SCOTTISH IN NOVA SCOTIA.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19728, 19 September 1929, Page 16

SCOTTISH IN NOVA SCOTIA.

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATED. INTERESTING HISTORY. A SfICL»r. COBSESPOXDF.VI. VANCOUVER, August 27. What i* described as the greatest gathering of Canadians of Scottish origin ever held in the Dominion t-oob place at Annapolis 'Royal, Nova Scotia, last week, on the 300 th anniversary of the arrival there, Ja that ancient capital of old Acadia, in 'July, 1629, of Sir William Alexander's Scottish colonists, under the charter of New Scotland, granted by King James I. of great Britain in 1621.

Citizens and schoo3 children everywhere are familiar with the story of the Pilgrim Fathers who landed at Plymouth in .1620 and founded the New England settlement, which developed into the United State?. Very few know anything about the Pilgrim Fathers of Canada who, by royal charter, founded Nova Scotia (New Scotland), and whose descendants, unlike those of the other Pilgrim Fathers, hare remained in the Imperial family to this day. The British captured Annapolis Royal in 1613, only eight years after it was founded, and eight years later, in 1621, Acadia was granted by James I. to a Scottish knight, Sir "William Alexander. The settlement was established in 1629, the tercentenary of which wa3 commemorated last week to the skirl of the bagpipes, and with the patronage of three provincial Governments and as many personal representatives of His Majesty King George V. j Such" was the historic setting of the first British settlement in Canada. There were troublous times, and many battles were fought for the control of the continent during the next hundred and fifty years, bnt the Scottish colonists of Nova Scotia held their own, and refused to be turned from their British allegiance by the power of France or by Yankee revolutionists. It was 129 years after the Alexander settlement at Port Royal that British control of Acadia was" finally established by the capture of Louisburg, .Nova Scotia, and a year later, in 1759, the British, under General Wolfe, achieved victory on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec and settled for ever the destiny of Canada. It is necessary to consider the setting in British history to appreciate the nerve of the pioneer settlers —Canada's first British immigrants—who landed in 1629 at Port Royal. James 1., who granted the charter, had been crowned King James VI. of Scotland as an infant, and in 1602 he beeame the first King of Great Britain, succeeding good Queen Elizabeth as James I. Some Scotsmen went to Canada, others to Ulster. The Scottish settlement at PoTt Royal is older than the present British constitution, for the Alexander colonists arrived fifty-nine years before the revolution of 1638. The tercentenary celebrations take us back to one of the most stirring periods of British history—a period of brilliant literarv lights, of adventure, exploration, chivalry, heroism, tragedy and war. The settlement followed close after the life' of Shakespeare, Six Francis Drake and Sir Walter Kalergn. King James and, his Parliament had just ' escaped the Gunpowder Plot. Cromwell entered the British Parliament the year before the Alexander settlement was established. Charles I. succeeded James I. in 162i>, and lost his head in 1649. In France, there was bitter rehgrofls conflict. By the year 1629 Louis XIII. And Cardinal, ■succeeded,: crushing out the Protestant Huguenots, gome of the latter>-efe the first white, settlers in Canada- both in Acadia and Quebec. They had hoped to enjoy religions freedom in this new country. Nova Scotia represents an almost forgotten chapter of Canadian history It is only during the past few years that the natives of the three little provinces down by the Atlantic— New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island—have begun to realise that one of their long neglected assets is their historic lore. At Annapolis, in the Duke of Kent's old barraeks, on the site of the ancient fort, there has been established one of the finest museums in Canada, containing many relics of . the early settlements and furious battles of 300 years ago. It was in Halifax, capital of Nova Scotia, that the first newspaper in British North America was published, in 1752. In Halifax every; year, there meets the oldest. Legislative Assembly in Canada. It has been meeting there since 3738. The second oldest is that 0 f Prince Edward Island, the third New Brunswick. While Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island have been regarded as outlving parishes of Scotland, because of the"original British settlements, manv of the early settlers were of English and Irish origin. At a later dat<\ the United Empire Loyalists arrived, and all these British elements now fraternise with "the French Acadians, althouch their ancestors fought many deadly battles" in days long gone by. During the proceedings at Annapolis, there flew the flag of Nova Scotia, the only province that has a flag of its own. It is a blue St. Andrew's cross ou a white field, centred with a lion rampant. It was a gift to the ; infant colony of King Charles 11. While it is still treasured highly, the Union Jack is and will remain the official flag in the loyal provinces, down by the Atlantic.