to be extremely wretched. We have already seen in this Province of Pensylvania two hundred and fifty of our people, which is more than half the number that were landed here, perish through misery and various diseases. In this great distress and misery, we have, under God, none but Your Majesty to look with hopes of relief and redress :
We therefore hereby implore your gracious protection, and request you may be pleased to let the justice of our complaints be truly and impartially enquired into, and that Your Majesty would please to grant us such relief, as in your justice and clemency you will think our case requires, and we shall ourselves bound to pray, etc.
No. IV.
About the year 1713, when Annapolis Royal was taken from the French, our fathers being then settled on the Bay of Fundy, upon the surrender of that country to the English, had, by virtue of the treaty of Utrecht, a year granted them to remove with their effects ; but aggrieved at the idea of losing the fruits of so many years’ labor, they chose rather to remain there and become the subjects of Great Britain, on the condition that they might be exempted from bearing arms against France, most of them having near relations amongst the French, which they might have destroyed with their own hands, had they consented to bear arms against them.
This request they always understood to be granted, on their taking the Oath of Fidelity to Her Majesty Queen Anne ; which Oath of Fidelity was by us, about 27 years ago, renewed to His Majesty King George by General Philipps, who then allowed us an exemption from bearing arms against France ; which exemption, till lately (that we were told to the contrary), we always thought was aproved by the king.
Our Oath of Fidelity, we that are now brought into this Province, as those of our people that have been carried into neighboring Provinces, have always invariably observed, and have, on all occasions, been willing to afford every assistance in our power to His Majesty’s Governors, in erecting forts, making roads, bridges, etc., etc., and providing for His Majesty’s service, as can be testified by the several Governors and officers that have commanded in His Majesty’s Province in Nova Scotia ; and this, notwithstanding the repeated solicitations, threats, and abuses which we have continually, more or less,
