The Case of New Ireland—Not Meant to Be

Americans made repeated unsuccessful attempts during the Revolution to capture Canada and incorporate it into the nascent United States. The British, meanwhile, attempted to incorporate additional territory into Canada. This territory, though not yet part of the United States, would eventually become so. As such, this effort also failed. If that weren’t enough, as with American attempts to take Canada, the British would also take one more run at it in the War of 1812, and like the Americans, they would again fail. Talk about parallel history!

The British project was eventually called New Ireland, and it involved the territory between Nova Scotia (New Scotland) and New England (the American Massachusetts and beyond). The land in question was situated in what is now eastern Maine. The biggest military contest for this land was called the Battle of Penobscot, taking place in 1779. This is one place where the parallels break down. Just as the Americans lost battles to obtain Canada, they also lost this one, blundering what at times appeared a winnable battle into a complete loss. Not a single patriot naval vessel engaged in this conflict made it back to Boston. Some were captured by the British, others sunk in the ensuing battle, and the rest were run ashore, abandoned, and set aflame.[1] To add insult to injury, the price tag for the defeat, underwritten by the State of Massachusetts, was around two million pounds, a prodigious sum for the day and one they would later try to recover from Congress (with partial success). And yet, despite Britain’s resounding military victory, the New Ireland project still failed.

The name “New Ireland” was not actually affixed to the territory until 1777, but is used here throughout for simplicity. The project’s genesis involved a cast of several characters, some working independently on the same idea. First was Dr. John Calef, a fourth generation New Englander, who served in 1745 as the surgeon of a provincial ship-of-war at the capture of Louisbourg, Île Royale (Cape Breton Island) and in the French and Indian War under generals Lord Loudoun and Jeffery Amherst.[2] He was an exiled loyalist, ejected from his hometown of Ipswich, Massachusetts when he was one of a handful who supported the British right to tax the colonists.[3] Separately, another person working on the same idea was John Nutting. Nutting was a carpenter and house builder from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Exiled as a loyalist, he owned much property in the area he envisioned as the future New Ireland. In 1772, the inhabitants of the to be New Ireland region chose Dr. Calef as their agent to travel to London to obtain royal confirmation of the land grants made to them by the Massachusetts government or, alternatively, to have a separate government established in the area.[4] Nothing much came of this mission, other than perhaps planting a seed.

The area envisioned for New Ireland was a large swath of territory centered around Penobscot Bay in eastern Maine. Why establish a colony in this location? There were two reasons, the first being military advantages. It would give a station for the King’s cruisers much nearer than Halifax, would cover the Bay of Fundy and Nova Scotia from molestation by sea, would prevent any land attack on what later became New Brunswick, and would even protect Lower Canada; further, it isolated the town of Machias to the east, which was a patriot stronghold and a thorn in the side of the British. Second, it would provide a haven for the stream of loyalist refugees who were leaving the colonies and already driving the home government to distraction.[5] Yet, as convincing as the military and loyalist arguments may be, the true impetus behind the outpost was both personal and political. Nutting and Dr. Calef, with their property holdings, saw an opportunity for personal gain in establishing a British outpost on the Penobscot River. Calef had long sought to gain royal grants for the lands along the Penobscot while Nutting, a successful builder (including barracks for the British troops in the siege of Boston), began to speculate on lands along the Penobscot to build a large lumber enterprise. Both stood to gain immensely, financially, if Britain could establish a foothold in the region and they could legitimize their claims.^[6]

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In 1775, Calef furthered the mission by forwarding a formal plan for the not-yet-dubbed New Ireland to Francis Bernard, a former Massachusetts governor now living in London. Bernard forwarded the plan to Lord Dartmouth, the current Secretary of State for the Colonies. It is not known for sure, but Dartmouth, upon his resignation, likely forwarded the plan to his successor, George Germain. Germain was the intersection point for the plans, with a second plan later coming from Nutting.

Nutting, two years later, departed for London with his own plan for the new province. Contacting Germain but receiving no reply, he decided to work his way up the ladder, becoming a close confidant with Germain’s undersecretary William Knox. Knox had long supported the idea of establishing a new colony between New England and Nova Scotia and may have served as the link that passed the plan from Dartmouth to Germain. Knox even roughed out some details. It would be called New Ireland. Thomas Hutchinson would be the governor.[7] For the record, Hutchinson pooh-poohed the whole project, calling it in his diary a “most preposterous measure.” And although he let it go because it was “already carrying into execution,” he intended “to make Mr. Knox acquainted, in the most prudent manner I can, with my sentiments.”[8]. Calef’s version of the story pegs Thomas Oliver, not Hutchinson, as the proposed governor.[9]

Where exactly should this new province be located? With a mixture of self-interest and strategic planning, Nutting suggested Penobscot. Nutting’s timing was good as Germain had a mandate to escalate military operations in the war and was looking to provide a haven for loyalists who were evicted from their homes by the patriots. Although neither Nutting nor Knox had specifically positioned the proposal on the loyalist angle, that aspect worked to their advantage. On August 30, 1778, Germain issued orders to Nutting that included the following:

The distress of the King’s loyal American subjects who have been driven from their habitations and deprived of their property by the rebels has been an object of attention with His Majesty and Parliament from the first appearance of the rebellion. . . . The tract of country that lies between Penobscot River and the River St. Croix, the boundary of Nova Scotia on that side, offers itself for the reception of those meritorious but distressed people. And it is the King’s intention to erect it into a province^[10]

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Germain went on to authorize troops in support of the venture, and the construction of a fort (Fort George), with Nutting as its chief engineer. With his orders in hand, Nutting proceeded to make his way back to North America in late 1778. In keeping with the cursed nature of this venture, all did not go as planned. Nutting set out aboard the Harriet, a government mail packet. Early in the journey they were sighted by the speedier brigantine Vengeance, an American privateer, which gave chase. After a six hours’ pursuit the Vengeance got within range and opened fire. One man was killed and six wounded. Among the latter was Nutting, whom we can well imagine was in the very thick of the fight, for he was hit “in four places.” Before this he managed to sink his dispatches, not wanting to tip off the Americans as to their plan.[11] Nutting was taken prisoner, and shipped to Corunna, Spain. He was eventually exchanged and made his way back to London, and Knox, with the latter bemoaning the fact that this setback would delay if not jeopardize the project.[12] The Vengeance, in what must have felt like sweet revenge for Nutting, was one of the American vessels captured in the later battle of Penobscot.[13]

At the beginning of January 1779, Nutting received a fresh set of dispatches, and was ordered out again to America, experiencing a long and tedious, but thankfully uneventful trip of fourteen weeks to New York, on the ship of war Grampus. Unbeknownst to Nutting and Knox, Germain’s orders had also been transmitted by other means to Gen. Henry Clinton in New York. By the time Nutting finally returned to America in March 1779, work on the project was already underway, although Nutting’s new orders furnished additional details.

After the defeat of the American forces in 1779, it should have been smooth sailing for the now established New Ireland. It wasn’t. The military leaders involved in the siege issued dueling proclamations. Brig. Gen. Francis McLean, leader on the British side, said that:

All persons who by returning to their allegiance shall merit it, we not only promise protection and encouragement, with the relief that shall be in our power to alleviate their present distresses, but we also declare that we will employ the forces under our command to punish all persons whatever who shall attempt in any manner to molest them, either in person or property[14]

McLean’s counterpart on the American side, Brig. Gen. Solomon Lovell, although on the losing end, countered with promises of his own:

my best endeavours to rid this much-abused country, not only of its foreign but also from its domestic enemies . . . it shall be my care that the laws of this state be duly executed upon such inhabitants thereof as have traitorously abetted or encouraged them in their lawless attempts.[15]

These pronouncements foreshadowed future events well. In the period that followed there was extensive skirmishing between the patriots of Massachusetts and the loyalists of New Ireland. There was not the huge influx of loyalists that might have been expected, or hoped for, with the establishment of the province. This was because, simply put, the real-life British province of New Ireland consisted only of a few houses and was not a happy place.[16] For example, loyalists staying in this supposed haven found themselves harassed by the British army that was allegedly protecting them. Some then left the settlement and attempted to return to their former homes in eastern Maine, where they found themselves ostracized and branded as traitors. They thus returned to New Ireland and were charged with desertion, punished by lashings, and unable to recover their former property.^[17] The reverse undoubtedly took place as well. In this way, the unclear lines that often existed between patriot and loyalist served to make everyone miserable.

Regardless of a Loyalist’s origins, his ties with New Ireland often were sad ones.[18] During this time, the Americans considered taking another run at Penobscot with French naval support, but that action was called off by George Washington. Maybe the patriots had already devoted too many resources that, even if they captured, would be of limited value.

Into this maelstrom came one more would-be organizer, with the perhaps prophetic name of Alexander McNutt. The quirky, Ulster-born McNutt was late on the scene, but had his own scheme for what would become of New Ireland. Ironically, McNutt didn’t support the British. He was a staunch supporter of the American cause and spent most of the period from 1778 to end of the war living in Massachusetts. McLean suspected him of being in correspondence with the patriots and therefore watched him closely. The British characterized him as “a subtle, designing fellow, who has endeavored to circulate several letters and dangerous pamphlets throughout the province.”[19]

And circulate pamphlets he did, spelling out his vision in three separate ones published in 1780 and 1781 in Philadelphia. McNutt’s version of New Ireland was cryptic as to location but quite specific in its governing principles. Location-wise, was this the New Ireland of Nutting, Knox, and Calef, or was it Nova Scotia, which already had its own government? He had pressed for the incorporation of Nova Scotia into America.[20] If it was the former New Ireland, the geography was where any similarity between the two projects ended. McNutt’s final pamphlet laid out a detailed, twenty-two article constitution for his proposed “New Ireland.” In contrast to the Germain/Knox constitution, McNutt’s New Ireland was to be a theocracy based on puritanical principles. Lawyers were to be forbidden to hold offices of state, and no person not a regular member of a Christian society would hold public office. Moreover, such recreations as plays, horse-racing, cockfighting, balls, and games of chance (among many other things) would be banned.[21] McNutt’s constitution also included a “declaration of rights” that drew heavily from the Declaration of Independence.[22]

McNutt had big expectations for his imagined colony. By co-opting the British plan for New Ireland and infusing it with religion and independence, he was not only working to derail Britain’s plans for a new loyal colony but was also taking a shot at Nova Scotia itself.^[23] In the end, McNutt’s state was purely imaginary, and its constitution was, in the words of historian Jeffers Lennox “a puritan’s fever dream.”[24]

Three events eventually stopped New Ireland, ending the dream for the Nutting/Calef/Knox version (though maybe not McNutt’s conceptual one). In June 1780, Dr. Calef made another trip to London to attempt to cement the colony’s existence. He worked with Germain, Nutting, and Knox to draft a constitution for the province that was eventually approved by both Lord North’s cabinet and the King. The constitution was structured specifically to thwart American-style republicanism. But it couldn’t prevent what happened next. The project came to the attention of Alexander Wedderburn, famous as the inquisitor of Benjamin Franklin in the cockpit back in 1774 and now British Attorney General. In reviewing the proposal, he ruled that legally the New Ireland territory belonged within the colonial charter of Massachusetts and that, even though Massachusetts was in open rebellion, it would be illegal and a violation of their charter to carve out the New Ireland province for Britain. According to Knox, Wedderburn’s opposition stemmed from the fact that his legal rival, Lord Thurlow, raised to the peerage (as part of the ruling class of New Ireland) before himself.[25] That may have been true, but Wedderburn had dealt a significant blow to the New Ireland venture. In response to this setback Germain, not ready to admit defeat, tried a different approach. He would maintain possession of New Ireland as a conquered territory, the only alternative really left for him. He would extend British control as far into Maine as possible and leave the whole question of charter violations to the final peace settlement.[26]

A second blow came with the British loss at Yorktown and the resulting fall of the North government three months after the news hit London. With North went Germain and Knox, the British officials who had championed New Ireland. The colony was on the ropes now, and one more blow would end the idea of New Ireland.[27] Dr. Calef would continue to hector subsequent administrations in favor of New Ireland but could not get much traction.

The peace settlement ending the American Revolution was the final punch that put New Ireland out of its misery. Richard Oswald was commissioned to represent the royal government in the negotiation and in October Lord Shelburne gave him his directions regarding Penobscot. Oswald was to insist upon as much Maine territory as possible to provide a Loyalist sanctuary. Should, however, the Americans be willing to “make a just provision for the Refugees,” Oswald could bargain away the region.[28] This is exactly what happened. John Adams was unrelenting on this point, as only Adams could be, even referring for proof of American ownership to a lead plate that a former governor of Massachusetts had laid in the harbor in Penobscot with the inscription “May 23, 1759. Province of Massachusetts Bay, Penobscot, Dominions of Great Britain. Possession confirmed by Thomas Pownall, Governor.” The British ended up settling for a relatively toothless provision in the final treaty that the Americans would compensate the loyalists for their lost property. Compliance with this part of the agreement was haphazard, and the loyalist sanctuary dreamed of by Calef, Nutting, and Knox (and maybe McNutt) was now history. The British abandoned New Ireland by the end of January 1784.

Yet, like American dreams of annexing Canada, the New Ireland idea would not die. During the War of 1812, the British occupied most of eastern Maine, including Washington County, Hancock County, and parts of Penobscot County, for eight months, intending to permanently annex the region into Canada as New Ireland. In the end, the territory reverted to the United States under the Treaty of Ghent. The British abandoned it in 1815 and it became part of the State of Maine when that state was admitted to the union in 1820.

When all is said and done, New Ireland was an interesting idea, but despite the efforts of many people, including Nutting, Calef, Knox, McNutt, Germain, and others, it never legally existed except for a very brief period, and that, ironically, was someplace else! In the month of March 1784, Lord Sidney and the English cabinet decided to set off all that part of Nova Scotia to the north of the Bay of Fundy as a new province to be called New Ireland; but the name was changed to New Brunswick a few weeks later as a compliment to the reigning House of Brunswick.[29] That was it for the “legal” existence of New Ireland. The New Ireland everyone else worked for was a mirage that felt at times like much more, but in the end faded away as all mirages do.

[1] Jeffers Lennox, North of America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022), 85.

[2] “Dr. John Calef,” Canadian Dictionary of Biography, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/caleff_john_5E.html.

[3] Lennox, North of America, 79.

[4] “Dr. John Calef,” Canadian Dictionary of Biography, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/caleff_john_5E.html.

[5] Samuel Francis Batchelder, The Life and Surprising Adventures of John Nutting (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Historical Society, 1912), 74.

[6] Theodore P. Burbank, The Crown Colony of New Ireland in Maine: The story of the Revolutionary War Battle to Prevent British Creation of New Ireland in Maine (Millis, MA: Salty Pilgrim Press, 2017), 55-56.

^[7] Lennox, North of America, 78.

[8] Thomas Hutchinson, The diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884), 218.

[9] Dr. John Calef, “The Journal of the Siege of Penobscot,” The Magazine of History Extra No. 11 (1910), 10.

[10] Robert W. Sloan, “New Ireland: Men in Pursuit of a Forlorn Hope, 1779-1784,” Maine History, Volume 19, Number 2 (1979), 16.

[11] Batchelder, The Life and Surprising Adventures of John Nutting, 76-77.

^[12] Robert W. Sloan, New Ireland: Loyalists in Eastern Maine During the American Revolution, 1779-1784, PhD Thesis, Michigan State University, 1971, 18.

[13] Batchelder, The Life and Surprising Adventures of John Nutting, 80.

[14] Calef, The Journal of the Siege of Penobscot, 35.

[15] Ibid., 39.

[16] Lennox, North of America, 89.

[17] Ibid., 90.

[18] Sloan, “New Ireland,” 97.

[19] Lennox, North of America, 87.

[20] Alexandra Montgomery, “Not Subject to the Scorn and Contumely of the Great: Alexander McNutt’s Nova Scotia, Beyond Borders,” The New Canadian History, May 1, 2017, thenewcanadianhistory.com/2017/05/01/not-subject-to-the-scorn-and-contumely-of-the-great-alexander-mcnutts-nova-scotia/.

[21] “Aleander McNutt,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mcnutt_alexander_5E.html.

[22] Lennox, North of America, 88.

[23] Ibid., 90.

[24] Ibid., 87.

[25] Batchelder, The Life and Surprising Adventures of John Nutting, 87.

[26] Sloan, “New Ireland,” 121.

[27] Ibid., 122-123.

[28] Ibid., 126.

[29] Archdeacon Raymond, Colonel Alexander McNutt and the Pre-Loyalist Settlements of Nova Scotia – Supplementary Paper (St. John, New Brunswick: Royal Society of Canada, 1912), 5.