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Year
1889
Month
5
Day
11
Article Title
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Author
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Page Number
4
Article Type
Language
Article Contents
The movement for organizing a society of loyalists and their descendants is a natural and proper one. The only surprising thing is that it was not done before. The English, Irish, Scotch and French have their societies in this province, but the loyalist element is probably more numerous than any of these. It is certainly so in St. John - which as a city was founded and settled by loyalists. There is much to be proud of in this ancestry, for while the loyalist immigration included many who last nothing by leaving their former home, it also, included many who made great sacrifices. The loyalists were as a class good settlers. The country has had none better. The best land, cleared by the French, had been occupied by colonists mostly from New England who preceded them. The latter had superior advantages as farmers, and had also twenty years the start of the immigrants who reached this country at the close of the war. On the other hand a greater proportion of the loyalists had been well to do men and were considerable capitalists as times went then, after they had received their compensation from the home government. The anti-bellum immigrants and their descend¬ants were at the beginning of the century still at the front as agriculturalists. But in trade, manufactures, and in the professions the loyalists were in the ascendancy.