was not barren and foggy as had been represented, but we
find it ten times worse. We have nothing but his Majesty's
rotten pork and unbaked flour to subsist on... It is the
most inhospitable clime that ever mortal set foot on.'
At first there was great distress among the refugees.
The immigration of 1783 had at one stroke trebled the
population of Nova Scotia; and the resources of the
province were inadequate to meet the demand on them.
'Nova Scarcity' was the nickname for the province invented
by a New England wit. Under these circumstances it is
not surprising that some who had set their hand to the
plough turned back. Some of them went to Upper Canada;
some to England; some to the states from which they had
come; for within a few years the fury of the anti-Loyalist
feeling died down, and not a few Loyalists took advantage
of this to return to the place of their birth.

The most careful analysis of the Loyalist immigration
into the Maritime Provinces has placed the total number
of immigrants at about 35,000. These were in settlements
scattered broadcast over the face of the map. There was
a colony of 3,000 in Cape Breton, which afforded an ideal
field for settlement, since before 1783 the governor of
Nova Scotia had been precluded from granting lands there.
In 1784 Cape Breton was erected into a separate government,
with a lieutenant-governor of its own; and settlers
flocked into it from Halifax, and even from Canada.
Abraham Cuyler, formerly mayor of Albany, led a considerable
number down the St Lawrence and through the Gulf to Cape
Breton. On the mainland of Nova Scotia there were