Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/312

In his reply Col. Goold stated that he had come with general instructions of clemency and oblivion for what had passed, and that his ears would be shut to all insinuations as to the honesty of their submission. As their letter seemed to breathe the sentiments of a sincere repentance for inconsiderate follies past, he had no doubt it would meet with as favorable consideration at the hands of the government as they could desire.

Israel Perley, who conducted the negotiations with Colonel Goold, figures conspicuously in the early history of the St. John river. He was a capable magistrate and at one time a member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly—as he was afterwards of the New Brunswick legislature. The part he played in the exploration of the river St. John in 1761, when a young man just turned twenty one, and in the subsequent survey and settlement of the township of Maugerville are so generally known, through the lectures of Moses H. Perley, his accomplished grandson, that we need not further consider them here.

Phinehas Nevers, whose name has been mentioned as one of the rebel committee of 1776, had been elected in 1768 a member for the County of Sunbury in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. He was an original grantee of the township of Maugerville and one of its early magistrates. He was by profession a physician, probably the first who resided on the river. The medical profession was not a lucrative one in his day. The accounts of Simonds & White show that John Lowell, one of their employees, died on February 25, 1773, and that he was attended during his sickness by Dr. Nevers