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Date: 1866-07-02
By: Fenwick Williams
Citation: Despatch from Lieutenant-Governor Fenwick Williams to Right Hon. Edward Cardwell (2 July 1866) in UK, Parliament, Correspondence respecting the Proposed Union of the British North American Provinces (London: George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1867).
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No.21.

COPY of a DESPATCH from Lieut.-Governor Sir W. F. WILLIAMS, Bart., K.C.B., to the Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, M.P.

(No.56.)

Halifax, Nova Scotia, July 2, 1866.
(Received July 11, 1866.)
(Answered No. 5. July 21, 1866. p. 82.)

SIR,

IN accordance with a desire expressed in the accompanying letter, i have the honour to transmit it, together with an Address to Her Gracious Majesty the Queen, from certain of the inhabitants of the town of Liverpool.

I have, &c.

(Signed) W.F. WILLIAMS.

The Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, M.P.,
&c. &c. &c.

Enclosure 1 in No. 21.

Liverpool, Nova Scotia, June 9, 1866.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY,

A GENERAL public meeting of about five hundred inhabitants of this town was held in Liverpool on Tuesday the 5th day of June, A.D. 1866.

At that meeting the enclosed address to Her most Gracious Majesty the Queen was unanimously adopted.

I am instructed by the chairman of the meeting, Hon. Freeman Tupper, M.L.C., Custos […] of Queen’s county to transmit the address to your Excellency, with the request that it may be forwarded for presentation to the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty with all due despatch, and that a copy of this letter accompany the address to the foot of the Throne.

I have, &c.

(Signed) S.J.M. ALLEN.

To his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor.
&c. &c. &c.

Enclosure 2 in No. 21.

To the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty.

The petition of the inhabitants of the county of Queen’s county.

Humbly showeth —

THAT  the county of Queen’s contains three regiments of enrolled militia, and owns upwards of 17,000 tons of shipping, […] the flag of England. A good many new vessels are built in this county every year : and while its agricultural districts are improving, it thrives by an active fishery, the manufacture and export of lumber, and has a fair share of coasting and foreign trade.

The people of Queen’s have ever been loyal to their Sovereign, attached to the mother country, and to British institutions. They have for a century sent representatives to the Provincial Parliament, and desire to retain the institutions under which they have lived and prospered : and see no necessity for any radical or material change.

They would now view with great […] any attempt to annex Nova Scotia to Canada, or to transfer the Government and revenues of this Proving to the control of a distant people, with whom we have […] little commercial or social intercourse.

The prayer of the inhabitants of Queen’s country is that Your Majesty will sanction no change in the framework of, or in the mode of administering the Government of this Province, which have not been submitted for the acceptance or rejection of the pole at the polls.

FREEMAN TUPPER, M.L.C., Chairman.