York, in nine transport ships, on October 19, 1782, and arrived a few days later at Annapolis Royal. The population of Annapolis, which was only a little over a hundred, was soon swamped by the numbers that poured out of the transports. 'All the houses and barracks are crowded,' wrote the Rev. Jacob Bailey, who was then at Annapolis, 'and many are unable to procure any lodgings.' The three agents, leaving the colonists at Annapolis, went first to Halifax, and then set out on a trip of exploration through the Annapolis valley, after which they crossed the Bay of Fundy and explored the country adjacent to the river St John. On their return they published glowing accounts of the country, and their report was transmitted to their friends in New York.

The result of the favourable reports sent in by these agents, and by others who had gone ahead, was an invasion of Nova Scotia such as no one, not even the provincial authorities, had begun to expect. As the names of the thousands who were anxious to go to Nova Scotia poured into the adjutant-general's office in New York, it became clear to Sir Guy Carleton that with the shipping facilities at his disposal he could not attempt to transport them all at once. It was decided that the ships would have to make two trips; and, as a matter of fact, most of them made three or four trips before the last British soldier was able to leave the New York shore.

On April 26, 1783, the first or 'spring' fleet set sail. It had on board no less than seven thousand persons, men, women, children, and servants. Half of these went to the mouth of the river St John, and about half to Port Roseway, at the south-west end of the Nova Scotian peninsula. The voyage was fair, and the ships arrived at their destinations without mishap. But at St John at least, the colonists found that almost no preparations had been made to receive them. They were disembarked on a wild and primeval shore, where they had to clear away the brushwood before they could pitch their tents or build their shanties. The prospect must have been disheartening. 'Nothing but wilderness before our eyes, the women and children did not refrain from tears,' wrote one of the exiles; and the grandmother of Sir Leonard Tilley used to tell her descendants, 'I climbed to the top of Chipman's Hill and watched the sails disappearing in the distance, and such a feeling of loneliness came over me that, although I had not shed a tear through all the war, I sat down on the damp moss with my baby in my lap and cried.'

All summer and autumn the ships kept plying to and fro. In June the 'summer fleet' brought about 2,500 colonists to St John River, Annapolis, Port Roseway, and Fort Cumberland. By August 23 John Parr, the governor of Nova Scotia, wrote that 'upward of 12,000 souls have already arrived from New York,' and that as many more were expected. By the end of September he estimated that 18,000 had arrived, and stated that 10,000 more were still to come. By the end of the year he computed the total immigration to have amounted to 30,000. As late as January 15, 1784, the refugees were still arriving. On that date Governor Parr wrote to Lord North announcing the arrival of 'a considerable number of Refugee families, who must be provided for in and about the town at extraordinary expence, as at this season of the year I cannot send them into the country.' 'I cannot,' he added, 'better describe the wretched condition of these people than by inclosing your lordship a list of those just arrived in the Clinton transport, destitute of almost everything, chiefly women and children, all still on board, as I have not yet been able to find any sort of place for them, and the cold setting in severe.' There is a tradition in Halifax that the cabooses had to be taken off the ships, and ranged along the principal street, in order to shelter these unfortunates during the winter.

New York was evacuated by the British troops on November 25, 1783. Sir Guy Carleton did not withdraw from the city until he was satisfied that every person who desired the protection of the British flag was embarked on the boats. During the latter half of the year Carleton was repeatedly requested by Congress to fix some precise limit to his occupation of New York. He replied briefly, but courteously, that he was doing the best he could, and that no man could do more. When Congress objected that the Loyalists were not included in the agreement with regard to evacuation, Carleton replied that he held opposite views; and that in any case it was a point of honour with him that no troops should embark until the last person who claimed his protection should be safely on board a British ship. As time went on, his replies to Congress grew shorter and more incisive. On being requested to name an outside date for the evacuation of the city, he declared that he could not even guess when the last ship would be loaded, but that he was resolved to remain until it was. He pointed out, moreover, that the more the uncontrolled violence of their citizens drove refugees to his protection, the longer would evacuation be delayed. 'I should show,' he said, 'an indifference to the feelings of humanity, as well as to the honour and interest of the nation whom I serve, to leave any of the Loyalists that are desirous to quit the country, a prey to the violence they conceive they have so much cause to apprehend.'

After the evacuation of New York, therefore, the number of refugee Loyalists who came to Nova Scotia was small and insignificant. In 1784 and 1785 there arrived a few persons who had tried to take up the thread of their former life in the colonies, but had given up the attempt. And in August 1784 the Sally transport from London cast anchor at Halifax with three hundred destitute refugees on board. 'As if there was not a sufficiency of such distress'd objects already in this country,' wrote Edward Winslow from Halifax, 'the good people of England have collected a whole ship load of all kinds of vagrants from the streets of London, and sent them out to Nova Scotia. Great numbers died on the passage of various disorders—the miserable remnant are landed here and have now no covering but tents. Such as are able to crawl are begging for a proportion of provisions at my door.'

But the increase of population in Nova Scotia from immigration during the years immediately following 1783 was partly counterbalanced by the defections from the province. Many of the refugees quailed before the prospect of carving out a home in the wilderness. 'It is, I think, the roughest land I ever saw'; 'I am totally discouraged'; 'I am sick of this Province'—such expressions as these abound in the journals and diaries of the settlers. There were complaints that deception had been practised. 'All our golden promises,' wrote a Long Island Loyalist, 'are vanished in smoke. We were taught to believe this place 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