"article Britain has been obliged to northern powers, "Russia, in particular. . . . "To this new country the loyalists resort with their "families (last summer, particularly, a great number of "families were preparing to remove thither) from the other "New England provinces, and find an asylum from the "tyranny of Congress and their tax-gatherers, as well as "daily employment in fishing, lumbering, clearing, and "preparing land for their subsistence, and there they con"tinue in full hope and pleasing expectation, that they may 'soon re-enjoy the liberties and privileges which would be "best secured to them by laws, and under a form of "government modelled after the British Constitution; and "that they may be covered in their possession, agreeably "to the petition to the throne in 1773, which was renewed "last year. "Should this district be severed from the province of "Massachusetts Bay, and erected into a province under the "authority of the crown, and the inhabitants quieted in "their possessions, it would be settled with amazing "rapidity, and the Royal Navy, West India Islands and "other parts of his Majesty's dominions well and plenti"fully served for centuries to come from this district with "the articles above mentioned, without being obliged to "other powers for the same, and the profits of the whole "would fall into the lap of Great Britain, in return for her "manufactures." Some of the catalogues of books relating to America refer to a pamphlet which would be extremely interesting in throwing more light on this matter. The pamphlet contains about seventy pages, and is entitled "Consider"ations on the Sovereignty, Independence, Trade and "Fisheries of New Ireland." The author is supposed to have been a Colonel McNutt, "who was in Salem just "before the Revolution." It has been found impossible to procure this pamphlet, but it is hoped that the mention of its existence may be the means of securing a copy for the Society, as well as of inducing more research and inquiry concerning the project of New Ireland on the part of persons whose opportunities for investigating the matter are not so restricted as those of the writer of this article. SLAVERY IN MAINE. In the momentous crisis through which our country is now passing,* when a severe if not an annihilating blow is being aimed at an institution coeval with our earliest settlement, and which once obtained throughout our whole territory, it may be not inappropriate or uninteresting to review briefly the existence, progress and extinction of that institution in our own State. To England, more than to any other nation, belongs the unenviable celebrity of establishing modern slave trade. Introduced by Sir John Hawkins in 1562, and immediately receiving the sanction and protection of Queen Elizabeth, it soon became one of the most lucrative sources of national wealth. For nearly two centuries the highest officials in both church and state did not hesitate to lend to it their approval, and even to participate in its profits. The first adventurers to our coast were not exempt from this depraved condition of public sentiment, and George Weymouth, although he failed to designate satisfactorily which river in Maine he explored in 1605, yet by the forcible abduction of five natives of our shores, he has left conclusive evidence that man stealing was not regarded criminal by his companions or by himself. And although two of the unfortunate *This paper was presented at the winter session, Augusta, January, 1864. |