The first considerable migration took place at the time of the evacuation of Boston by General Howe in March 1776.  Boston was at that time a town with a population of about sixteen thousand inhabitants, and of these nearly one thousand accompanied the British Army to Halifax.  ‘Neither Hell, Hull, nor Halifax,’ said one of them, ’can afford worse shelter than Boston.’  The embarkation was accomplished amid the most hopeless confusion.  ’Nothing can be more diverting,’ wrote a Whig, ’than to see the town in its present situation; all is uproar and confusion; carts, trucks, wheelbarrows, handbarrows, coaches, chaises, all driving as if the very devil was after them.’  The fleet was composed of every vessel on which hands ’could be laid.  In Benjamin Hallowell’s cabin there were thirty-seven persons—­men, women, and children; servants, masters, and mistresses—­obliged to pig together on the floor, there being no berths.’  It was a miracle that the crazy flotilla arrived safely at Halifax; but there it arrived after tossing about for six days in the March tempests.  General Howe remained with his army at Halifax until June.  Then he set sail for New York.  Some of the Loyalists accompanied him to New York, but the greater number took passage for England.  Only a few of the company remained in Nova Scotia.

From 1776 to 1783 small bodies of Loyalists continually found their way to Halifax; but it was not until the evacuation of New York by the British in 1783 that the full tide of immigration set in.  As soon as news leaked out that the terms of peace were not likely to be favourable, and it became evident that the animus of the Whigs showed no signs of abating, the Loyalists gathered in New York looked about for a country in which to begin life anew.  Most of them were too poor to think of going to England, and the British provinces to the north seemed the most hopeful place of resort.  In 1782 several associations were formed in New York for the purpose of furthering the interests of those who proposed to settle in Nova Scotia.  One of these associations had as its president the famous Dr Seabury, and as its secretary Sampson Salter Blowers, afterwards chief justice of Nova Scotia.  Its officers waited on Sir Guy Carleton, and received his approval of their plans.  It was arranged that a first instalment of about five hundred colonists should set out in the autumn of 1782, in charge of three agents, Amos Botsford, Samuel Cummings, and Frederick Hauser, whose duty it should be to spy out the land and obtain grants.

The party sailed from New 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.