The Tragedy of George William Maxwell

By the early eighteenth century Massachusetts and Rhode Island had built up an illicit rum trade with islands in the French West Indies and in Canada along the St. Lawrence, in contravention to the British Trade and Navigation Acts. Local customs officers and, indeed, Governors milched the revenue collected from the 1733 Molasses Act for their own personal benefit or accepted bribes to ignore the regulations In this period the Royal Navy took no part in enforcing the navigation laws because they were barred judicially from seizing ships 'within the limit of any point within the territories of the respective Governors of his majesty's Plantations.'¹

The trade between New England and the French territories did not stop with the outbreak of war between England and France in 1756. So efficient were the Yankee traders that the French were able to provision their bases with ease throughout the war. Such illegal traffic delayed the British capture of Louisburg on the St. Lawrence for a year. Lord Loudain, the commander of British forces in North America, singled out the Rhode Islanders as 'a lawless set of smugglers, who continually supply the Enemy with what Provision they want, and bring back their goods in Barter for them.' William Pitt the Elder ordered this 'illegal and most pernicious Trade' shut down, but so endemic was it, so long-standing was the corrupt behaviour of customs officials, it was accepted as part of normal everyday life by all concerned. So it was, in the war's final years, the British Government determined to wipe out colonial smuggling. They began by authorizing the Navy to enforce rigourously the 1733 Molasses Act. With the newly passed Revenue or Sugar Act which came into effect in April 1764 the duty on molasses was reduced but the customs service was reformed root and branch, so that it actually collected more duties and cracked down intensively on smuggling in general. This was be disastrous for local economies already plunged into post-war depression. Local coastal trade was severely disrupted because of officious implementation of the new customs procedures, especially by the Navy. City after city had a rush of bankruptcies.²

Even before the Sugar Act was passed Rhode Island merchants vehemently protested it would be the colony's ruination. Lord Admiral Colvill, Commander if the North American Squadron anticipated problems from the Rhode Islanders and ordered the twenty-gun Squirrell, Richard Smith, to winter at Newport. She was blown off course into Virginia and could not find a pilot to take her to New York over winter. The Newport Mercury did not hear of the reprieve, falsely reporting the ship's arrival. George William Maxwell was one of the crew, probably a nine-year old captain's servant. He apparently fulfilled his duties satisfactorily as he was not sent back to his parents. His time on the Squirell was probably not a happy one. Judging on his own attitudes to those below him when he was a third lieutenant, bullying and beatings may have been the order of the day aboard Richard Smith's ship.. The Squirrell did not sail into Newport Harbour until April 23, 1764. It expected serious trouble with smugglers.³

Serious trouble, aligned with a touch of pettiness, it got. Rhode Islanders immediately spread a rumour that anybody rowing provision-boats out to the Squirrell would be impressed. She was left stranded in the harbour with not a bum-boat in sight. Captain Smith had to resort to publishing a disclaimer in the local press before his crew could get any fresh food.

The Navy fared no better when the coast-guard cutter, the St. John, appeared in one of the estuaries of Narragansett Bay hoping to recruit local seamen. Merchants of the district 'entered into a Combination to distress us as far as they were able, and by threats and promises to prevent Seamen from entering for this vessel.' 'Combination' was replete of dark, conspiratorial doings that were a threat to the security of the Crown. Lieutenant Hill, commanding the St. John, seized the Bristo,a merchant vessel bringing molasses from Monte Christi in the French West Indies. There was the usual procession of restraining orders and chicanery by customs officials against the Navy to guarantee themselves the seizure fees. The lieutenant travelled to Boston to dispute the customs interloping with the Collector's superior. The Newporters cried 'pirate' because at the beginning of it all the Royal Navy had fired on a merchantman. Townspeople demanded the blood of the local pilot who had led the Navy to the smuggler in the first place. Sailors from the St. John snuck ashore and stole some pigs and chickens from a local miller. A deserter, caught by the locals, was threatened with hanging. A boatload of sailors hunting for him was pelted with stones. Demands for the pilot continued. The Newport Sheriff demanded the chicken and pig thieves be handed over to the local courts, but was refused permission to board the cutter.

At this point the St. John sought instructions from the Squirrell. Some of the mob ashore packed onto a sloop ready to take the St. John but thought better of it when faced with the cutter's guns. Captain Smith ordered the cutter to anchor under the Squirell's protection. Following orders from some members of the Governor's Council, the ceremonial gunner at Fort George on Goat Island fired a few cannonballs in the St. John's direction, but, on his own initiative, made sure he had not aimed to hit it and called for the surrender of the pig and chicken thieves. The Squirrell brought her broadside to bear on the island's battery but no further cannonades followed. Maxwell's role in all this is, of course, unknown, but he may have heard Richard Smith bitterly lament it was no longer necessary to convince the Newporters 'of their error.' The young lad was being imbued with that culture of determined aggression characteristic of the British Navy since the controversial execution of Admiral John Byng for cowardice in the face of the enemy after he fled the battle of Minorca in 1756.⁴

Neither Maxwell nor John Hunter could have met in the 1760s. Their various ships were in different parts of America, for the most part chasing different merchant-smugglers. But by mid 1787, on the way to Teneriffe in the first stages of the voyage to Botany Bay, the aging John Hunter, as captain of the Sirius, saw a side of the now thirty year old Maxwell, whom he had now known for some time, that would at first enrage him and Governor Arthur Phillip, but later cause them great concern. Maxwell had taken over the forenoon watch, only to discover there was only one watch on deck instead of two. He summoned the missing sailors then ordered the boatswain, who was responsible for discipline, to cane 'them, all round, one by one.' Their screams alerted Hunter and Phillip. They came up on deck 'to see what was the matter.' When Hunter learnt of Maxwell's antics he gave him 'a severe dressing down'. Phillip forbade all his officers from striking a man, threatening instant demotion. The story was told by Jacob Nagle, one of Phillip's boatmen. A young Pennsylvanian, he fought on the American side at the battle of the Brandywine in 1777, later was an American privateer, but through a series of fateful events ended up with the British. We shall hear much more of him later. Hunter saw Maxwell's behaviour as the first sign of a 'gradual decline in his faculties.'⁵

In his first months ashore at Sydney Cove Maxwell was stable enough; not so on the easterly voyage for supplies to Cape Town on which Phillip had dispatched the Sirius in October 1788. Once in the high latitudes, Hunter ran during the short nights as well as the long days for there was 'scarcely an hour which could be called dark'. A day's sail from Cape Horn, Maxwell went stark, raving mad as the ship wended its way 'in strong gales with very heavy frequent squalls' close to 'very high ice islands' in temperatures far below zero, while he was the night officer on watch. Amid the hazards of the icebergs he ordered the crew to set all the sails the ship could bear despite the strong breeze blowing. At midnight, after the watch changed, he set the steering sails, rolling the ship. Below decks Hunter was thrown from his cot. Still in his nightshirt he rushed on deck to immediately order the billowing sails taken in 'as fast as possible.' Once the Sirius was safe he demanded an explanation from Maxwell who screamed words to the effect that he had created a sudden emergency to see if the 'set of damned rascals' could cope. Hunter saw he was delirious and relieved him. He later said 'I feel very sincere concern at the nature of Mr. Maxwell's indisposition ...we served as lieut[enant]s together in three different ships in the last war, when he was a most diligent, active and capable officer.⁶

At Cape Town Hunter probably sought some ease for his friend's suffering in the local hospital. His responsibility for the health of other crew was heavy. In the long voyage across the Southern Atlantic thirteen had been crippled with scurvy, no longer able to go aloft. Only Maxwell would not be 'perfectly recovered' for the long return to Sydney Cove. Possibly Hunter sent a message to England from Cape Town to Maxwell's 'dearly beloved friend' and cousin, Jane Maxwell, who seems to have organised a bank draft from England to cover for Maxwell's needs while in New South Wales.⁷

There was little inner peace for the disturbed man back in Sydney. Once the various doctors had declared him irrecoverably insane he was relieved of his commission. Initially left to his own devices, he was allowed to wander off on his own. In April 1790, as the colony teetered on the brink of starvation, he went missing from the hospital for nearly two days. A marine sergeant, out fishing at Middle Head spotted him in a small boat close to being 'dashed to pieces' on the head's dangerous rocks. He had been rowing furiously from 'one side of the lower part of the harbour' to the other, provisionless and sleepless, ever since he had disappeared The marine brought him safely back to the hospital, but from then on for his own safety 'he was more narrowly watched.' Given a house and garden in the hospital grounds, he managed to avoid his attendant long enough one day to get a hoe and dig enough holes to bury all of seventy gold guineas, one by one, so the garden would grow money trees to increase his riches. A desperate search for the coins by the doctors, in which he probably stubbornly refused to help, only recovered one third of his fortune..⁸

Once the replacement New South Wales Corps arrived in the Second Fleet in June 1790, Phillip could think about repatriating any naval or marine personnel who wanted to go home. He ordered Maxwell aboard the snow Waaksamheid in March 1791, again under the charge of John Hunter. Nagle, another of the returnees, and always interested in Maxwell's fortunes since the 'starting' aboard the Sirius, noted he 'lay in his cabin in a dreadful condition, constantly delerious and insensible of anything whatever.' Three weeks into the home journey Maxwell died. He was buried at sea ' in as genteel a manner as could be expected to see.'⁹

1Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided. The American Revolution and the British Caribbean, Philadelphia, 2000, pp. 62-63; Oliver M. Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution, Philadelphia, 1974, p. 85; Neil R. Stout, The Royal Navy in America, 1760-1775. A Study of Enforcement of British Colonial Policy in the Era of the American Revolution, Annapolis, 1973, p. 9.

2I. R. Christie, Crisis of Empire. Great Britain and the American Colonies, 1754-1783, New York, 1966, pp. 36-37; Lawrence Henry Gipson, The Coming of the Revolution, 1763-1775, New York, 1962, p. 30; Fred Anderson, Crucible of War. The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, New York, 2000, p.520; Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution, p.85; Gary B.Nash, The Unknown American Revolution. The Unruly birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America, London, 2007, pp. 45-46; Jeremy Black, Crisis of Empire. Britain and America in the Eighteenth Century, London, 2008, p. 106; Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible. The Northern American Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution,Cambridge, Mass.1986, pp. 155-159.

3Merrill Jensen, The Founding of a Nation. A History of the American Revolution, 1763-1776, `Indianapolis, 2004, p. 280; Stout, The Royal Navy in America, 1760-1775, pp. 65-66; Gillen, The Founders of Australia. p.242; N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World. An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy, New York, 1996, pp. 266-267.

4Stout, The Royal Navy in America, 1760-1775, pp. 66-68; Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution. Colonial radicals and the development of American opposition to Britain, 1765-1776,New York, 1991, p.10; N. A. M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean. A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815, London, 2004, p. 272.

5Stout, The Royal Navy in America, 1760-1775, p. 78 et al.;The Nagle Journal. A Diary of the Life of Jacob Nagle, Sailor, from the Year 1775 to 1841, (ed. John C. Dann), New York, 1988, pp. 85-86 and passim.

6John White, Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, (ed. Alec H. Chisholm), Sydney, 1962, p.141; John Hunter, An Historical Journal of Events at Sydney and at Sea, 1787-1792, (ed. John Bach), Sydney, 1968, p. 67, 69; Newton Fowell, The Sirius Letters. The Complete Letters of Newton Fowell, (ed. Nance Irvine), Sydney, 1988, p.100;The Nagle Journal, pp. 105-106; Captain Hunter to Governor Phillip, Sirius in Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, 17^th December, 1789 in Historical Records of Australia, Series 1. Governors' despatches to and from England, [HRA], Vol. I, 1788-1796, Melbourne [?], 1914, p.263.

7Fowell, The Sirius Letters.pp. 102-103; Hunter, An Historical Journal of Events at Sydney and at Sea, 1787-1792, p.177; Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia, p.247 for Maxwell's family.

8Governor Phillip to Lord Sydney, Government House, Sydney Cove, Feb. 12^Th 1790 in HRA, Vol. I, p. 147; Enclosure No. 3, Port Jackson, New South Wales, 26^th December, 1789, sgd. John White, D. Considen, G. B. Worgan in HRA, Vol. I, p. 264; David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, Sydney, 1975, pp. 80 and.83;The Nagle Journal, p.111.

9Governor Phillip to Secretary Stephen, Sydney, New South Wales, 14^th March, 1791 in HRA, Vol. I, p.254; The Nagle Journal,p. 131.

The Madness of Major General Eyre Massey - Halifax, Nova Scotia- 15 May 1777.

On the morning of 15 May, a day of pouring rain, while the ever-active Commodore Sir George Collier was absent on a naval cruise, David Collins received a a very disturbing order from the garrison's commanding officer, Major-General Eyre Massey to pass on to the Surgeon of Marines. Massey had decided to fortify St. George's Island, the site of the King's Naval Hospital in Halifax Harbour. All the Hospital's sick were to be removed to the mainland immediately.and all its 'Medicines, Instruments, Beddings and other Stores' taken out of the Island's storehouses were to be thrown out into the street for the inhabitants of the island to plunder if not removed within 'three or four days.' Dutifully he passed it on. Thus, at noon, with the downpour still raging, the 'Town sergeant', a lieutenant, and Hill, the Surgeon of Marines landed with their empty boats and a contingent of marines on St. George's Island and turned the sick seamen out of their beds. Some were 'at the point of death, others with fevers & various other disorders', others 'with wounds still open & dangerous.' They were forced onto the waiting boats, wet, cold and shivering, and rowed across to 'the Gun Battery', where they were abandoned in the teeming rain. No shelter was found for them by the town's surgeons 'for twenty-four hours.' To the anger and horror of the townsfolk these walking wounded were left to 'wander about the Streets' seeking cover from the drenching wet where they could, reliant on the pity of civilians and soldiers alike. ;This cruel Treatment must be fatal to them', complained one doctor, frantically looking for a place to house them. The townspeople turned their anger on the 'Bedlamite' general, and would, Collier later wrote, have 'torn him limb from limb' if they had got their hands on him. Collier demanded Massey's recall, to no effect, but by the end of the month did put an end to the madness with the return of the Hospital to the island,

1Gwyn, Frigates and Foremasts,pp. 60-61; Gwyn, Ashore and Afloat,p. 43; Marble, Surgeons, Smallpox and the Poor,pp.113-114.

Tracing Philip Schaeffer and Elizabeth Schaeffer III

Some further evidence has come to light about Philip Schaeffer. Unfortunately none of it is particularly conclusive so the reader should be aware that whatever tentative conclusions I have made about him and his daughter Elizabeth in this post are more based on assumptions than firm historical evidence. This is partly due to the contradictory nature of some of that evidence.

A Phillipe Scheffer is listed as a sergeant in the company of Captain Germann, a Hanau company mustered at Njimegen on 23 March, 1776. [Bruce E. Burgoyne (trans.) Hesse-Hanau order Books, a Diary and Rosters. Heritage Books, 2006, p. 238.] If this Scheffer is our Philip Schaeffer, a possibility as Scheffer is a variant spelling of Schaeffer in the 18th century Hessian records, it means he possibly served in Canada from about mid-1776. At this stage of my research into the Schaeffers this is inconclusive, but if so, it may mean he served at Saratoga in 1777 and was captured there after Burgoyne's defeat there later that year. If that is the case he would have ended up a prisoner in Virginia, and still been a prisoner when he married, in which case Elizabeth Schaeffer may have been born in an American prison camp, assuming his wife, not yet identified, was with him. These conclusions are all based on as yet non-evidential assumptions which have yet to be tested.

Another (or the same) Philipp Schaeffer is listed as a second lieutenant in the Free Battalion of Hesse Hanau 1782, 1783, enlisting on January 15, 1781. [Max von Eelking, The German Allied Troops in the North American War of Independence, 1776-1783, (trans. J. G. Rosengarten), Albany, NY. 1893, p. 349] in which case Schaeffer came late to the war and his daughter Elizabeth was born probably near Frankfurt probably in 1780. [Michael Flynn, The second Fleet. Britain's Grim Convict Armada of 1790,North Sydney, 2001, p. 581].

On the other hand, there is clear evidence that some Hesse-Hanau troops did not depart for North America until after those regiments that left in 1776, probably in early 1777. These Hessians belonged to a Jaeger Corps, as did Schaeffer and they served first in New Jersey, then in the Philadelphia campaign. [von Eelking, op. cit.,pp. 100-105.] Schaeffer may well have been with this group. If so, he would have been part of the British occupation force in Charleston, South Carolina in 1780, and Elizabeth could have been born in Charleston, assumimg Schaeffer was accompanied by his wife.

Maria Stuart Proctor's War - Halifax, April 1775-March 1776

When undeclared war broke out on 19 April 1775 at Lexington/Concord, three Royal Navy vessels were in the Halifax careening yard. Immediate instructions were sent to the 28-gun HMS Tartar to remain in Halifax Harbour 'for the protection of the King's Yard and Stores.' Still, those more knowledgeable about Nova Scotia, aware that the 9,000 odd New England Yankees in the colony were not liable either to support or rebel against British policy, had little else to worry about than the sudden, single torching of hay meant for the military garrison. Their real fears centred on the possibility of the Americans invading or rebel pirates from Machias, twenty miles south of the province. For Maria Proctor, about to reach the marriageable age of twelve, in a world where marriage for a woman was 'an economic necessity', the departure of four companies of the 65^th Regiment for Boston, leaving behind only three companies, totalling sixty-seven officers and men, seemed to promise a bleak future. There was no immediate prospect of gaining a potential husband with the immediate dearth of officers available. The arrival of the first refugee Loyalists from Boston or news that two Loyalist regiments were soon to be stationed in Nova Scotia¹ did little to raise her spirits.

The capture of HMS Margaretta by the Machias privateers and the news of Bunker Hill had an effect on Nova Scotia's Governor Francis Legge that spread through the town and could not have escaped notice by the Proctors. He proclaimed loyalty oaths be administered to all newcomers from the American colonies, the first of a long series of proclamations ranging from a six month ban on the export of arms, ammunition and saltpetre, a prohibition on aiding the rebels in New England to a ban on the distribution of American newspapers sympathetic to the rebel cause. The net effect of his suspicions, which, in June 1775 were not entirely well-founded, was to alarm the Halifax population and offend the Nova Scotia Yankees on the out-settlements. For Maria it must have been an uneasy time, especially if, in moments of solitude, she displayed the intense anxieties which dominated her adult life.²

To add to her unease, late June, 1775 saw an outbreak of a smallpox epidemic in Halifax. The pastor of St. Paul's, the Proctor family's church, exhorted his congregation to have themselves inoculated. Maria was probably among the first of his parishioners to heed his advice on July 1, when two of the town's doctors inoculated two hundred civilians and nineteen orphans. She may have known some of the first smallpox victims buried at the church on 23 July. These probably were Americans possibly known to her father through his Yankee origins. One hundred and forty people had died of the disease by December 1775 and about 200 soldiers fell ill with it.³

Among the merchant class a panic erupted over the activities of the Machias privateers in the Bay of Fundy, the sea approach to Halifax. One merchant refused to let his three vessels, loaded with hay for Boston, leave the harbour. '[W]e could not suffer the loss ourselves', he wrote in explanation to Boston, a sentiment undoubtedly sympathised with by the Proctors, failed merchants themselves. Further reminders of war came at 'about ½ past 10' on the night of 8 July, when a fire broke out at the naval dockyard in the 'Paint [Section] of the Boat-house'. The sparks swirling from the flames spiralling into the night air alarmed the town; fire was the greatest dread imaginable for colonial wooden towns of the eighteenth century. Maria Proctor probably stood in the crowd on the Halifax hillside watching the ominous red sky with great apprehension. Fortunately the fire was brought under control quickly but the morning after rumours spread it had been lit deliberately by rebel sympathisers in an attempt to destroy the yard's powder magazine. The sense of menace over Halifax grew as, thereafter, militia patrolled the streets at night looking for non-existent rebels. Governor Legge increased the guard around the ordnance store in the yard, leaving his own quarters without a sentry. Perturbed by the report of Halifax's lack of fortification, crumbling batteries, and that out of the 65^th Legge had only thirty effective men, the rest being unfit for service, Admiral Graves sent orders from Boston that a marine guard be used to defend the naval yard.⁴

Halifax began to change in ways that Maria Proctor could notice. One hundred and forty two artificers arrived from the home dockyards of Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth. These shipwrights, caulkers, house carpenters, joiners and labourers mounted 'guard every night for the protection of the yard &c.' One day in early September the children of the town, the young Proctors among them, were delighted by the sudden appearance of a recruiting sergeant and drummer beating up the main street. They were raising local recruits for the Loyalist Royal Highland Emigrants. Seven young men joined. Governor Legge, who had his own plans for raising one thousand men across Nova Scotia, quickly put an end to such efforts. Men-of-war began arriving in the harbour with prizes of rebel privateers captured in the Bay of Fundy. Workmen, hurrying against the frost and rains of the coming autumn, could be seen building temporary timber 'Block houses & Palisades' outside the Navy Yard. These would form a retreat for 'the People of the Town' should Halifax come under attack, and could easily be defended by them.⁵

The first snow, brought by a nor-wester, arrived about early October and had well and truly set in by the end of the month. Halifax was used to Royal Navy personnel but the increased numbers from the 64-gun Somerset, stationed to protect the dockyard and stores during the winter, the smaller Cerberus, there for careening, and the dismasted Orpheus, soon joined by the Fowey, carrying two small contingents of Loyalist troops raised in Boston, would not have escaped Maria Proctor's attention. It was common knowledge, too that the HMS Scarborough was patrolling the Bay of Fundy 'interrupting the American privateers. As in Boston, the navy was always short of crew. Press-gangs boarded Halifax merchantmen in the harbour and scoured the town streets, taverns close by the dockyard. The Proctor family, like everybody else in Halifax, feared a possible shortage of fuel 'and other necessary Supplies' should seamen shun the port to avoid impressment. The General Assembly made a special appeal to the Governor that 'Seamen belonging to the Vessels in Nova Scotia ma y not be impressed', a plea which would be ignored by the new Commander-in-Chief of the Port and Commissioner of the Dockyard, Commodore Marriott Artbuthnot, when he arrived in the Roebuck on 31 October, since more men-of-war meant the need for more presses.⁶

Though with Arbuthnot's arrival much work was immediately begun on improving the Naval Yard's fortifications, the only signs of preparation Maria might have seen were the stationing of a naval schooner at the harbour mouth to signal an attack by sea and the positioning of the Somerset and Roebuck to cover the shore before the yard and a hill close by its wall. Somewhat worrying for the people of Halifax was news from the Chignecto Isthmus connecting Nova Scotia to the mainland, of 'a large body of Rebels' led by Jonathan Eddy and John Allen, former members of the National Assembly. '[T]heir direction,' Commodore Arbuthnot remarked dismissively, 'was unknown.' For the moment, nothing came of this discontent. Much more alarming was the news in early December, as troops from Ireland brought the total strength at Halifax to six hundred men, that Montreal had fallen to the rebels on 13 November.. That great fear of the Nova Scotians that the army of Generals Philip Schuyler and Richard Montgomery would turn east to Halifax was re-awoken. Partly in response to these fears and partly because of the increasingly frequent depredations of American privateers along the Nova Scotia coast Governor Legge instantly declared martial law throughout the province.⁷

Apart from the ubiquitous presence of a supposedly more vigilant military, 384 of whom were stationed in Halifax, (though eighty-three of those were already ill when they arrived), one of Governor Legge's proclamations was perhaps more noticed by Maria Proctor. Thomas Proctor, probably a relative, was one of the Justices of the Peace to whom any and every visitor from the American coilonies had to 'report ... to signify their names' and addresses and give an explanation of their business in town. If they failed to do this within two hours of arrival they were to be 'treated as spies.' With such sentiments Maria undoubtedly heartily concurred. Years later she would describe the French revolutionaries as 'that infernal crew' because of their regicide. On Christmas Eve another troop transport from Ireland carrying three companies made its way into the upper reaches of the Bay of Fundy, now 'hazardous and dangerous' with ice floes, to dock at last in Halifax Harbour. On Boxing Day the Proctor children watched saoldiers struggling with cannon 'without Carruages', dragging them from various points around the town toward the naval yard.They felt safer from the enemy, like the other townspeople, assured the sudden influx of troops would 'totally prevent any situation that may have been meditating against us either at present or in the future.' Halifax was now crowded with troops and the camp-followers that came with them. With the Loyalist Royal Hughland Emigrants arriving in early to mid-Januarythere were 300 women with their baggage with nowhere to put either. The barracks were falling down in parts with no means to repair them.  Even so, the Proctors had not yet again boarded officers. Of the fresh troops arriving in Halifax 'not more than 500' were 'very sickly.' Governor Legge's attempts to raise a militia and taxes to pay for them prompted 'universal ferment.' It was not a task that Thomas Proctor as a J.P. would have relished. The plan was so resisted it was abandoned. Civilian fears in the town were not assuaged, either, by the return of the Somerset to England or the despatch of the Roebuck to Virginia, leaving only the Savage and the Cerberus in the harbour, with the Cerberus being careened beacuse it had twice run on rocks. ⁸

Probably the most noticeable activity through the winter was the floating of logs out of the adjoining wilderness by yard workers and sailors down streams into the harbour for the dockyard to turn into spars and mainmasts. By early February though 'the harbour was totally froze up.' On the dinner table Maria would have found meat running short. Little news came from the thirteen rebellious colonies. Perhaps with some relief the townspeople noticed the influx of loyalists from the south had 'been much lower than was expected' and those who had come had proved mainly self-sufficient. By the end of March, however, the first of the troop and refugee stransports from Boston began to anchor in Halifax Harbour. Among the military was Maria Proctor's future husband, David Collins.⁹

1 John R. Elting, The Battle of Bunker's Hill, Monmouth Beach, NJ, 1975, p. 18; Vice Admiral Samuel Graves to Philip Stevvens, Preston,Boston, July 28, 1775 in Clark, (ed.) NDAR,Vol. 1, p. 997; Mancke, The Fault Lines of Empire,p. 77, Tiley, The British Navy and the American Revolution, p. 37; Marble, Surgeons, Smallpox and the Poor, pp. 102, 105, 276, f/n. 34; Liza Picard, Dr. Johnston's London. Life in London, 1740-1770, London, 2001, p. 188; Gwyn, Frigates and Foremasts, p. 165; Bridget Hill, Women,work and sexual politics in eighteenth century England, London, 2003, p. 192

2Mancke, The Fault Lines of Empire,p. 87; Currey, David Collins, pp. 73-75, 120-121.

3Marble, Surgeons, Smallpox and the Poor, pp. 108, 103, 106.

4Day & Saoult to William Sherriff, Halifax, July 28^th, 1775 in Clark, (ed.) NDAR.Vol. 1, p. 993; Admiral Graves to Philip Stevens, Preston, Boston, July 28, 1775 in Clark, ibid.,p.997; Francis Legge, Governor of Nova Scotia, to General Thomas Gage, Halifax, July 26^th, 1775, in Clark ibid., p. 975; Francis Legge, Governor of Nova Scotia to Lord Dartmouth, Halifax, July 31^st, 1775 in Clark, ibid., p. 1014; Rawlyk, Nova Scotia's Massachusetts, p. 231; Gwyn, Ashore and Afloat, p. 19.

5Gwyn, Ashore and Afloat, p. 25; Minutes of the Executive Council of Nova Scotia, 28^th September, 1775, in William Bell Clark, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 2, Washington, 1966, p. 224; Captain Alexander McDonald to Col. Allen McLean, Halifax, 18^th Sept., 1775 in Letter Book of Captain Alexander McDonald of the Royal Highland Emigrants, americanrevolution.org; Diary of Simon Perkins, Liverpool, 30^th September, 1775 in Clark, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 2, p. 246.

6John Ferling, Almost A Miracle. The American Victory in the War of Independence,New York, 2007, p. 93, for contiguous weather details; Gwyn, Frigates and Foremasts, pp. 57-58; 'Narrative of Captain Andrew Snape Hamond, RN, Halifax, October 31^st, 1775 in Clark, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 2, pp. 855-657; Address of the Nova Scotia General Assembly to Francis Legge in Clark, (ed.) ibid.,p. 657' Commodore Marriot Arbuthnot to Captain Andrew Snape Hamond, HMS Roebuck,Halifax, 6^th November, 1775 in Clark, (ed.) ibid., p. 900.

7Commodore Narriot Arbuthnot to Captain Andrew Snape Hamond, [8 November 1775[ in Clark, (ed.) NDAR,Vol. 2, p. 926; Commodore Marriot Arbuthnot to Philip Stephens, [18 November, 1775] in Clark, (ed.) ibid.,pp. 1083-1084; Rawlyk, Nova Scotia's Massachusetts,p. 231; Commodore Marriot Arbuthnot to Vice-Admiral Samuel Graves, Halifax Yard, 7 November, 1775 in Clark, (ed.) NDAR,Vol. 2, p. 912; Commodore Marriot Arbuthnot to Philip Stevens in Clark, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 3, Washington, 1068, p. 251; Marble, Surgeons, Smallpox and the Poor, p. 107; Francis Legge, Governor of Nova Scotia to Lord Dartmouth, Halifax, Octr. 17, 1775, in Clark, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 2, p. 485; Francis Legge to Lord Dartmouth, Halifax, December 5^th, 1775 in Clark, (ed.) ibid., p. 1280.

8 Marble, Surgeons, Smallpox and the Poor, pp. 276-277, f/n. 44, 148;Proclamation by the Governor of Nova Scotia [5^th December, 1775 in Peter Force, (ed.) American Archives,S4,v,4,p. 722; Maria Collins cited in Currey, David Collins, p. 121. ; Commodore Marriot Arbuthnot to Philip Stephens, Halifax Yard, 26^th December, 1775in Clark, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 3, p. 251' Governor Francis Legge to Lord Dartmouth, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 22 december, 1775 in Clark, (ed.) ibid.,p. 303; Captain Alexander McDonald to Major Small, Halifax, 9^th January, 1775 in Letter-book of Captain Alexander McDonald of the Royal Highland Emigrants, americanrevolution.org ; P. J. Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires. Britain, India and the Americas,1750-1783,Oxford, 2005, p. 3565; Governor Francis Legge to Lord Dartmouth, Halifax, January 12^th, 1776 in Clark, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 3, pp. 742-743; Commodore Marriot Arbuthnot to Vice-Admiral Samuel Graves, Jany 15^th, 1776 in Clark, ibid. p. 792.,

9Gwyn, Ashore and Afloat, pp. 104-105; Journal of Bartholomew James, February 10, 1776, in Clark, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 3, p. 1192; Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman on board HMS Orpheus,dated Halifax, 15^th February, 1776 in Clark, ibid., p. 1300; Allen French, The First Year of the American Revolution, Cambridge, Mass., 1934, p. 571; Governor francis Legge to Lord Dartmouth, Halifax, 1`8^th March, 1776, William Bell Clark, (ed.) NDAR, vol. 4, Washington, 1969, p.358; Robinson, His Diaries and Sketches in America, p. 32; Currey, David Collins, p. 23.