able.
In the year 1782, for example, they furnished 172 cords of firewood
for which the price paid them was 20 shillings a cord.

An event was now to transpire which marks an epoch in the history of
St. John and which in the course of a few months served to transform
the little community at the mouth of the river from the dimensions of
a hamlet to those of a respectable town. The war between Great Britain
and the old Colonies was over and the colonies had gained their
independence. Had they been wise they would, as Dr. Hannay well
observes, have tempered their triumph with moderation. They would have
encouraged those who had espoused the Royal cause to remain and assist
in building up the new nation which they had founded. Instead of this,
they committed one of the most stupendous acts of short sighted folly
ever perpetrated by a people. They passed edicts of banishment against
the persons, and acts of confiscation against the estates of the
Loyalists. They drove them out, poor in purse indeed, but rich in
experience, determination, energy, education, intellect and the other
qualities which build up states, and with their hearts fired and their
energies stimulated with hatred of republicanism. They drove them out
70,000 strong to build up a rival nation at their very doors which
perhaps would never have had an existence but for the rash folly of
those who persecuted the Loyalists.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE COMING OF THE LOYALISTS.

The vanguard of the Loyalists now began to make its appearance.
Captain Simon Baxter has a fair claim to be considered the pioneer
Loyalist of this province. He arrived at Fort Howe with his family in
March, 1782, in distressed circumstances, and was befriended by
William Hazen and James White, who recommended him to the favorable
consideration of the authorities at Halifax. Captain Baxter was a
native of New Hampshire. He was proscribed and banished on account of
his loyalty, and had several narrow escapes at the hands of his "rebel
countrymen." On one occasion he was condemned to be hanged, but upon
being brought out to execution contrived to escape from his
persecutors and fled for safety to Burgoyne's army. His early arrival
at St. John proved of substantial benefit to him, for on the 15th of
August he obtained a grant of 5,000 acres, "as a reduced subaltern and
as a refugee," in what is now the Parish of Norton, in Kings County.
His sons, William and Benjamin, received 500 acres ea