Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/304
Elijah Estabrook, John Bradley, Zebedee Ring and Gervis Say. Messrs. Peabody, Leavitt and McKeen came in 1770, the others four or five years later.
Upon the close of the Revolutionary war in 1783 the authorities gave notice that all shares in the townships upon the St. John river held by grantees who ivere non-residents, and on which improvements had not been made, were to be forfeited for the accommodation of the Loyalists. As the settlers of Conway had nearly all been driven from their homes by rebel privateesmen during the recent war, the rights of Hazen, Simonds and White in that township were placed in jeopardy. In this emergency Mr. Hazen went to Halifax, where he represented to the Governor and Council that he and his partners and the settlers under them had expended upwards of £3,000 in making settlements in Conway and Gage, with such other facts as were calculated to tell in their favor. Probably Mr. Hazen availed himself of certain suggestions made by James Simonds in a letter he wrote from Lower Maugerville (now Sheffield), where he then resided, of which letter the following is an extract:—
"I think that if any memorial should be necessary to explain our situation it will be needful to be very explicit in setting forth the time when the settlement was made; . . the difficulty or impossibility of families settling among the Indians against their disapprobation; the expenses of the settlements in Conway; the losses and sufferings of the settlers; that we and they were for a long time unprotected against the depradations of the enemy; and to assign any other reason that may occur why our property ought not to revert to the crown. Instead of our being stripped of our Rights to make amends for the losses of the Loyalists who were plundered in New York or elsewhere we have at least as weighty reasons as they can possibly offer to claim restitution from Government for the value of all the property taken from us, our distresses by imprisonment, &c. They had a numerous British army to protect them, we had to combat the sons of darkness alone. In a word we had much less than they to hope for by unshaken loyalty and incomparably more to fear."
Major Gilfred Studholme, the commandant at Fort Howe, appears to have sympathized with the position