n board this
fleet were about 500 refugees, who intend to settle in this
province. They are a mixture from every province on the continent
except Georgia. Yesterday they landed and our royal city of
Annapolis, which three days ago contained only 120 souls, has now
about 600 inhabitants. You cannot be sensible what an amazing
alteration this manoeuvre has occasioned. Everything is alive, and
both the townspeople and the soldiers are lost among the
strangers.

"All the houses and barracks are crowded and many are unable
to procure any lodgings; most of these distressed people left
large possessions in the rebellious colonies, and their
sufferings on account of their loyalty and their present
uncertain and destitute condition render them very affecting
objects of compassion. Three agents are dispatched to Halifax
to solicit lands from government."

The agents on their return from Halifax, at once set out to explore
the country in the vicinity of Annapolis; they then crossed the Bay of
Fundy and arrived at St. John about the end of November. In the
report, which they subsequently transmitted to their friends in New
York, they write:--

"We found our passage up the river difficult, being too late to
pass in boats, and not sufficiently frozen to bear. In this
situation we left the river, and for a straight course steered by
a compass thro' the woods,[138] encamping out several nights in
the course, and went as far as the Oromocto, about seventy miles
up the river, where is a block-house, a British post." "The St.
John is a fine river, equal in magnitude to the Connecticut or
Hudson. At the mouth of the river is a fine harbor, accessible at
all seasons of the year--never frozen or obstructed by ice....
There are many settlers along the river upon the interval land,
who get their living easily. The interval lies on the river and is
a most fertile soil, annually matured by the overflowings of the
river, and produces crops of all kinds with little labor, and
vegetables in the greatest perfection, parsnips of great length,
etc. They cut down the trees, burn the tops, put in a crop of
wheat or Indian corn, which yields a plentiful increase. These
intervals would make the finest meadows. The up-lands produce
wheat both of the summer and winter kinds, as well as Indian corn.
Here are some wealthy farmers, having flocks of cattle. The
greater part of the peopl