LAWRENCE,
CHARLES,
military officer, governor of Nova Scotia; b. c.
1709 in England, son of Herbert Lawrence; d. Halifax, Nova Scotia, 19 Oct.
1760.
Charles Lawrence’s life before his arrival in Nova
Scotia in July 1749 is obscure, and existing accounts of it are inaccurate. It
seems that he was commissioned in the 11th Regiment of Foot in 1727, was in the
West Indies from 1733 to 1737, and then served in the War Office. He was
promoted lieutenant in 1741 and captain in 1742, and fought with the 54th
regiment in 1745 at Fontenoy (Belgium) where he was wounded. He was gazetted
major with the 45th regiment (Warburton’s), and joined it at Louisbourg, Île
Royale (Cape Breton Island), in 1747. His family was related to the Montagus,
which partly explains why he enjoyed the patronage of George Montagu Dunk, 2nd
Earl of Halifax, president of the Board of Trade. This connection was his only
source of influence, however, and he was without private means. He was popular
in the army and was known to be strong, energetic, and direct in his methods.
Lawrence became a company commander in the 40th
regiment in Nova Scotia in December 1749. The following April Governor Edward
Cornwallis* sent him with a small force to establish British authority in the
isthmus of Chignecto. On the north bank of the Missaguash River Lawrence found
French forces under Louis de LA CORNE, who had orders to prevent British
penetration beyond that point and who had had the village of Beaubassin, near
the south bank of the river, burned. Rather than fight the French, with whom
the British were not at war, or admit to any territorial limitation, Lawrence
withdrew.
Authorities in London were divided on the question
of how far their troops in Nova Scotia should proceed in peace time in
establishing British claims to the whole of Acadia. The Duke of Bedford,
secretary of state for the Southern Department, had refused to reinforce
Cornwallis so that he could implement these claims. But the Duke of Newcastle,
prompted by Lord Halifax, intervened and despite royal opposition ensured that
the 47th regiment was sent to Cornwallis in June 1750. Lawrence was promoted
lieutenant-colonel about this time, and in August he left for the Missaguash
River with a stronger force and routed a group of Indians led by the Abbé
Jean-Louis Le Loutre*. Captain John ROUS, the naval commander supporting the
landing of troops in this engagement, was full of praise for Lawrence’s
coolness and leadership under fire. Cornwallis, in dispatches to London,
commended his tactics. In the fall of 1750 Lawrence built Fort Lawrence on the
south bank of the river. He remained there through the following year, and
returned to Halifax in 1752, about the time that Peregrine Thomas HOPSON
succeeded Cornwallis as governor.
In the summer of 1753 Governor Hopson chose Lawrence
to direct the settlement of the European Protestants who had waited vainly
since their arrival in Halifax in 1751 and 1752 for the land promised them.
Hopson decided to settle them on the coast south of Halifax at Mirligueche,
renamed Lunenburg. There the French would not be able to stir up trouble for
them, although Indian raids were to be expected. Lawrence accompanied the
settlers to Lunenburg in June and supervised the establishment of the colony.
The settlers found cleared land, but most of the
work remained to be done. Soured by months or years of waiting in squalid huts
in Halifax, they were impatient to stake their claims and to start cultivation.
Lawrence had seen the effects of Indian raids in different parts of the
province and had to persuade the settlers to build defences before anything
else. It was human to ignore a danger which few of them had experienced and it
required artifice on Lawrence’s part to make them do communal work. “Decent
people,” he noted, had to be cajoled into sleeping in communal shelters for
protection and sharing them with those who were “dirty [and] full of Vermin.”
Building supplies were pilfered and fights over favoured sites were frequent.
But little by little this “inconceivably turbulent” crew was brought to see
that they must either “proceed in another manner, or have [their] throats cut.”
By a mixture of bribery, bullying, and verbal persuasion, Lawrence gained their
affection – “not only their hats but their hearts,” as he described it – and
retained it, to his political advantage, after his return to Halifax in August
1753. By then Hopson was preparing to return to England and had summoned
Lawrence back as president of the council.
In 1754 Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts
approached Lawrence with a plan to drive the French troops out of their
Chignecto forts. Both men were sure of Lord Halifax’s support and took
advantage of an ill-advised letter from Thomas Robinson, the new secretary of
state, ordering them to cooperate to throw the French out of Acadia. Robinson
later repudiated the letter, but Shirley used it as authority to plan an
operation. Late in the fall of 1754 he and Lawrence raised two battalions in
Massachusetts, giving the command to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Monckton*,
assisted by the New Englander John Winslow*. This force was to attack Fort
Beauséjour (near Sackville, N.B.), which the French had built on the north
shore of the Missaguash River, opposite Fort Lawrence. Without authority,
Lawrence paid for the force with the annual parliamentary grant for Nova
Scotia. Early in 1755 General Edward Braddock, commander-in-chief in North
America, sailed for America with flexible orders for the removal of French
“encroachments” given him by the Duke of Cumberland, commander-in-chief of the
army. Braddock was permitted to undertake several operations against the French
simultaneously if he had sufficient troops. He authorized Monckton’s expedition
and it sailed from Boston on 19 May 1755. Fort Beauséjour fell to Monckton on
16 June.
The capture of Beauséjour was the only British
success that year, but Lawrence had no orders for exploiting it. Braddock was
killed near Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh, Pa.) early in July [see Daniel-Hyacinthe-Marie
Liénard de Beaujeu], while Shirley, his second in command, was proceeding
towards Fort Oswego (Chouaguen) for operations against the French. In June, off
Louisbourg, Vice-Admiral Boscawen let most of the French fleet escape with
reinforcements for Louisbourg, Quebec, and Montreal. In an atmosphere of doubt
about his superiors’ activities and intentions and of apprehension about the
enemy’s, the defence of what he had gained became Lawrence’s main concern.
As early as 1 May the Nova Scotia Council had
considered how to deal with the Acadians north of the Missaguash once
Beauséjour had fallen. Those who had deserted to the French under the
blandishments of Le Loutre could be punished for breaking their limited oath of
allegiance to George II [see Richard PHILIPPS] if they had taken up arms or
assisted the French. The other Acadians in this area could be required to
depart to whatever destination the defeated garrison chose. The decision to
expel all these Acadians was formally taken by the council on 25 June. The
council planned to put settlers from New England on the vacated Acadian lands
of the Chignecto isthmus as a barrier between the French in Île Royale and Île
Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) and the Acadians remaining on the Nova Scotia
peninsula. A military force in Chignecto would raid northwards and eventually
enable the rest of Acadia beyond the Missaguash (present-day New Brunswick) to
be settled. This was also Lord Halifax’s conception.
John Winslow was the linchpin of the plan to obtain
New England settlers. But owing to Lawrence’s uncertainty about how to exploit
his victory, Winslow was not permitted enough time to survey the land around
Chignecto after the fall of Beauséjour. Inactivity caused the discipline of
Winslow’s troops to collapse and he quarrelled with Monckton, who had been
ordered to recruit New Englanders for the regular battalions. Shirley also
raided their ranks for his own use on the American continent. Winslow became
embittered and lost interest in settlement. Short of troops and under the
impression that the French were going to counter-attack, Lawrence turned his
attention to securing his communications with Chignecto and was thus forced to
deal with the issue of the loyalty of the Acadians of the peninsula. The scene
was set for the tragedy.
Lawrence learned from the correspondence of previous
governors, such as Richard Philipps and Peregrine Thomas Hopson, that although
he should not drive the Acadians into the arms of the French, he should not
grant them tenure unless they took an oath of allegiance which included the
promise to bear arms for the English king. There was to be no compromise with
the principle that before receiving the rights of subjects, they must accept
their duties, and that Acadians who had left the country could not return
without taking the oath. Hopson had been told to demand the oath when the
circumstances of the province allowed. It had been an assumption of Lord
Halifax’s policy since 1749 that that moment would arrive when the French military
presence had been removed from Nova Scotia. A change in the attitude of Acadian
leaders after the French surrender at Beauséjour seemed to bear out this
assumption.
Early in July 1755 a group of 15 delegates from
Minas (Grand Pré region) came before the council to present a petition
concerning the confiscation of their boats and arms that spring by Alexander
MURRAY at Fort Edward (Windsor). Lawrence took advantage of their presence to
demand of them an unqualified oath of allegiance. The Acadians were reluctant
to believe that the English would at last enforce the oath or protect them from
Indian and French reprisals if they now took it. Consequently they refused the
unqualified oath without a general consultation with the populace of Minas.
Lawrence and his council insisted that each man decide on the oath himself, and
when they still refused to do so they were imprisoned.
Exasperated by the Acadians’ intransigence the
English became legalistic and felt compelled to pursue their course to the end.
New Acadian delegates were summoned from Annapolis Royal and Minas to meet with
Lawrence and the council, which included John Rous, John Collier, and Jonathan
Belcher*. On 25 July the Annapolis delegates were told “they must now resolve
either to take the Oath without any Reserve or else quit their lands, for that
Affairs were now at such a Crisis in America that no delay could be admitted.”
They and the Minas delegates refused the oath and on 28 July were “ordered into
confinement.” The council, having resolved to expel all Acadians who rejected
the oath, agreed that “it would be most proper to send them to be distributed
amongst the Several Colonies on the Continent.” Admiral Boscawen and
Vice-Admiral Savage Mostyn attended this meeting and assented to the council’s
decision. Over the next few months most of the Acadian population of Nova
Scotia was rounded up and transported to the American colonies, from
Massachusetts to South Carolina.
The expulsion proved to have been as unnecessary on
military grounds – with the subsequent capture of Louisbourg and Quebec – as it
was later judged inhumane. Lawrence was not a cruel man, however, even if he
lacked imagination. It is too simple to explain the decision as simply a matter
of greed; legalism, deference to precedent, and over reliance on the collective
responsibility of councils – marks of the age – provided an umbrella for it.
The policies of the Board of Trade over the years, ambiguous in many respects,
were specific in demanding the oath when the occasion arose. The unauthorized
operation against Beauséjour provided the occasion. No military plan existed in
London for the Nova Scotia operation, but after the expulsion Lawrence received
no reprimand for acting without orders. His decision was made in that “motly state
neither peace nor war” (Lord Holdernesse) which Nova Scotia had experienced
since 1749. The chief elements in the affair were confusion, misunderstanding,
and fear. Each step towards the tragedy created the facts which pointed to the
next. At no time did those who had the power also have the information to
decide aright. They planned in a vacuum. Indeed, the only note of irritation
appearing in letters from London in the months after the expulsion was caused
by the complaints of the American governors on whom the Acadians had been
foisted with little or no notice. Lawrence had overlooked the administrative
and social implications of what he had considered a military operation.
In July 1756 Lawrence became governor of Nova
Scotia. He saw as his most important task the settlement of the Acadian lands.
But by 1757 merchants who were opposed to his personal rule, such as Joshua
Mauger* and Ephraim Cook, had convinced the Board of Trade that settlers would
not come unless they had an elected assembly. They also tried to show that
Lawrence had favoured his friends with contracts and offices and would not call
an assembly for fear of exposure.
In October 1754 the Board of Trade had instructed
Jonathan Belcher, on his arrival as chief justice, to inquire into the legality
of enactments made without an assembly. He reported that the governor’s
instructions did not make an assembly mandatory and pointed out that only one
township would qualify for representation at that time. In fact, he added, an
assembly would be a hindrance to the administration of the province. Both the
attorney-general and solicitor-general of Great Britain, however, advised that
without an assembly Lawrence’s acts as governor could be illegal. The board
then instructed Lawrence to prepare a scheme for setting up an assembly,
although it was aware that undue representation might be given to
“dram-sellers” and contraband runners in Halifax, and that the Lunenburg
settlers, who were not yet naturalized, could not be represented until 1757.
The board also knew that an assembly might be a forum for the struggle which
had broken out in Hopson’s time between the New England and British elements in
the population. The correspondence about various schemes dragged on through
1755 and 1756.
The council finally hammered out a plan by which an
assembly could be convened in April 1757. But Lawrence, who was stalling until
he could get the Lunenburg votes, instigated a memorial, with only 11
signatures, demanding that the plan first be submitted to London. He then
departed for Boston early in 1757 to meet Lord Loudoun [John Campbell],
commander-in-chief of British forces in America, giving instructions that
Monckton, president of the council in his absence, should issue writs for
elections only if “he found the people pressing.” Monckton received a memorial
but would not issue the writs. Angered, Belcher, Charles Morris, and two others
in the council petitioned the Board of Trade in March. In May the board also
received a petition from the grand jury of Halifax and was finally persuaded
that the issue had shifted from recognizing the rights of Englishmen to
cleansing the administration. The petition accused Lawrence of bias against
merchants and failure to advertise contracts, of preventing the council from
examining his accounts and allowing offices to accumulate in a few hands. These
accusations were familiar enough to the board, but they indicated that Lawrence
was losing support.
Lawrence might have prevented the alliance between
members of the council and the Halifax merchants simply by issuing the writs
after his return from Boston in May 1757. But he claimed that Loudoun did not
approve of assemblies and that he could not attend to the matter himself that
summer because he would be involved in preparations for an expedition against
Louisbourg. He went off to Chignecto in the fall, on Loudoun’s orders, to
strengthen its defences. He was determined not to submit to pressure, lest he
lose control of his government. In February 1758 the board finally ordered Lawrence
to convene an assembly. When he received this order in May, he told the council
he would issue writs for the autumn. He intended to fill council vacancies with
his supporters, and hoped that the Louisbourg campaign, in which he was about
to take part, would prove victorious and thereby restore his popularity.
Lawrence, with the temporary rank of “brigadier in
America,” commanded a brigade under General Jeffery Amherst* in the successful
expedition against Louisbourg. He returned to Halifax in September to help
prepare the British forces for operations against Quebec in 1759. Stores were
scarce but he improvised. Thousands of pairs of shoes were made, arms repaired,
and light infantry units formed and trained. Lawrence paid special attention to
feeding the troops and thanks to fresh meat, milk, spruce beer, and “our
climate in spite of the opinions of the C.O.s,” the sick recovered. When James
WOLFE, the commander of the Quebec expedition, returned in the spring, that
critical young man had nothing but praise for Lawrence and his subordinates.
Lawrence had hoped to command a brigade at Quebec; in the end the commands went
to Monckton, James Murray*, and George Townshend*, that of the latter through
political influence. It was a “mortifying situation” to be left behind, but
Lawrence threw off his disappointment and turned to the problems of settlement
and politics in Nova Scotia, which were less glamorous, but in the long run
more important, than commanding a brigade on the Plains of Abraham.
The first meeting of the new assembly had taken
place on 2 Oct. 1758, with 20 assemblymen present, and its business was
conducted with surprisingly little trouble. Lawrence’s support on the council
grew in August 1759 with the appointment of Richard Bulkeley*, Thomas SAUL, and
Joseph Gerrish*, to the seats left vacant by the absence of William Cotterell,
Robert Grant, and Montagu WILMOT. In December the first Lunenburg
representatives entered the assembly, and Lawrence received an address of
praise from that body for his achievements in the province.
Lawrence’s aggressive policy for finding settlers
had much to do with his success. He was supported by Charles Morris, the
surveyor and council member, who was involved deeply in the settlement plans.
Lawrence began the drive to settle the Acadian lands in October 1758 with a
proclamation seeking proposals for settlement. In January 1759 a second
proclamation informed would-be settlers of the actual terms they could expect.
Each grant would combine cultivated land and wild woodland. One thousand acres
was the maximum initial grant for each family, with further grants available
when the terms of the first one had been complied with. The proclamations were
directed mainly at New Englanders.
Settlers were reluctant to break new forest land
while the marsh land of Chignecto and the cleared areas of the Annapolis valley
were vacant. To resolve this difficulty, Lawrence preferred to combine old land
with new in each grant and thus offered favourable conditions usually permitted
only to those breaking in new lands. He had been instructed to submit proposals
for settling the old lands to the Board of Trade, but he disregarded this
directive and informed the board of his policies after the fact, as was his
custom. The board was angry, but by the time it had explained that the good
lands were intended as rewards for the army and navy, Morris had surveyed lots
with representatives of “some hundreds of associated substantial families” from
New England and had promised them advantageous conditions. The board could not
cancel the arrangements and had to be satisfied with Lawrence’s assurances that
new land taken by Monckton’s expedition up the Saint John River in the fall of
1758 and land on the Miramichi River would be kept for the military. Lawrence
wrote privately to Lord Halifax, however, to point out that servicemen were bad
settlers.
Their “drunken, dissolute and abandoned” habits,
“particularly that most unhappy one,” idleness, made them quite unsuitable.
Lord Halifax’s influence ensured that when the commissioners for Trade and
Plantations received copies of the grants in 13 townships at the end of 1759
under conditions which they had earlier condemned, they wrote that it was a
great satisfaction “to us . . . to express to you our approbation.” From the
Board of Trade, which seldom had anything good to say about its governors, that
was praise indeed.
Lawrence’s death on 19 Oct. 1760 took everyone by
surprise. “I should have taken an annuity on his life as soon as anyone I
knew,” wrote Amherst to General James Murray. It was a shock to his friends
that this enormous, bluff, and competent man could have been struck down so
quickly after catching a chill. His many friends grieved for him, though relief
may have been uppermost in the minds of the New Englanders and publicans of
Halifax. After his death the Board of Trade ordered an investigation of charges
against him of “partiality, profusion and private understanding” in relation to
provision contracts for the Nova Scotia settlements, and of maintaining his own
vessels at the expense of the colony. It was also charged that he had assumed
illegal powers in intervening on behalf of soldiers who were being tried for
civil offences in the courts. The board declared that he had granted lands in
larger amounts to single persons than was permitted, and that he had concealed
the real cost of his land policy. It later complained that he had placed all
trade with the Indians in the hands of a government agency. Jonathan Belcher
investigated the charges against Lawrence and reported, in January 1762, that
“upon the best examination in the severest charges” the accusations were
unfounded.
The prosecution of the war against the French had
been the first duty of the North American governors in these years. Shirley was
the only one among them who had persuaded his assembly to act vigorously in
this cause; the others were at one with Whitehall in considering that their
assemblies were a nuisance. In this light, Lawrence’s policy concerning the
assembly was justified. His land policy was in the best interests of the
province, and Lord Halifax himself had advised the establishment of a
government agency for Indian trade for the whole North American frontier
region. It is true, however, that Lawrence favoured his friends with contracts
and on occasion protected soldiers from the civil courts. Yet he did not grow
rich as Governor George CLINTON of New York was reputed to have done. In fact,
the charges against him might not have been pressed had Lord Halifax not left
the Board of Trade in 1761 to be lord lieutenant of Ireland.
Referring to the monument raised to Lawrence’s
memory in St Paul’s Church, Halifax, to indicate the late governor’s
popularity, Belcher wrote, “In a grateful sense of his affection and services
the last tribute that could be paid to his memory was unanimously voted by the
General Assembly at their first meeting after the late Governor’s universally
lamented decease.” These sympathetic remarks by a contemporary with whom
Lawrence had sometimes been at odds and the considerations mentioned above
should be placed in the scales against the views of historians who condemn him
for his inhumanity to the Acadians.
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