# Acadiensis/Volume 1/Number 1/David Owen of Campobello, N. B.

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DAVID OWEN
OF CAMPOBELLO, NEW BRUNSWICK.
In an old, closely written manuscript, have lately been found most amusing instances of illicit trading, and of the mock dignities of international complications, from March 27, 1812, to March 22, 1817. The pages are in the handwriting of David Owen, who administered, for his co-grantees, the island of Campobello, New Brunswick, which had been granted them by the English Crown in 1770.
In his diary, his refuge in hours of loneliness, he commits his records of aggrieved officialism, with which as English magnate he contended daily, and it was all so petty and miserable, and recriminating, those local vexations sustained on both sides through the embargo law of 1807 and the war of 1812, between the United States and Great Britain.
Yet had not nature herself foreseen these conflicts in authority, and, like a jealous philanthropist, provided her fogs for the welfare of smugglers, thus aiding the very law, which, supposed to injure both parties, really worked to the advantage of each. "Neutral voyages" were then short and safe, and men and vessels were transferred from one allegiance to another as often in the course of a single day as business required. Great was the boon thereof to Campobello, and well did its Snug Cove deserve the name. Goods were shipped to it from colonial ports, there put on board neutral vessels, which in an hour or two were legally cleared at Eastport, Maine, the cargoes eventually being sent to Boston or Portland, contrary to the intent of the embargo.
Then, when the war of 1812 broke forth and Major Putnam surrendered at Fort Sullivan, Eastport to the English, they, in their parlance, "recovered their own,' ​22 ACADIENSIS
since such view of the question, the " restoration " rather than the " capture " of the American islands in Passama- quoddy Bay, alleviated the minor miseries of a bloodless warfare, for the Eastporters, as " subjects restored to their rightful sovereign," fared better than as prisoners of war.
Sir Thomas Hardy, Nelson's trusted friend, and Colonel Gubbins, were the chief English officers at Eastport, with whom David Owen, at Campobello, held friendly converse. At first David's subjects hoped to settle ancient scores with some of their old-time personal enemies, but they soon found that the new English masters forbade, as their American predecessors had forbidden, the use of threats or blows in getting one's rights. Then recourse was had to long, stately letters addressed by Owen to Gubbins, in which the former rehearsed the grievances of his people, for had he not a right to wax eloquent when he had urged that the County f Charlotte, New Brunswick, and of Washington, Massachusetts, (it was not then called Maine), should remain neutral, and had he not adjured the Indians, who fled to his woods for safety, to believe that the English would burn neither their wigwams nor their chapel 1 In spite of such protests, when Moose Island (Eastport) was actually taken by the British, with the self- complacency of a solitary magnate, David Owen wrote to his distant peers, " I could have taken it, Eastport, with a gun brig and my own militia. I am in possession of all except Moose Island."
However, after the " contemptible Americans " had been expelled, Owen's wrath became greater, since, without his knowledge, the Commanding Royal Engineer had ex- plored ground for military purposes on Campobello, and had desired Owen's militia to help him. Moreover, his tenants were oppressed by a notice to drill off the island, which they regarded as an indignity, whereupon Owen had petitioned his Royal Highness, George, Prince Regent of England, that the "inhabitants of Campobello should ​DAVID OWEN 23
not be taken off the land for militia duty," since if attempt were made to enforce such notice, or " fines should be imposed in consequence, it will be the signal," he wrote, for active defense against the very government (English) they have hitherto handsomely maintained."
Like private theatricals on a miniature stage, reads the rehearsal of Owen's grievances in his letters to the Admiralty, and to the Committee of Public Safety, on Moose Island. The " calamities of warfare " were not only to be '* repelled from the doors of his people," and they themselves " protected from indignities," but he had his own private rights to defend. For when the British colors were displayed at Fort Sullivan, they also floated in the air from Dudley and Frederick Islands (termed then St. Croix Islands), where he claimed rights, accruing from the original grant of Campobello, which rights were strengthened by the actual possession of a tenant of his, through purchase of a claim, duly recorded in Massachusetts. This possession was, moreover, at that time acknowledged by him to be under the Crown of Great Britain, he * having affixed his name to the buildings for that purpose, and as a memorial of the same."
A vacant house on Moose Island had also been seized by officers of the Crown, and a similar entry was thereby included, though the additional ceremony of a discharge of musketry at the hoisting of a British flag upon a small vacant hut was reserved for Mark Island.
Owen's daily life and his real estate were becoming a burden to him. In vain did he offer to the Crown his lands for cash on hand, his duty still compelling him to worry his superiors with bristling letters. Regardless of British authority, woodcutters came on Dudley Island " to get a number of sticks to repair a vessel." Such a bold and vagrant act forced Owen to proceed there (less than a mile away), in person and " to take action to secure the rights of the Crown." Then the harbors ​Page:Acadiensis Q1.djvu/36 ​Page:Acadiensis Q1.djvu/37 ​Page:Acadiensis Q1.djvu/38 ​Page:Acadiensis Q1.djvu/39
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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