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Date: 1866-06-19
By: Fenwick Williams
Citation: Despatch from Lieutenant-Governor Fenwick Williams to Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, No. 50 (19 June 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.19

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

(No.50.)

Halifax, Nova Scotia, June 19, 1866.
(Received July 2, 1866.)
(Answered No. 2. July 6, 1866. p. 82.)

SIR,

I HAVE the honour herewith to transmit an address to Her most Gracious Majesty the Queen from inhabitants of the township of Barrington.

I have, &c.

(Signed) W.F. WILLIAMS.

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

Enclosure in No. 19.

To the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty.

The petition of the inhabitants of the township of Barrington.

Humbly showeth —

[..] the county of Shelburne was settled by loyalists from the revolted Colonies and by seafaring people who preferred to live under British institutions and to preserve unbroken the traditions and the interests which bound them to their mother country.

That spreading along the sea coast these people and their descendants have subdued a rugged soul, occupied the fine harbours by which it was indented, and which now present scenes of progressive and profitable industry. Many ships are built in Shelburne. Its young men prosecute the shore and deep sea fisheries with energy and success, and bear to distant seas the flag of England with pride in the vessels which year by year they add by their enterprise to the mercantile […] of the Empire.

That the people of Barrington, thus pursuing their peaceful occupations […] been startled by an attempt to break down their […] and to unsettle the established […] between Your Majesty and Your loyal people in the Maritime Provinces of British America.

They are content with London for their capital, believe that the representative of the Sovereign should be appointed by the Sovereign, and highly prize the right of self-government so long enjoyed under Your Majesty’s care and protection, and they do not believe the the affections of a maritime people will ever cluster around a new city in the backwoods of Canada frozen up for five months of the year, and with which they have neither commercial interocurse nor historic associations.

The great markets to which people of Barrington resort lie all before them and are open at all seasons of the year, adopting the free trade policy of England. Nova Scotia is annually extending her commerce under a system of moderate duties, and her people have no desire to have their councils controlled and their legislates shaped by an inland population who have hitherto […] no very remarkable skill in governing themselves, and have certainly established no claim to […] great Provinces in which they have invested no capital and which they are unable to defend.

The people of Barrington therefore pray Your Majesty to attract into the military, naval, and civil service of the empire the youth of all the Provinces : to countenance the establishment of no new nationalities to feeble to stand alone, yet difficult to be controlled ; to maintain the institutions under which the maritime Colonies have prospered, and to endeavour to bind them all to one common centre of civilization, duty, and allegiance.

JAMES D. COFFIN, Chairman.