tice of the peace: and if the office were coupled with that of
church warden so much the better. About this time there was, in the
Bay of Fundy, an old coaster of the name of Hornblower, who knew every
creek, cove, inlet and headland, together with all the best points for
smuggling, from the St. Croix River to Windsor Bay on the one side,
and from Windsor Bay to Barrington on the other. Skipper Hornblower,
as he was then called, had the go-ahead in him, and commanded the
schooner Dash, owned by one Squire Burgle, who carried on a strictly
_legitimate_ trade with the Yankees over the _line_, though he always
gave out that he hated them as a people, nor would ever sell a
pennyworth of their notions which he denounced as worthless.
Hornblower was a _brusque_ old salt, but had a right good heart in
him, and, not liking the way trade was restricted by imperial and
colonial exactions, thought it no harm to work to windward of the
collectors now and then, and accommodate his friends in a free-trade
sort of way. Tea, 'in them times,' cost six colonial shillings and a
day's journey per pound, and a gallon of molasses about the same. The
good old women in more remote parts of the province, must have their
tea, and molasses was an indispensable luxury, for they were indeed
poor. But they were compelled to buy of the established merchant, who
was a sort of prince in his way, and dictated his terms to the people,
whom he always kept in poverty while he got rich. Molasses, tea,
tobacco, and rum (New England white-eye, labelled Jamaica!)
constituted his stock in trade. To length of credit he added
corresponding prices, never forgetting to take good security. His
medium price for tick was only forty per cent. addition, which he
considered extremely liberal.

"And thus, through a pettifogging colonial policy, commerce was turned
into the merest peculation by a class of persons who made it their
object to restrict the agriculturist, and hold his interests at their
mercy. The more the farmer raised, the more he found himself subject
to the shopkeeper's narrow restrictions; and thus the interests of a
naturally energetic people were held in check. The Home Government
(God bless it! as the very loyal Provincials used to say when the
Imperial Parliament took their cause under consideration) thought
little about the outside Nova Scotians, except to say, once in a
while, that the territory they inhabited belonged to her Majesty,
which fact th