1743:
§ Benning Wentworth, John's uncle, becomes surveyor general as well as governor of New Hampshire.
1745:
§ Frances Wentworth is born.
1751:
§ At the age of 14, John attends Harvard College.
1755:
§ John receives an undergraduate degree from Harvard.
1758:
§ John receives a masters degree from Harvard.
1760:
§ October 25th: George II dies: George III becomes king.
1763:
§ The Treaty Of Paris is signed bringing the war, The Seven Years War, between herself and her rivals (principally France) to an end.
§ Wentworth, 26 years old, arrives at London.
1766:
§ Wentworth is appointed Governor of New Hamshire: Surveyor General of the King's woods in North America.
1767:
§ Winter: Wentworth leaves England for America.
§ June: Having paid visits to the governors of the more southern colonies, Wentworth arrives at New Hampshire.
1769:
§ November 11th: Marries Frances Atkinson (nee Wentworth).
1770:
§ A new authority was trenching upon the old. It went hand and hand with the growth of literacy and the ease by which political writers could get their pamphlets abroad. Though the old political guard were slow to recognize it: public opinion, right or wrong, was what was to rule: the plutocratic could rule but only through the shaping of public opinion. As Pitt observed, "Five hundred gentlemen, my Lords, are not ten millions; and if we must have a contention, let us take care to have the English nation on our side."
§ Boston "massacre": Some garrison troops in self-defence shot down a few of the Boston crowd who had attacked.
1773:
§ December, 1773: Boston Tea Party.
1774:
§ A series of acts (The Intolerable Acts) is passed by the British parliament aimed at bringing the North American colonies under control.
§ September 5th: The first Continental Congress takes place at Philadelphia.
1775:
§ January 20th: The Wentworths' only child is born, Charles Mary.
§ April 19: Fighting erupts at Lexington and Concord.
§ Rebel mob besieges his mansion; Wentworth flees New Hampshire.
1776:
§ January: Having been sheltering with her family at Boston, Frances now takes her one year old son and goes to England.
§ April: Having evacuated Boston General Howe arrives at Halifax. Wentworth, who had stayed behind while his wife and child sailed for the safety of England, had hired a sloop and came up from Boston with about a dozen of his New Hampshire friends.
§ June: Sailing down from Halifax to Long Island, Gen. Howe lands at Long Island and then marches on New York. Wentworth seems to have gone down with Howe to New York in order to lead a loyalist brigade.
§ July: Declaration of Independence.
1777:
§ June: General Howe, who had proceeded from New York to Jersey, intending to penetrate thence to Pennsylvania, was compelled, by Washington's skilful operations, to retreat.
§ October the 16th: The surrender of Burgoyne to the Americans.
§ Washington and his troops spent the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge in great misery and deprivation.
1778:
§ The French officially recognize American independence and become allied with them, and, conclude a treaty in respect to trade with the Americans.
§ April: Wentworth arrives at England.
1780:
§ The British parliament, much before any other legislative chamber in the world, passed an Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.
§ In a speech to the House of Commons, Burke makes a passing comment, "What sums we incur to nurse that ill-thriven and ill-favoured brat [Nova Scotia] -- what a cost to this wittol nation!"
1781:
§ Yorktown: After his unsuccessful Carolina campaign the British general, Cornwallis retreated into Virginia, fortified Yorktown, and awaited reinforcements from Sir Henry Clinton in New York. Clinton delayed, however, and the French fleet blockaded Chesapeake Bay. Generals Washington and Rochambeau rushed south with French troops. Unable to escape, Cornwallis surrendered on October 17, 1781, thereby bringing victory to the rebellious Colonies.
§ Ratification of the Articles of Confederation places the original 13 states under the first American federal constitution.
§ Pitt, the younger, enters the House of Commons; the Tory Government of Lord North is tottering under the disasters in America.
1782:
§ April 12th: Lord Howe's destruction of De Grasse's fleet at the Battle of the Saints, a battle which saved the British West Indies and restored Britain's absolute command of the seas.
§ October: John Parr becomes Governor of Nova Scotia.
§ Peace negotiations between England and the United States were signed in November and with France and Spain in January 1783.
1783:
§ "From September, 1782, to December, 1783, the Loyalists came from New York in such numbers that the government was busy day and night making provision for their settlement."
§ Wentworth is, once again, appointed the Surveyor General of the King's woods.
§ Summer: Wentworth sails from England for Nova Scotia leaving his wife and son behind.
§ September 3rd: The Paris Peace Treaty by which the hostilities between Great Britain and her colonies were brought to an end and which brought into being the independent nation of the United States of America.
§ September 20th: Wentworth arrives at Halifax.
§ November: New York is evacuated.
1784:
§ March 25th: Parliament is dissolved.
§ Pitt defeats Fox and North at the polls.
§ Spring: Having left her son, Charles Mary, in the care of relatives, Frances Wentworth came out to join her husband at Halifax.
§ The population of Nova Scotia (which at this time included part of present day New Brunswick): "Old British inhabitants," 14,000; "Old French Acadians," 400; and "Disbanded troops and loyalists, called new inhabitants" 28,347: For a total of 42,747.
1785:
§ The Big Bang of The Industrial Revolution occurs in England when, for first time, steam engines are used to power spinning machinery.
1786:
§ Summer: Prince William Henry in the Pegasus, pays his first visit to Halifax.
1787:
§ In Philadelphia the members of the Federal Convention of 1787 were sitting down to put the finishing touches to the American constitution.
§ Wentworth travels throughout a wide area to carry out his duties as the Surveyor General.
§ Autumn: Prince William Henry in the Pegasus, again pays visits to Halifax.
1788:
§ August 25th: "His Royal Highness, Prince William Henry, is arrived there [Halifax in the Andromeda]." (Perkins Diary.) There was, it would appear, three Royal Navy ships sailing together: the 32-gun Andromeda, the Thisbe and the Brisk; the three, we note, called into the newly established Loyalist town of Shelburne.
1789:
§ Washington becomes the first president (1789-97) and takes office on April 30, 1789.
§ At Paris, a political club or society meets in the old convent of the Jacobins (order of monks) to maintain and propagate the principles of extreme democracy and absolute equality; they became known as the Jacobins.
§ June: The French Revolution breaks out.
1790:
§ The very first nation wide census is carried out in the U.S. The count was 3,929,827.
§ Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution.
1791:
§ Paine answers Burke with his work, The Rights of Man.
§ French Constitution: The European liberalism of the 19th century, was first formally proclaimed in the French constitution of 1791; a theory of liberty, the "Golden Rule of Liberty": "Men are born free and equal in rights, ... Liberty, ... consists in being permitted to do anything which does not injure other people. ... The exercise of the natural rights of each man has not limits except those which guarantee to the other members of society the enjoyment of the same rights."(Articles 1 & 3 of 1791 French Constitution.)
§ Summer: Wentworth with Frances arrive in England in an attempt to unravel their financial affairs.
§ November 25th: Governor Parr dies; that winter it is announced that Wentworth was to become Nova Scotia's new governor.
1792:
§ March: The Wentworths sail from England.
§ May 12th; The Wentworths arrive at Halifax.
§ May 14th: Wentworth sworn in as Governor of Nova Scotia.
§ August 10th: A Parisian mob storm the Tuileries and take the royal family as prisoners. The "September massacres" follow.
§ The Napoleonic wars (1792-1815).
§ The British capture Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.
1793:
§ January 21st: Louis XVI is beheaded; George III sent the French ambassador packing; Diplomatic relations were severed; France invaded England's ally, Holland; and, on February 1st, France declared war on England.
§ The courts deport transport dessenters to Botany Bay, part of the larger government effort to prosecute editors, nonconformists and radicals; most all of whom are now arguing for Parliamentary reform.
§ On the 22nd of July, 1793, Mackenzie writes his famous inscription on a rock bluff in Dean's Channel: "Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three."
1794:
§ Howe's victory of "The First of June" that arose as a result of the meeting of the English and French fleets off of Brest was to show to the world that England continued to hold on to her superiority at sea.
§ The American Congress establishes a navy.
1795:
§ Wentworth is made the Baronet of Nova Scotia.
§ November: Benning Wentworth, Frances' brother, is sworn in as a councillor, "on a royal mandamus."
1796:
§ Washington's Farewell Address: His three main points: "the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party"; the wisdom of keeping clear of foreign entanglements; and, for political stability, the necessity of religion and morality.
§ The French conquer Italy, and Austria deserts Britain in her struggle against France.
§ Jenner discovers vaccination.
§ A Bavarian by the name of Alois Senefelder discovering that water and grease did not have an affinity for one another and from that determined to employ a different printing process by which art work could be relatively and inexpensively reproduced in quantity. Thus, a printing process known as lithography was to come into being.
§ May 10: Duke of Kent, having been appointed Commander of the garrison at Halifax, arrives from St. Kitts.
1797:
§ In January, with Bonaparte having successfully invaded Italy and Spain coming in on the side of France and Austria retiring from the war, France was left without an enemy on the continent, and England without an ally. England, fearing an invasion, withdrew her ships from the Mediterranean, which was thus to become a "French Lake" from January 1797 to May 1798.
§ John Adams (1735-1826), one of Wentworth's class mates, becomes the second President of the United States (1797-1801).
§ Naval mutinies between April and June at Spithead and the Nore.
§ Frances becomes quite ill and it was feared she might die; she recovers but then was to spend a number of months in bed. Hearing that her son Charles Mary, who was then in England, was not well, Frances, in the spring of 1798, sails for England.
1798:
§ Malthus comes out with his An Essay on the Principle of Population.
§ Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly publish The Lyrical Ballads.
§ Nelson re-enters the Mediterranean in May, 1798; and, in August Nelson destroys the French fleet at The Battle of the Nile.
1799:
§ Frances and Charles Mary returned to Halifax, both in good health.
§ In Nova Scotia: The assembly meets on Friday, 7 June, 1799 (7th general assembly, 7th and last session). Governor Wentworth in his speech recommends quarantine laws to guard against "yellow fever"; he recommends the completion of the roads to Annapolis and Pictou.
1800:
§ In January, an influential group of men come together to form the Royal Institution of Great Britain. The RI was to provide bench space to some of the most famous names in British science, such as, Sir Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday. The RI was to give regular public addresses, and, Albemarle Street was to become so fashionably popular that it was the world's first one-way thoroughfare.
§ For a few months during the winter of 1800-01 there was formed a league against England; the league consisted of Prussia, Sweden, Denmark and Russia. This "was caused partly by the whim of the Czar Paul [and] partly by two feelings then prevalent in the Courts of Europe, fear of France and jealousy of English naval power." With Nelson's capture of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen in April, 1801, this league against England shortly came to an end.
§ The British army, for the most part gave up the cocked hats and adopted the cylindrical shako.
§ February 20th: The 8th General Assembly sits.
§ June 23rd: "For sale, for term of years, as may be agreed on, a likely stout Negro girl, aged 18 years, good natured, fond of children, and accustomed to both town and country work."
§ "The Duke of Kent imported four horses of value, to improve the breed in the province."
§ July 8th: "Mr. Bulkeley, master of the Rolls, and Register in Chancery, resigns, and Benning Wentworth, Frances' brother, is appointed in his stead."
§ August 4th: Duke of Kent leaves Halifax for England for the last time, arriving at Portsmouth on August 31st.
§ August: The Maroons, having arrived in Halifax during 1796, were placed on the ship Asia and sent off to a new British colony in Africa, Sierra Leone.
§ September 11th: The corner stone for his new house, Government House, is laid by Wentworth.
1801:
§ John Adams (1735-1826), one of Wentworth's class mates, leaves and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) is sworn in as President of the United States; Jefferson was to serve from 1801 to 1809.
§ Great Britain and Ireland come together under one legislative body. In June, 100 Irish members became part of the house of commons; and, 28 temporal and four spiritual peers took their seats in the house of lords. Thereafter commerce between the two countries was freed from all restrictions.
§ "On the 4 February, the stables, coach houses and offices at Sir John Wentworth's villa, the 'Lodge,' were burned, and on the 8th a fire occurred in front of Government House, by which many houses and stores on Hollis Street were destroyed."
§ The citizens of Halifax suffer from the smallpox.
§ In 1801, Wentworth complains that there is "not one ship of war left ... to protect the coast and the trade."
1802:
§ The Treaty of Amiens is signed and the war between France and England is ended leaving France supreme in Western Europe, and England supreme on the oceans of the world. With this peace (1802-03), the Peace of Amiens, there came a swarm of American fishermen to the shores of Nova Scotia; many of these fishermen had previously lived in Nova Scotia; it was reported (Fergusson) that 750 vessels of the United States passed through the Strait of Canso, within a year.
§ April 9th: a committee of the whole house condemns the commission set up to oversee the building of Government House. The committee had kept no minutes and it obtained no estimates; generally it exercised no control over the £10,000 which the house had allotted. The lack of control was so bad that, while only the first story had been completed, the money was practically all gone.
§ April 14th: The displeasure of the house having been communicated to him, the Lieutenant Governor sent a message back. Sir John "declined to alter the commissioners for building government house, on the ground they were fully competent to their duty -- had not offered to resign, and had hitherto conducted themselves in that service to his satisfaction."
§ A fleet of H. M. ships arrive Halifax on 13 September and depart 11 October during which time they are victualed. The fleet had come in from sea after having travelled from Jamaica.
1803:
§ War again: the Peace of Amiens comes to an end. A circular letter, dated 16 May, 1803, from Downing Street: "Unfavorable termination of the discussion lately depending between his majesty and the French government ... his majesty's ambassador left Paris on the 13th." Letters of marque and commissions to privateers are to be issued, and French ships to be captured, &c. The kings share of all French ships and property will be given to privateers. Homeward bound ships should wait for convoys."
§ Green: "Amid all the triumphs of the revolutionary war, the growth of the British empire had been steady and ceaseless. She was more than ever mistress of the sea. ... She was turning her command of the seas to a practical account. Not only was she monopolizing the carrying trade of the European nations, but the sudden uprush of her industries was making her the workshop as well as the market of the world."
§ On the 1st of June the house meets (8th general assembly, 4th session); one of the things voted upon is more money (£3000) so to continue the building of Government House.
1804:
§ "On the 11th of April 1804, a treaty was concluded at St. Petersburg. Five hundred thousand men were to be arrayed against France. Great Britain was to contribute ships and men and money. on the 9th of August, Austria signified her adherence. This was the Third Coalition."
§ May 18th, 1804: Pitt is recalled and takes his seat as the prime minister, once again. The same day that his arch rival, Napoleon is proclaimed Emperor of the French.
§ Nova Scotia continued to export timber and gypsum; it seems, not surprising given all the granite she possesses, she was also exporting grindstones to the states. Fish and oil was sent abroad. Agricultural "skill and attention," however, was lacking.
§ Wentworth expresses fear over the build up, in the United States, of French ships and French troops, and the necessity, in the circumstances, of securing the coast from picaroons.
§ War between Britain and Bonaparte-dominated Spain breaks out on December 12th, 1804.
1805:
§ Wentworth writes to Tonge from the "Lodge, near Halifax, 9 July, 1805" and sends his wishes for "the recovery of his health." (Murdoch.)
§ A French prisoner, Pierre Paulin, was tried, convicted and sentence to death; he had killed a fellow prisoner. While Wentworth was sympathetic and would have spared the man's life, he was convinced otherwise by the council, and so, on 24 October the sentence of death was carried out. (Murdoch.)
§ William Cottnam Tonge is picked by the house as speaker, pro tempore. Tonge took this to be a great privilege: "Gentlemen, I feel this to be the most honourable day of my life. ... To succeed as I have done, without intrigue, without personal solicitation, or influence of party ..." (As quoted by Murdoch.)
§ Charles, Wentworth's son moves to England.
§ October 21st, Nelson's victory at Trafalgar, by it both the French and Spanish navies were annihilated, and, the the danger of any invasion of England rolled away like a dream.
§ Halifax hears of Nelson's victory. The town is illuminated.
§ In December of 1805 the Battle of Austerlitz took place (Austerlitz is a place located in modern day Czechoslovakia). Napoleon decisively defeated the armies of Russia and Austria, each with its emperor at its head.
§ "28 Dec'r. The committee of supply voted £12,000 for civil list, £6,000 for roads and bridges, £2,000 agriculture, £3,000 fisheries, £2,500 for the new Government House, £500 bounties to seamen to enlist in H. M. service, conditioned that no inhabitant or fisherman be impressed." (Murdoch.)
1806:
§ On January 23rd Pitt dies.
§ Grenville, the foreign secretary since 1791, forms the government of "All the Talents" which was dissolved in 1807.
§ February 3rd: Wentworth writes to Castlereagh about Tonge: "... exerted every possible means to protract the session -- to infuse and disseminate groundless jealousies and discontent into the minds of the people ... [further he attempted] to prevent any grant of revenue to his majesty, which ... were delayed until nearly one-third of the net duties for the year were lost by importations during the time the revenue bills ceased."
§ February 21st: Wentworth suspends Tonge from the office he held as the "naval officer," appointing John Beckwith in his place.
§ In September Fox dies in office.
§ November 18th: new assembly meets (9th, 1st)
§ December3rd: The 9th assembly met for the 2nd time. Governor Wentworth was not there for the opening as Lady Wentworth was "dangerously ill," Chief Justice Blowers read the speech.
§ The American, Robert Fulton (1765-1815), in the Clermont, proves the practicality of steam power for river craft.
§ In 1806 England abolishes the slave-trade (in 1833 slavery itself).
1807:
§ The American continent is now being tied together and mapped all the way to the Pacific. David Thompson (1770-1857), surveyor and geographer, was making sense out of the observations and explorations of the past and the present.
1808:
§ The lawful import of slaves ends in the United States.
§ February 18th: Benning Wentworth dies.
§ April 7th: Sir George Prevost arrives at Halifax bringing with him his commission signed by Castlereagh making him the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia replacing Wentworth.
§ Prevost writes of the Government House: "... an edifice out of all proportion to the situation ..." As for the defences at Halifax, "Ruin and desolation."
§ In support of a Spanish rising, in July, Arthur Wellesley (later to become known as the Duke of Wellington) leads the first small British force of 9,000 men into the peninsula of Spain; a gate into the hostile fortress of Napoleonic Europe.
§ July 7th: Lord Castlereagh writes Prevost "to hold the troops he had accompanied to North America in readiness for distance service." Prevost prepares to capture Martinique. (Murdoch.)
§ December 6th: Prevost sails, at 9 A.M., with his troops. He arrives Barbadoes 23 days later, 29th Dec.
§ Dr. Croke in sworn in to temporarily replace Prevost.
1809:
§ Halifax: The winter has been very severe and on February 10th a large subscription is made for the "relief of the poor."
§ James Madison (1751-1836) is sworn in as President (4th) of the United States. He served from 1809 to 1817.
§ April 15, Prevost with his troops arrives back at Halifax after having captured Martinique.
§ Halifax: Horse racing is carried on by the officers of the garrison; the Rockingham Club holds diners.
§ Halifax: The Halifax Fire Insurance Company, the first and oldest Canadian fire insurance company, was started.
§ September 18th: Six mutinous seamen of the Columbine are "hung in gibbets on Mauger's beach." (Murdoch.)
§ Perceval becomes the English Prime Minister and Liverpool Secretary for War and the Colonies.
1810:
§ George III is ill; his son, the Duke of Wales (1762-1830) takes over as the Prince Regent; in 1820, on his father's death, he becomes George IV.
§ The Wentworths move to England taking up residence at London.
1811:
§ Austen's work, Sense and Sensibility.
§ Advertisement in paper, 16 January, 1811: "W. Madden begs to acquaint the ladies and Gentlemen of Halifax, that he has fitted up Three Carriages etc. etc. .. these Carriages to be found on the stand fronting the Custom House ..."
§ The Bill allowing £15,000 to be spent on roads and bridges is passed by the house, but returned by the council. Same old problem, the rural areas, well represented in the house, want roads; and the council, the members of which represent the interests of those in Halifax, do not.
§ August: The cornerstone of Province House laid by Sir George Prevost.
§ August 23rd: Prevost sails for Quebec to take up his position as the Governor of Canada. Dr. Croke, for the second time, is sworn in as a temporary administrator of Nova Scotia.
§ October 16: General, Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, arrives with his lady and family at Halifax, after 37 days passage from Portsmouth.
1812:
§ February 6th: The tenth assembly of the province meets in its first session. The House held 39 members in the same distribution as we saw in 1806.
§ May, Prime Minister Perceval, assassinated.
§ Wentworth flees his creditors. Leaving behind his wife and child which he was not to see again, he takes refuge at Halifax.
§ Paper money is issued by the government in Nova Scotia.
§ On 18 June: President Madison and the American Congress declare war on Britain. There then follows: The War of 1812.
§ Byron Donkin builds (tin plate having been invented in 1810) the first canning factory in England, his principal orders coming from the Royal Navy for canned soups and meats used in the war against America.
§ Convicts, employed chiefly as quarrymen and stonecutters, built the magnificent naval base in Bermuda.
§ July 21st: The council gives advise to issue letters of marque.
§ Liverpool becomes the English Prime Minister.
1813:
§ February 14th: Lady Wentworth (1745-1813), in her 68th year of age, dies in England.
§ April 27th, 1813, American forces raid York [Toronto] looting and burning buildings, including the governor's house and the provincial legislative building.
§ Sunday, June 6th, the victorious H.M.S. Shannon arrives at Halifax with her prize, the American frigate Chesapeake. The Shannon had taken her off Boston on June 1st in likely the most decisive and quickest naval battle ever.
§ During forty days in May and June, the British troops drive the French armies over the Pyrenees and out of Spain; Napoleon's back is broken by the military and diplomatic actions of Wellington and Castlereagh.
§ 10 September: The American squadron, under Perry, captures all of the British ships on Lake Erie.
§ Napoleon retreats from Moscow and struggles to retain hold of central Europe.
§ Commerce in the colony continues, it seems to be based on the export of boards, planks, staves, dry fish, smoked herrings and fish oil.
§ The organization of the Boston Manufacturing Company to produce cotton cloth in Waltham, Massachusetts, begins the transformation of the United States from a commercial to an industrial nation.
§ In England, thirteen "Luddites" are hung at the York Assizes.
1814:
§ April: Paris is captured and Bonaparte abdicates.
§ Land "on the highroad leading from Halifax, N. S., towards the Governor's north farm" is given over to H. M. Dockyard. The land is conveyed so a residence might be built, at his Majesty's expense, for the Hon. Alexander Forrester Cochrane, a Vice-Admiral and the commander-in-chief of the North American and West Indian station, 1813.
§ The legislature votes £150 "for a survey of the Shubenacadie river and the lakes from the head of the tide to Bedford basin."
§ August: In direct reprisal for the burning of York in the previous year, the British sack Washington.
§ August 26th, 1814, an expedition under Sir John Coape Sherbrooke sails from Halifax, with a view to doing mischief to the Americans. "The fleet consisted of the Bulwark, Dragon and Spencer, of 74 guns, two frigates, two brigs, a schooner and ten transports ... On the first of September they arrived at Castine, on the Penobscot river, which was taken possession of without resistance; the enemy having blown up the fort, and effected their escape."
§ December 24th: Treaty of Ghent signed.
1815:
§ March 1st: Napoleon returns from Elba and the "Hundred Days" begin.
§ April 3rd, 1815: the house is prorogued. Acts of interest: "bridewell or house of correction" was established at Halifax; the manner by which one owns real estate was simplified, in that "entails" were barred and where one might take "good title" by a registered deed; and a company was incorporated and given to it were exclusive rights to run a ferry between Halifax and Dartmouth.
§ June 18th, 1815, the Battle of Waterloo.
§ Unemployed ex-servicemen walk the streets.
1816:
§ In England, gold was declared to be the sole standard and full legal tender, and a new coin, known as the sovereign was put into circulation.
§ Men were put to death for serious crimes; and for certain of the less serious crimes the court would order that one of the convict's ears be cut off, -- one eared men were to be avoided.
§ June 27th: Sherbrooke "embarks for Canada" to take up his duties as the governor.
§ "The travellers of this time were notified in February, by Isaiah Smith, that they could go from Halifax to Windsor, or from Windsor to Halifax, for six dollars. Six inside passengers could find room in his stage-coach, which made two trips every week."
§ Construction begins on Erie Canal, designed to connect the Great Lakes and the Hudson River (and thus the Atlantic Ocean).
§ Robert Owen publishes A New View of Society or Essays on the Formation of the Human Character Preparatory to the Development of a Plan for Gradually Ameliorating the Condition of Mankind.
§ October 24th: Earl of Dalhousie and his family arrive at Halifax, he was to be sworn in as Lieutenant Governor.
1817:
§ Civil wars (Simón Bolívar and the Latin American revolution) sweep over the Spanish New World in waves from 1812 to the early 1820s; driven by both the political theories of Rousseau and the disruptions of civil order in Spain on account of Bonaparte and the resulting peninsular wars.
§ Ricardo's work, Principles of Political Economy & Taxation is published.
§ The war against the Radical Press in England heats up; Habeas Corpus Act is suspended for a whole year.
§ The population of the Nova Scotia is 94,000 and "the staples of export were fish, lumber, gypsum, and grindstones."
1818:
§ Unrest in England, with the Northern and Midland radicals causing sporadic violence and attacks on mills.
§ The American flag now has 20 stars.
§ The population at Halifax amounted to 11,156 souls of which 745 were black. The population of the entire province stood at about 77,000.
§ One can get a sense of how a number of Nova Scotians made their living back in 1818. As a measure of the commercial activities of the provinces one need only see the manifests of the sailing vessels that cleared Lunenburg between 12th January and the 25th of March, 1818. 150,000 feet of pine lumber, 24,850 oak and ash hogshead staves, 8500 hogshead hoops, 1300 gallons of fish oil, 453 barrels of pickled fish, ... 5320 quintals dry cod and scale fish, 220 bushels of potatoes, 15 do turnips, 53 shooks, 20 spars, 11,000 shingles. Flour was still being imported into the province. During 1819 over 50,00 barrels were imported into the province, whereas 37,500 bushels of potatoes were exported.
§ "Theatrical performances continue to be popular." At Halifax, there are now two rival theatrical companies placing their placards around town.
§ In this year, 1818, the house passes an acts including an act "to prohibit corporate bodies issuing paper money, -- [and] an act for £15,000 in province notes, of £5, £2, and £1." (Murdoch.)
1819:
§ May 24th: Queen Victoria is born.
§ August 16th: "Peterloo: an orderly and unarmed crowed of about 60,000 men, women and children" assemble in support of universal suffrage, in St. Peter's Fields, Manchester. They were there to hear the speaker, Radical Hunt. The magistrates, in a move to arrest the speaker, order the cavalry in: "eleven persons, including two women, were killed or died of their injuries; over a hundred were wounded by sabres and several hundred more injured by horse-hoofs or crushed in the stampede." (G. M. Trevelyan.)
§ August 9th, Robert Field, a Halifax artist (who, among others, did Sir John Wentworth) died in Jamaica.
§ Keats, Hyperion; Shelley, Promethus Unbound.
§ The United States buys Florida from Spain.
1820:
§ The Missouri Compromise: In 1820 the U.S. Congress passed an act which admitted the State of Maine as slave free state and Missouri as a slave state, thus keeping the number of the slave and anti-slave states equal. By The Missouri Compromise, any state above 36 degrees 30 minutes was to be free; below that could be slave territory.
§ January 29, 1820: George III dies, George IV (1762-1830) takes the throne, due to his father's derangement he had been the Prince Regent since 1810.
§ April 8th: Sir John Wentworth, aged 84, dies at Halifax.
