoms of Holland and Belgium combined, or than Holland and Switzerland put together. Nearly 15,000 square miles are forest and woodland.

It is divided into fifteen counties, which in total area are equal to the twenty-seven middle and southern counties of England, so that it is also, roughly speaking, about two-thirds the size of England, and equal in size to all England lying south of a line drawn from Chester on the Dee to the Wash. The extreme length is 230 miles, and the width 190 miles.

Its population is now estimated to be 325,000, making it the fourth in importance in this respect of the provinces forming the Dominion. To compare it with the Australasian and South African colonies, the population is rather over that of South Australia, about half that of New Zealand, not far inferior in numbers to the whole white population of the Cape Colony, and, although only a third larger in extent of territory than Natal, it contains six times as many white people.

EARLY DISCOVERERS

Having now given a general idea of the geographical position of New Brunswick, let us turn to its early history in connection with its first visitors or discoverers in medieval times.

Five years after Columbus had discovered or, at any rate, reopened a road to the western continent, in his search for a new and more direct route to the Indies, John Cabot, who set sail from Bristol for the New World with letters-patent granted by Henry VII., and with a man-of-war, the Matthew, and three merchant ships, and, we are told, equipment worthy of the undertaking, was the first European in modern and unquestioned history to set foot on the Continent of America.

Whether the first land seen by Cabot was Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, there is no question but that he visited Acadia, he having sailed along the

American shores some one thousand miles and erected upon the coast the flag of England, in token of its possession by his patron. The 400th anniversary of this first landing or discovery of the mainland of America was celebrated in 1897, not only in the town. of Bristol, from which this notable expedition set sail, but also in Nova Scotia.

Cabot returned to England with two of the natives, and in the following year (1498) another expedition set sail under the command of his son, Sebastian Cabot, who, after attempting the North-West Passage and being driven therefrom by the ice, skirted along the whole coast of North America as far as Florida. It is on the ground of these visits of the Cabots that the English based their claims to the ownership of these countries in the disputes which followed between the English and the French almost continuously during the succeeding two centuries and a half.

Gaspar de Cortereal, a Portuguese, was the next visitor to these shores, in the year 1500, and being driven back, like Cabot, by the ice in the north, he visited a country his description of which might well accord with Acadia, namely: "A country abounding in immense pines, with people attired in the skins of wild animals; these natives were well made and fitted for labour," so much so, in his estimation, that he captured fifty-seven of them and brought them back with him to Europe, where they were sold as slaves.

On his second voyage he met with mishap, as neither he nor his ships were heard of more.

In 1524 Verazzano, a Florentine, under the patronage of Francis I. of France, was the next notable voyager to visit this part of America. He first touched in South Carolina, and found that the farther northwards he proceeded the more hostile the natives became. This is not to be wondered at, as the con

duct of the early European voyagers in carrying off the then friendly aborigines to slavery was not calculated to dispose them favourably towards other visitors of the same colour. He gave the name of New France to the whole of the territory which he visited. This was the origin of the French claim.

The next expedition we read of is that of Mr. Thomas Thorne, a learned and wealthy citizen of Bristol, who having obtained the countenance and support of Henry VIII., sailed forth in 1527 in the Dominus Vosbiscum accompanied by a canon of St. Paul's, a man of much wealth, and imbued with a desire for scientific discovery.

The voyage was not prosperous, and having lost one of their ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the other coasted along the shores of Arembec-the name given by the English to Acadia-and returned to England the same year. Nothing appears to have resulted from this trading and colonising expedition.

We now come to a much more notable figure in the early history of Canada and Acadia, in the person of Jacques Cartier, a very bold and skilful pilot of St. Malo, in France.

He sailed, with two small vessels of sixty tons each, from that port in 1534. He touched at Newfoundland, sailed through the Strait of Belle Isle to the north of that island, and on the 30th June came in sight of the shores of New Brunswick, at the mouth of the beautiful Miramichi River on the "north shore."

Cartier entered this river, and speaks of it as "a very goodly river, but very shallow." Hannay also tells us, in his "History of Acadia," that this, the first explorer to describe New Brunswick itself, as distinguished from other parts of Acadia or America, was charmed with the beauty and fertility of the country, and speaks of it in glowing terms. The forest trees