Hello.
My name is William Tupper Stone, Jr. But most people call me Will. I want
to tell you about my ancestors who lived in Nova Scotia, which is a province
in Canada. Some historians have given Nova Scotia a nickname: the
"14th colony." My cousin Andrew has already talked about
some of the Tupper's of Massachusetts. Charles Tupper and his wife
Elizabeth West left Massachusetts and in 1760 they went to Cornwallis,
Nova Scotia to get some free land. It was a new British colony, and the
governor wanted the land settled by English-speaking people or foreign Protestants
who would pledge their allegiance to England. (The French-speaking Catholics
had been driven out of Nova Scotia a few years before.) After 1775, many
more Americans came to Nova Scotia because they were "Loyalists"
who sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. But my ancestors
did not move to Nova Scotia for political reasons; they have been called
"neutral Yankees" because of this. 
Charles Tupper had a grandson who became famous in Canada. He was SIR
CHARLES TUPPER, Bart., 1821-1915, the great statesman. At first he
was a surgeon, then he became Premier of Nova Scotia from 1864 to 1867,
when Canada united as a nation. He served on the Privy Council and in
many important government jobs, and was even the Prime Minister of Canada
in 1896 and a leader in the Canadian House of Commons, 1896-1900. He was
knighted by Queen Victoria. Doesn't he look really cool with his decorated
cape and medals, and all?
During the passage on the ships and during the first two winters in Nova
Scotia, the new settlers received food from the British government. The
value of this food was recorded on victualing lists, and was added
to the debt which the "redemptioner" owed to Great Britain for that portion
of his family's passage not yet paid. This was to be paid off chiefly
by their own labor used to build forts for defense against Indian attacks,
first in Halifax and, beginning in 1753, in Lunenburg. The British government
probably never really got their "due" out of the settlers. The settlers
worked a lot harder when they were finally able to build their own houses.
These foreign Protestants were still mad over the fact that they'd had
to dispose of many of their own possessions, without getting full value
for them, because of the crowded conditions on the Sally, the Betty,
and the Speedwell. Also the fertility of the soil in and around
Halifax was not nearly as good for farming as they had been led to believe.
Nevertheless, in the end the British government really did get what it
wanted -- citizens who would be loyal, more or less, and who were not
Catholics, and who had been drawn from continental Europe rather than
from England (they didn't want to lose any of the taxpayers at home!)
