Chapter1 Empire, Colonial Enterprise, and Speculation Cape Breton’s Coal Boom of the 1860s

Imperial Origins

Relative proximity to Europe and the presence of abundant cod stocks drew Cape Breton Island into the orbit of European mercantilism, which turned its attention to the island’s coal resources as early as the seventeenth century.11 With the construction of Fortress Louisbourg, begun in 1720, France anchored its commercial presence in the Atlantic region on Cape Breton Island (Île Royale). Exposed coal was dug from the cliffs at Cow Bay to supply the fortress and passing ships.12 But the fortress was captured by the British for a second time in 1758—a prelude to the British conquest of Canada—and subsequently reduced to rubble. Under British rule, coal production was restricted in an effort to limit prospective economic competition from North America. Established as an independent British colony for Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution in 1784, Cape Breton was reannexed into Nova Scotia in 1820.13

Coal production on the island was expanded in the decades to come under the sanction of royal prerogative. The debts owed by the Duke of York to the jewellers Rundell, Bridges, and Rundell of London had reached very substantial sums by 1825. In order to recover what they were owed, Rundell, Bridges, and Rundell looked to a lease originally granted to the duke by his father, King George III, in 1788, which gave rights to Nova Scotia’s unworked mineral resources for sixty years. After coal was added to the list of resources named in it, the duke’s brother, King George IV, authorized the lease, and the duke then conveyed it to his creditors to pay down his debts and obtain much-needed income. Rundell, Bridges, and Rundell formed the GMA to work the Nova Scotia lease and pursue mining ventures in South America. By 1828 the GMA secured an agreement with the Nova Scotia government for leases on the valuable Sydney and Pictou coal properties—upon which the duke had lacked claim—until 1886. The company also used its influence to have Sydney Mines and Pictou declared free ports, thus opening those ports to direct trade with the United States. The GMA’s strategy was to sell coal to the nearby urban markets of the American northeast. With this monopoly over Nova Scotia’s mineral resources thus established, Cape Breton coal was put to service to pay down the debts of British royalty.14

This project depended on the export of capital, technology, and skilled labour from Britain.15 English mining engineer Richard Brown oversaw operations at Sydney Mines, where a deep shaft was sunk, a railway and shipping wharf built, steam-driven equipment set up, and company houses erected for skilled colliers from northern England and South Wales. During the 1830s, the bituminous coal from Sydney Mines captured a significant market in the United States before anthracite coal came into general use. Sydney coal was sold by American coal dealers “under the name of Liverpool orrell” and was considered “a favourite fuel at the time in New York and Boston.”16 However, in 1842 the US government increased the duty on imported coal to “protect the emerging coal industry in Pennsylvania.” The cost advantage of the Sydney coalfield’s proximity to tidewater was reduced, and American consumers developed a preference for the cleaner burning anthracite in their homes. As a result, the use of Cape Breton coal was mostly restricted to the regional market, principally the colonial capitals of Halifax and St. John’s, Newfoundland.17 The GMA had not fully realized its grand ambitions by the time the British Parliament dismantled the mercantilist system in the 1840s. After that point, the association’s privileges were increasingly vulnerable to the onslaught of colonial reformers in Nova Scotia who, having won responsible government in 1848, viewed the continuation of the GMA monopoly as a hindrance to the colony’s progress and development.18

By the middle years of the nineteenth century, the political power of the merchant class in Nova Scotia remained a fundamental fact of the colony’s social order.19 As elsewhere in British North America, colonial reformers in Nova Scotia had assailed the sinecures of the Tory establishment in Halifax during the 1830s and 1840s. But this conflict was calmed by midcentury. As David Sutherland has pointed out, the capital’s merchant elite came to recognize that responsible government “allowed for the imposition of elitist restraints on . . . the excesses of popular democracy” and that “reform would not tamper with the essentials of merchantocracy.” Intermarriage and the assimilation of upwardly mobile men into its ranks such as Samuel Cunard and William Stairs meant that by the middle years of the century, Halifax’s merchant elite had evolved into “an interlocking cousinhood.”20 The presence of this merchant class was felt with the arrival of the GMA to the Sydney coalfield. The association had appointed Cunard as its business agent in 1834 in a move designed to capture colonial support for a company whose “monopoly was resented by local capitalists.”21 By the 1860s Cunard’s sons had inherited control of the Halifax agency and exercised managerial oversight over the GMA’s mines.

Cape Breton’s most important nineteenth-century merchant likely was Thomas Dickson Archibald (1813–90). Born of a prominent family from Colchester County, as a young man Archibald worked in the GMA’s Pictou office before moving to Sydney Mines in 1832. He became a senior partner in the mercantile firm of Archibald and Company in North Sydney, where the coal pier for the Sydney Mines was situated.22 E. P. Archbold (ca. 1813–98) was a later arrival. Born in Cork County, Ireland, Archbold operated as a merchant in Halifax before relocating to Sydney, where he handled “a very large stock” of dry goods and groceries.23 These men were among the most prominent merchants operating from Sydney Harbour. They arrived in Cape Breton with commercial and political connections to mainland Nova Scotia that gave them access to credit, goods, and market information. The timing of their arrival also coincided with the mass migration of Scottish Gaels from the western islands and Highlands of Scotland to Cape Breton.24 Merchants such as Archibald and Archbold constituted an English-speaking and predominantly Protestant merchant class that exercised influence over and stood apart from much of the fast-expanding rural, settler population.25

The road to prominence did not strictly require commercial success, however. John Bourinot (1814–84) was born on the Channel Island of Jersey. He migrated to Cape Breton in the 1830s, when he was in his twenties, and operated for a time as a ship chandler. In Arichat, where Jersey merchants had commanded the fishery since Cape Breton’s transfer to British control in the 1760s, Bourinot married Margaret Jane Marshall, the daughter of an ex-reformer assemblyman for Sydney County, John George Marshall, who had been appointed chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Cape Breton in 1823. As one of his biographers has noted, Bourinot’s marriage into this prominent Loyalist family “aided his rise to prominence in the colony.”26 In the 1840s he served as justice of the peace and as surveyor of shipping at Sydney in the 1850s before being elected in 1858 to the House of Assembly as a Conservative member for Cape Breton County. He was also appointed vice consul for the French government—as the French Atlantic fleet commonly called at Sydney for coal, mail, and other supplies.27

This colonial elite was imbricated with the British Empire and its Atlantic economy, which had oriented the Maritime region to outside trade with Britain, the American northeast, and the Caribbean. The coming age of steam offered new possibilities. E. P. Archbold, John Bourinot, T. D. Archibald, and the GMA’s mine manager at Sydney Mines, Richard Brown, were among the leading citizens of the area to endorse an 1851 plan—ultimately unrealized—to make Sydney Harbour the terminus for the proposed European and North American Railway. Coal was central to this vision: steamships could maximize their cargoes by refuelling at Sydney; overseas journeys from Europe could be shortened; and the movement of mail and goods within the Atlantic economy could be accelerated with the motive power of Cape Breton coal.28 For these men, the island’s future lay primarily in its ability to serve as a hub within the Atlantic world and gateway to North America, coal-fueled progress that would reinforce the island’s traditional Atlantic orientation.

However, merchants in Cape Breton as well as Halifax lacked the state power to formulate their own trade policies within this economy. That authority ultimately resided in London, and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 reflected this. The British government negotiated the Reciprocity Treaty principally in response to pressure from the Canadas and to allay tensions with the United States over the North American fisheries. Because of its dependence upon the fisheries, Nova Scotia opposed a treaty that would cede fishing rights to American vessels. But ultimately the colony’s political leaders had no power to protect exclusive fishing rights and were forced to accept the treaty, with the hope that its provisions for free trade in agricultural commodities and minerals would offer some form of compensation.29 The Reciprocity Treaty revealed the limited ability of Nova Scotia merchants and politicians to shape their own trade opportunities in the face of more powerful forces within the British world-system—in Britain itself, the United States, and the United Province of Canada.30

After Monopoly

The Reciprocity Treaty nonetheless opened Cape Breton to the burgeoning urban-industrial economy of the American northeast and its demand for coal, especially gas coal. The GMA was quick to respond to the new opportunities associated with the treaty. In November 1854 the company’s Sydney Mines office issued a call for tenders from carpenters and masons for the construction of twenty-four “workmen’s houses” at the site of the Lingan Mines, whose coal, due to its low sulphur content, had “been found very suitable for the manufacture of gas” (figure 1.2).31 By the following summer, the barque Norfolk arrived from Newcastle “with a valuable Cargo of Machinery, Bricks &c,” a “large portion of which” was to supply the new works at Lingan. “There is much present bustle and activity at Lingan consequent upon the erection of houses, &c, there,” reported the Cape Breton News.32 In 1855 the GMA sold 5,032 tons of Lingan coal, and the government commenced weekly mail service from Sydney.33

Richard Brown’s brother-in-law, Charles Barrington, served as resident manager at Lingan. And Brown’s teenaged son, R. H. Brown, joined Barrington there. “Uncle Charles desired me to write you for some hay,” he wrote to his father in July 1856, “as he has none for the horses, please do send some as soon as possible.” His letter continued, “We have been shipping constantly since you were here, and the total shipped up to the present date amounts to 2007 Chald[ron]s of Large Coal, and 98 Chald[ron]s of Slack. There are at present in the Harbour the Brigantine ‘Chimborazo’ of Boston + the ‘Charles’ of Cornwallis[,] the former bound for Philadelphia + the latter for New York.”34 Manhattan’s expanding population and demand for gaslight—to illuminate streets, factories, and homes—created an especially important market for Lingan coal. Two Manhattan gaslight companies, the Manhattan Gas Light Company and the New York Gas Light Company, consumed most of the coal mined at Lingan by the 1860s, if not earlier (see figure 1.3).35

The Reciprocity Treaty also helped create the conditions for ending the GMA’s monopoly, as coal production on Cape Breton Island underwent an unprecedented expansion, reaching an annual output of 127,000 tons by 1857 (see figure 1.4). On coal policy, Liberals and Conservatives broadly coalesced around a growth agenda based on the expectation of increased returns to be generated by the trade’s growth. The GMA’s economic position, in the end, was not directly challenged when the termination of its monopoly was finally negotiated in 1858: the GMA retained its operating mines, secured claims to coal properties it wanted for future development, and won a favourable royalty schedule. This resolution was perhaps unremarkable given that a former GMA solicitor, J. W. Johnston, headed the Nova Scotia government when the negotiations were completed.36

After the termination of the GMA monopoly, men of the colonial merchant-political class such as Bourinot, Archibald, and Archbold assumed new leadership roles in the development and promotion of the coal trade. They transformed coal resources into capital investments. Meanwhile, the diminishing availability of farmland on the island was creating an abundance of labour available for coal mining, as members of “backland” farming households fully entered the capitalist labour market or sought temporary wage work to supplement farm incomes.37

Following the termination of the GMA monopoly, John Bourinot’s son, Marshall, was the first individual to acquire a coal lease in Cape Breton, encompassing the site near “the old French workings” from the Louisbourg era at Cow Bay.38 John Young of Lingan also had his eye on the site and applied for the lease on 5 June 1858. Though Young’s application was made eight days before Bourinot’s, Bourinot was ultimately awarded the lease on 10 January 1859. Young petitioned the government for redress. The Committee on Crown Property found in the summer of 1860 that Young had indeed been mistreated through “inadvertence” by the department, but it expressed reluctance to interfere on his behalf, since Bourinot had “incurred considerable expense in the working of the mine.”39 The committee had, four years earlier, ruled against another petition from Young: his application in 1854 for a grant of land at Lingan, which he alleged had been in his possession for twenty years and on which he had built a wharf and “other improvements,” had been denied in favour of the GMA. The committee refused to overturn this decision.40

Marshall Bourinot was only around nineteen years of age when he acquired the lease for the Block House Mines. Given his youth and the apparent favouritism his lease application received, he most certainly depended on his father’s political connections. “Son of John Bourinot is not of age,” reported the local correspondent for the R. G. Dun credit reporting agency in September 1858.41 John Bourinot offered his son political connections but not capital: “Not good at all[,] heavily in debt,” reported the Dun correspondent of John Bourinot, “French Consul. no other means of living.”42 But large sums were not required to acquire coal property at this early stage. A $20 search licence, a bond with “sufficient sureties” to compensate for any damages made to private property during the search, and a $50 license to work the mine: these were all the expenses required to obtain coal property.43 This system ensured that personal and political connections—social and political capital—determined access to Crown resources. Men such as John Young, described by the Dun correspondent as “poor . . . and without education or knowledge of bus[iness],” faced considerable disadvantages.44 And, indeed, the manner of handling mining applications in Cape Breton heightened the potential for local manipulation. On the island, the local officer of the Crown Land Department was allowed to receive mining applications, and those applications were given priority over those submitted directly to the department in Halifax. This practice, according to a House committee in 1864, produced “uncertainty and confusion, besides being liable to abuse.”45 Sydney merchant E. P. Archbold had also acquired a coal lease by 1859, “commencing operations at what was then known as the Burnt mines” at Little Glace Bay.46 As with the Bourinot case, the lease would later be contested by nonelite men, who alleged that Archbold had exercised influence over the deputy commissioner’s local surveyor.47 The House of Assembly, likewise, decided not to interfere with the capital investment already made on Archbold’s leasehold, despite evidence that mistakes had been made.48

Expansion

Given the capital requirements associated with opening and operating the mines, new partnerships were required to actually develop them. Only a few months after he applied for the Cow Bay lease in 1858, Marshall Bourinot was said to be “supported by John Esson of Halifax,” a wealthy merchant.49 The inspector of mines reported at the end of 1859 that the colliery “opened a few months ago”: a shaft of forty feet had been sunk, a steam engine imported, and a considerable quantity of coal banked for shipment in the spring.50 This development coincided with Bourinot’s acquisition of credit in the United States from Robert Belloni, a New York coal dealer who was recasting his business activities after the failure of a Pennsylvania coal company with which he had been associated.51 Belloni soon entered into a business partnership with Bourinot under the name Bourinot and Company to operate the Block House Mines, which in 1861 shipped six thousand tons of coal “to New York in American vessels.”52 After another pit was opened and new expenditures made on railways, rolling stock, a workshop, a forge, and dwelling houses for workers, Belloni bought out Bourinot’s share in the Block House Mines for $30,000.53 Supported by an influential backer, Daniel Phoenix Ingraham, a New York Supreme Court justice, Belloni succeeded in capturing the business of the Manhattan Gas Light Company and generating “a good prof[it]” from coal sales.54

With the demand for coal rising during the American Civil War, the Block House Mines was a property that could attract investment and upon which Robert Belloni could secure credit. Belloni’s purchase of the Block House Mines was, for instance, executed with a cash payment of only $500. The rest was to be paid in two $2,000 installments of negotiable paper, followed by yearly installments of $5,000.55 These notes were accepted by the Bourinots and conveyed to the Bank of Nova Scotia.56 In June 1864 Belloni formed a new company, the Block House Mining Company, with a reported capital of $1 million. He also moved from New York City to Cow Bay to manage the mines.57 The number of men and boys who worked at Block House grew to 557; “no less than 60 buildings, comprising Superintendent’s dwelling, engine house, warehouses, shops, and miners’ houses” were erected; and the output of coal more than quadrupled from the previous year, exceeding seventy thousand tons.58 The firm appeared to occupy a strong position, supplying “the Manhattan Gas Co with the principal coal they use for NYork City.”59 But despite its success in linking Cape Breton coal to New York’s gaslight industry, much of the company’s working capital would appear to come from Halifax and in particular from men associated with the Bank of Nova Scotia.

Just south of the Block House Mines, also at Cow Bay, the Gowrie Mines had been a thriving enterprise since opening in 1862. T. D. Archibald was the most influential merchant and shipowner operating from Sydney Harbour as well as a member of the colony’s Legislative Council since 1854. In partnership with cousin Blowers Archibald in the firm Archibald and Company, T. D. Archibald oversaw a shipyard at North Sydney and operated fishing stations on the island.60 As a member of Nova Scotia’s upper house, Archibald had taken “a great interest in the arrangements made in 1857–58 to terminate the monopoly of the General Mining Association.”61 His ability to acquire a well-known coal property, the site of “an old French pit,” was undoubtedly due to his power and prominence.62 In the first year of the Gowrie Mines’ operation, Archibald and Company spent $28,800 on infrastructure, including a wharf, a railroad and rolling stock, and housing.63 The firm also commenced construction of a breakwater to protect its wharf and ships loading coal.64 In 1863, the breakwater was completed, an additional $63,260 was spent on infrastructure, and more than fifteen thousand tons of coal were raised and shipped from the mine. During the course of the year, an average of 120 men and 20 boys were employed. “The coal from the mine bears a good character in the market,” reported the mine inspector’s report, “being considered valuable for gas, steam, and manufacturing purposes.”65 Another $33,450 was invested the following year, and output nearly doubled.66 Commanding a large shipping fleet and apparently drawing mostly upon his own capital, T. D. Archibald attained a self-sufficiency and business autonomy in the coal trade unmatched by the other large operators. A bustling mining village had emerged at Cow Bay within only a few years.

At Little Glace Bay, Sydney merchant E. P. Archbold had “laid out a good deal,” not long after the GMA monopoly ended, but the “nature of the Shipping place” was not promising.67 And like Marshall Bourinot, Archbold relied on a Halifax partner, James A. Moren, a major shipowner.68 The report on coal mines issued by the commissioner of Crown lands and inspector of mines in February 1862 suggested that Archbold’s operations were crude and underdeveloped: the coal seam was not fully worked—“causing a waste of two or three feet of the best portion of the vein, left on the floor”—and drainage and ventilation were “imperfect.”69 In January the local R. G. Dun correspondent reported that Archbold had recently partnered with a group from Massachusetts, composed of Joseph Converse, James W. Emery, Estes Howe, Gardiner C. Hubbard, and W. B. Parrott. They paid him $75,000 for a half share in the mine, and the Glace Bay Mining Company was formed to contain this new partnership.70 Halifax men, including J. R. Lithgow, were also interested in the new company.71 This capital transformed the works. The largest expenditure in 1862—$32,500—went toward the construction of a new harbour. “The value of this deposite of coal depends entirely upon having a suitable place for vessels to lay and load the coal,” wrote Archbold.72 By the spring of 1863, the improvements to the Little Glace Bay Harbour had been completed.73 R. J. Uniacke captured the renovated state of the harbour in 1864:

About three years previous to my visit . . . I crossed over a small marshy brook, running into a silent bay, upon a pole bridge about a hundred yards long. . . . But now I found this little brook widened to a great extent. Twelve or thirteen large vessels, Barques, brigs and schooners occupied its basin as a secure dock or harbour, whilst they received their freight of superior coal, by a succession of cars, rolling along from the neighbouring pit.74

Coal sales from the mines had tripled in 1863 and tripled again in 1864, reaching 72,077 tons.75 The company had by 1864 erected 48 buildings on the site, including “29 dwelling houses, comprising 65 tenements,” as well as “stores, offices, shops, engine houses,” and a schoolhouse.76 With these investments made, Archbold sought to monopolize the trade of this burgeoning mining town.77

The Glace Bay Mining Company at Little Glace Bay and the Block House and Gowrie Mines at Cow Bay accounted for 40 percent of all of Cape Breton’s coal sales from 1860 to 1869. The GMA’s Lingan Mines made up 13 percent of all sales during the same period. And Sydney Mines remained not only the GMA’s largest producer but also the island’s largest producer, responsible for 37 percent of Cape Breton’s coal sales. These four operators, then, were responsible for 90 percent of Cape Breton’s coal sales (figure 1.5). Though many more small operators established mines during the decade, the colonial social structure decisively shaped the Sydney coalfield’s transition to competitive capitalism, concentrating the area’s productive coal properties in the hands of a few prominent men.

And they enjoyed large profits too. Even with heavy investment, wrote C. Ochiltree MacDonald in 1909, the Glace Bay Mining Company “declared dividends of 25 percent. on capital, doubled that capital and paid 15 percent, added again one-half making a $600,000 stock list and then paid 12½ percent.”78 The Block House Mines generated $60,000 in profit in 1860 and cleared over $200,000 during a two-year period straddling the end of the Reciprocity Treaty.79 As for the GMA, having drawn on the police power of the state to defeat a strike at Sydney Mines in 1864, it paid out dividends totalling 35 percent to its shareholders in 1866.80 This economic bounty was accompanied by a wider investment frenzy, as Cape Breton coal was in high demand for the production of manufactured gas that illuminated the streets of Manhattan and briefly reached new urban markets such as Washington, DC, and Baltimore.

Positioned within a remarkably transnational political economy oriented toward Atlantic trade, this was indeed an economic “golden age” in the Maritime region before Confederation with Canada.

Crisis

But this political economy was soon thrown into crisis. The end of the American Civil War led to the abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty and the imposition of a $1.25 per ton duty on coal entering the United States, a consequence of the rising influence of industrial capital within the United States as well as American resentment toward Britain’s somewhat sympathetic attitude toward the southern Confederacy.81 This change in commercial policy spelled a dramatic worsening of market prospects for Cape Breton coal operators, since by 1866 most of their output was destined for the American market.

But coal mining required a large investment of immovable capital—the sinking of mine shafts and the construction of railways, buildings, and wharves—and once invested, this capital could not be put to another purpose.82 As a result, operators could not easily exit the market, as profits turned into losses. Charles J. Campbell followed a trajectory not unfamiliar among prominent Cape Breton merchants in the nineteenth century. Born in the Isle of Skye, he had arrived in Baddeck from Halifax in 1840 as a merchant’s clerk. By 1859 he was a merchant shipbuilder, a member of the House of Assembly and owner of one-fifth of Baddeck’s assessable property.83 His foray into coal mining in the early 1860s appeared promising and absorbed the “greater part of his cap[ital],” but once the boom ended, he appears to have been saddled with a mine from which he could not extract his capital.84 Meanwhile, the Massachusetts businessmen in the Glace Bay Mining Company withdrew from the enterprise in 1865, opened the nearby Caledonia Colliery, and by the early 1870s were reporting a paid-in capital of $600,000.85 And a group of New York capitalists had formed the International Coal Company in 1864 and subsequently invested considerable sums, including in the construction of a thirteen-mile railway to connect their mine at Bridgeport with Sydney Harbour.86 These new capital investments in mining infrastructure could not be reversed or put to another use as the prospects of the coal trade deteriorated.

The resultant competitive pressures were made worse by the scarcity of vessels available to transport coal. American sail tonnage during the Civil War had been restricted to North Atlantic trading “through fear of capture by Confederate cruisers further to the south.”87 The war’s conclusion put an end to this abundance of ships.88 R. H. Brown wrote to his father, Richard Brown, whom he had succeeded as the GMA manager at Sydney Mines in 1864, about the ensuing difficulties. When the market for coal improved in 1871–73, R. H. Brown often had to “bank out” coal for lack of ships to transport it to market.89 This want of vessels also made it difficult to predict shipping costs. To obtain scarce business, the Glace Bay Mining Company and other operators secured considerable American purchases in 1870 by agreeing to deliver coal at a fixed price, which meant they assumed the risk of delivery. This made it easier for agents to make contracts with consumers, but it could also result in significant losses to operators.90

These limitations were made apparent as the Block House Mines and other operators sold coal at a loss to retain and win customers.91 This pressure forced the GMA to discount its coal, and the company’s board also championed the implementation of cost-saving measures at the mines.92 But the continued dependence of the GMA’s mines at Pictou and Lingan upon the American market damaged the company’s overall profitability. Dividend payments were suspended, and by the end of 1869, £20 GMA shares were being quoted at only £8 on the London stock exchange.93 Richard Brown, who sat on the GMA’s board in London, had advised his son to purchase shares in 1866 but three years later despaired of that advice. He wrote his son at Sydney Mines, “The purchase of the G.M.A. shares was an unfortunate speculation for which I blame myself but they were paying so well that I thought you could not do better.”94

Although the GMA faced intense competition, it commanded choice locations on the Sydney coalfield and mainland Nova Scotia and had developed a sound capital stock. Its new competitors, on the other hand, generally occupied less valuable coal properties and financed their expansion on borrowed money. Their position was worse. Robert Belloni along with his brother, Louis J. Belloni, and nephew, Louis J. Belloni Jr., relied upon Halifax creditors to sustain the Block House Mines. Though the Dun correspondent in New York reported in 1870 that “the trade generally lack confidence in the family of this name,” the Bellonis managed to sell stock in “Provincial Markets,” especially in Halifax, and bonds to the Bank of Nova Scotia. They also borrowed money from Bank of Nova Scotia director William Hare and commission merchant J. C. Allison. The Bellonis’ unscrupulous business methods, together with the company’s inability to sell coal in the American market at a profit, led to the temporary closure of the Block House Mines in 1871 and serious legal wrangling with their Halifax investors. J. C. Allison held personal debts of the Bellonis amounting to $50,000 and was verging on bankruptcy by 1871. And William Hare, who had countersigned $47,000 in Belloni notes, was forced to declare bankruptcy that year. The directors were by this time “quarrelling among themselves.” By the summer of 1873, the old company was defunct, and a new edition of the Block House Mining Company was organized by the beginning of 1874. Robert Belloni took $100,000 in stock, which he was likely holding for Judge Ingraham and his nephew, Louis J. Belloni Jr. The Dun correspondent concluded that the reorganized “company appear[s] to have got 100m$ from Nova Scotia people’s money, which is probably its active capital.” The Bellonis “made money out of negotiating the stock” and used this fresh capital to invest in mills in Paterson, New Jersey. Within a few months, the Halifax shareholders offered to sell their shares to Robert Belloni for a refund of their money. They wanted out. But Belloni—who probably lacked the money—refused the offer.95

Money could thus be made from the promotion of failing enterprises. And, indeed, speculative capital and promotion took command. After selling his share in the Block House Mines to Robert Belloni, Marshall Bourinot aggressively speculated in prospective coal properties. At the height of the boom, in 1865, Bourinot wrote to the president of the Bank of Nova Scotia in Halifax, M. B. Almon, to borrow against his landed investments: “By holding this property a few months longer I will get a much larger sum.”96 Having apparently “spent all his money” on prospective coal properties, the death of the New York investor interested in his holdings and the abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty ruined Bourinot’s business prospects.97 Meanwhile, the New York promoters of a mine at Cow Bay claimed a fully paid-up capital of $500,000, with the majority of shares reportedly held in Nova Scotia. The president of this enterprise, Edward S. Sherman, was described by the Dun correspondent as “shrewd” and “a trifle too sharp.” His coal company, in fact, appeared a fraud.98

The case of the Glasgow and Cape Breton Coal and Railway Company and its interrelated companies was even more spectacular, hinting at the capacity of the “empire effect” to channel London capital into the colonies. It was part of an ambitious initiative led by Frederick Newton Gisborne (1824–92). An English engineer, he had been responsible for laying the first submarine telegraph line in North America and was the originator of the idea of a transatlantic cable, activities in the 1850s that brought him into association with New York paper manufacturer Cyrus W. Field and the British consul in New York, Edward Mortimer Archibald, T. D. Archibald’s nephew. In 1865 he became the Nova Scotia government’s London agent of mines and minerals. A visit to Nova Scotia in 1869 would convince him of the potential of the Sydney coalfield. In earnest, he gathered English capitalists to invest in Cape Breton coal.99 “I had, until 1871,” later commented Gisborne, “been new to coal mining and therefore had commenced work . . . under the advice from the Government Inspector of Mines.”100 Nova Scotia coal promoters had indeed been actively encouraging British investment in Cape Breton mining areas, which was deemed superior to the “skeleton capital” of American speculators.101 And a number of entrepreneurs from Cape Breton, including Robert Belloni, sought to attract capital from the city of London.102

Through these imperial public-private channels and working with Thomas P. Baker, chief inspector of machinery at the Chatham Dockyard, Gisborne connected the Sydney coalfield directly to capital from the city of London. In 1871, he convinced the London stockbroker Thomas Fenn to lend him the money required to secure coal properties bonded to him. As a consequence of this evolving business relationship, soon Fenn and another London stockbroker, E. F. Satterthwaite, were the largest shareholders of a company operating on the Sydney coalfield, the Lorway Coal Company.103 Gisborne worked with Baker and Fenn through the Coal Area Association, whose offices were opened in London in March 1871, to promote their interrelated ventures on the Sydney coalfield.104

These included a mine at Schooner Pond located at the terminus of the prospective Glasgow and Cape Breton Coal and Railway Company line. Gisborne had purchased the Schooner Pond property for $40,000 from a Nova Scotia foundry owner, reported to have “been speculating with others in Coal + Gold mining.”105 Gisborne thereafter sold the mine to the Schooner Pond Coal Company, which was a part of the Coal Area Association, and negotiated a right to a quarter of its profits (after the payment of a 15 percent dividend to shareholders). The Schooner Pond and Glasgow and Cape Breton companies apparently had the same board of directors, which included Baker and Satterthwaite, and formed part of Gisborne’s broader vision.106

This vision was for a railway that would run through various coal areas and connect them to shipping facilities at Sydney and Louisbourg, whose ice-free harbour would serve to ship coal during the winter months. In order to raise capital for the scheme, Fenn was paid a lump sum of £500 “as commission for placing the Glasgow and Cape Breton prospectus before his clients” as well as “2s. per share for 2,990 afterwards taken through him.”107 The company also received coal lands from the Nova Scotia government to subsidize the construction of its railway and commenced the development of mining operations in the inland reserve area.108 An advertisement in the London Times, meanwhile, promised profits of 25 percent on Schooner Pond Coal Company shares once its operations were in full swing.109

The temporary resurgence in the island’s coal trade in the early 1870s—and perhaps also concerns within Britain about rising coal prices and the exhaustion of domestic supplies—provided Gisborne with momentum.110 The London chairman of the Glasgow and Cape Breton Coal and Railway Company, expecting the removal of the American duty on coal, advanced plans to build a railway to Louisbourg.111 Yet Gisborne’s financial position was poor, and the move to make the Coal Area Association a limited liability company in January 1872 suggested that he recognized the mounting risk.112 By the spring the Glasgow and Cape Breton Coal and Railway Company was already running out of money.113 And though lowered, the American duty on coal was not removed. By August the Glasgow and Cape Breton Coal and Railway Company, with its capital spent, was forced to borrow.114

That autumn, however, the railway from Schooner Pond to Sydney was completed. Thomas Fenn presented to the London Times a bright picture in March 1873; the Glasgow and Cape Breton, Lorway, and Schooner Pond companies were operating a total of five collieries on the railway line, which traversed an area where “there is not a foot of ground where a pit might not be sunk on a workable seam of coal.” Fenn praised the “high reputation” of the coal, suggesting that “with English coal at its present price,” a larger export trade might be developed.115 The following week, a letter from an unnamed correspondent in Sydney was quoted in the London Times:

Almost every coal area in the island is being taken up. You are aware that the duty has been reduced to half a dollar (by the United States Government . . .), and that this year it will be done away with entirely. Coal property is, therefore, rising amazingly in value, and the remarkable circumstances is that now all our companies are English! We send coal not only to the States, West Indies, Brazil, Canada, and other Colonies, but also to Great Britain and the East Indies, at remunerating prices. There is an extraordinary demand everywhere for Cape Breton coal. Several Englishmen are resident in Sydney, and I wish with all my heart that more would come along. Scotchmen, with their energy and skill, would make fortunes fast.116

Presenting the Sydney coalfield as an emerging mecca of successful imperial investment, this account exceeded even Fenn’s bombast.

In the fall of 1873, the three companies—Glasgow and Cape Breton, Lorway, and Schooner Pond—agreed to amalgamate into the Cape Breton Company.117 Though more capital was sought through this new promotion, the company was in liquidation by 1875. Richard Brown, who had decades of experience in Cape Breton, had viewed Gisborne’s efforts critically from the outset, concluding in July 1871 that “there was not much coal of any value” in the areas he held.118 “The Shares of [Gisborne’s] Company £5 paid are selling for £7,” noted Brown in September 1871. “Somebody will lose money by them[,] that’s certain.”119 And lose they did. Some investors sought to recoup their losses through the courts, claiming that Fenn and others had bilked them of their money.120 But nonetheless, as Satterthwaite’s attorney noted in court, “£400,000 in actual money had been spent on the machinery and works to develope the properties of the companies.”121 Brown, who recognized that Gisborne’s Glasgow and Cape Breton had indeed been “puffed up in the London papers,” marvelled at “how easy it is to gull the English capitalists!”122

Large-scale investment together with coal’s association with steam technology created considerable scope for promotion and speculation, sustained by a “boom mentality” that captured imperial investment.123 But although a spike in international coal prices had briefly improved the prospects and profitability of Cape Breton coal in 1871–73, by 1875 the trade was in crisis.124 The collapse of the coal trade not only ruined investments but also contributed to a broader social crisis in the newly created mining villages.125

Conclusion

Investment in coal was often a destructive engine of development. It created a whole new built environment in Cape Breton but one that proved increasingly unprofitable during the 1870s and ultimately ruinous for many. The conditions in the international Atlantic economy that provided the basis for the coal boom of the 1860s were fleeting. During the 1870s, US railway and coal companies were colluding to control the markets of the eastern United States, offering rebates on freights from the Pennsylvania coalfields.126 Reliant upon the transportation regime of “wood, wind, and water” to access their major markets and operating as individual firms, Cape Breton coal operators could not match competitors who behaved as vertically integrated units within an increasingly protected national economy. Ultimately, the productive capacities built up on the Sydney coalfield in the 1860s and 1870s would be reconstituted and redirected in the 1880s by new companies operating under Canada’s National Policy, which offered some tariff protection to domestic coal operators and enabled Cape Breton producers to capture the St. Lawrence market, particularly Montreal.127 This reorientation was an aspect of “Canada’s transformation into a separate northern economy with a tariff wall to guard its railways, trade, finance and infant industry.” The development of this national economy, with Montreal as its “natural” metropolis, signalled, as John Darwin has observed, an evolution in the British world-system and was deeply interconnected with the emergence of a “Britannic nationalism” in Canada.128 Though Nova Scotia politicians—with fond memories of the reciprocity era—cheered on Henry Melville Whitney’s ambitions to re-establish Cape Breton coal in American markets under the Dominion Coal Company in the 1890s, the future of Cape Breton coal rested on its deeper integration into the east-west axis of a Canadian political economy, symptomatic of what Sven Beckert has recently described as the “territorialization of industrial capitalism” after 1870.129

Coal was a particular type of commodity, especially prone to financial speculation during the age of steam power. Its production was costlier than traditional forms of staples production that had dominated the regional economy, such as timber and fish production, and required a greater proportion of fixed and immovable capital. The result was heightened reliance on finance and considerable scope for speculation and promotion.130 This study speaks to an aspect of the history of coal and empire that has been understated in such influential studies as those by Kenneth Pomeranz and E. A. Wrigley that address coal’s place in the global history of capitalism.131 Although these studies offer compelling accounts of coal as a dynamic source of energy that sustained the Industrial Revolution and facilitated the rise of Britain, a somewhat different story of capitalist modernity is visible in Cape Breton. Even though the ongoing transition to an energy-intensive mineral-based economy was a transformation that underlay the boom of the 1860s, the political economy of coal on Cape Breton Island was far from being governed by the demand for energy alone. Rather, it was shaped by Cape Breton’s place within the British world-system as a resource hinterland on the margins of empire and emerging industrial nation-states during the age of steam power. Combining elements that Belich has attributed to “oldlands” and “newlands” of the North American Angloworld, Cape Breton’s coal boom of the 1860s reveals the advance of an investment and industrial frontier, promoted by colonial elites and realized in nodes of cyclonic, and often ruinous, expansion. Mediated by colonial institutions, networks, and business practices, this episode of colonial boosterism set in motion a sequence of developments that would culminate in the making of what was purportedly Canada’s largest industrial corporation, the British Empire Steel Corporation, a half century later, which delivered to the Sydney coalfield another round of financial ruination.132

Notes

This chapter first appeared in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 46, no. 6 (2018). It is reprinted here in a slightly revised form with permission of the publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd.

1. 1. Cape Breton News, 5 March 1864.

2. 2. Hornsby, Nineteenth-Century Cape Breton, 169.

3. 3. Samson, Spirit of Industry and Improvement, 284.

4. 4. McKay, “Crisis of Dependent Development,” 23.

5. 5. Korneski, Race, Nation, and Reform Ideology; Smith, British Businessmen and Canadian Confederation.

6. 6. See Belich, Replenishing the Earth; Darwin, Empire Project.

7. 7. London’s apparent preference for colonial investment is examined in Smith, “Patriotism, Self-Interest,” 59–80. For the classic work on the role of finance in British imperial endeavour, see Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism.

8. 8. Belich, Replenishing the Earth, 200–206. A powerful case for the importance of fixed investment in transportation infrastructure in shaping coal production is made in Jones, Routes of Power, 23–87.

9. 9. Belich, Replenishing the Earth, 177–206.

10. 10. David Frank has demonstrated that coal production on Cape Breton Island developed as an industrial frontier within the Canadian Atlantic region. See Frank, J. B. McLachlan, 43–86.

11. 11. Brown, Coal Fields and Coal Trade, 45.

12. 12. Clark, Acadia, 328–29.

13. 13. Morgan, “Orphan Outpost,” 8 and 12.

14. 14. Brown, Coal Fields, 76–77; Gerriets, “Impact of the General Mining Association,” 61–62. See also Muise, “G.M.A. and Nova Scotia’s Coal,” 70–87; Gerriets, “Rise and Fall of a Free-Standing Company,” 16–48; Samson, “Industrial Colonization,” 3–28.

15. 15. See Samson, “Industrial Colonization.”

16. 16. Brown, Coal Fields, 80–81.

17. 17. Hornsby, Nineteenth-Century Cape Breton, 96.

18. 18. See Samson, Spirit of Industry, 284–310.

19. 19. The construction of merchant power in law is examined in Muir, Law, Debt, and Merchant Power.

20. 20. Sutherland, “Merchants of Halifax,” 460 and 463.

21. 21. Blakeley, “Sir Samuel Cunard,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/cunard_samuel_9E.html.

22. 22. Fergusson, “Thomas Dickson Archibald,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/archibald_thomas_dickson_11E.html.

23. 23. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 622 (Edward P. Archbold, 4 September 1858), R. G. Dun & Co. Credit Report Volumes, Baker Library, Harvard Business School (hereafter Dun & Co., BL).

24. 24. Hornsby, Nineteenth-Century Cape Breton, 45; Harris, Reluctant Land, 203–5.

25. 25. This dynamic is revealed in Morgan, “Poverty, Wretchedness, and Misery,” 88–104.

26. 26. MacKenzie, “John Bourinot,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bourinot_john_11E.html.

27. 27. Tennyson, “Economic Nationalism and Confederation,” 44.

28. 28. European and North American Railway Terminus, Sydney, Cape Breton, the Nearest Port in British North America to Europe (Sydney: Cape Breton News, 1851).

29. 29. Masters, Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, 12–14 and 53–54.

30. 30. See Darwin, Empire Project; for a discussion of Britain’s structural power in the Canadian context, see Cain and Hopkins, “Afterword,” 207–10.

31. 31. Cape Breton News, 9 December 1854; Brown, Coal Fields, 87–88.

32. 32. Cape Breton News, 4 August 1855.

33. 33. Brown, Coal Fields, 98; Journal and Proceedings of the House of Assembly, Session 1854–5 (Halifax, 1855; hereafter JHA), appendix 92, 443; JHA (1856), appendix 7, 89.

34. 34. Richard H. Brown, Lingan Mines, to “Papa,” 8 July 1856, vol. 19, MG 14, General Mining Association Fonds, Beaton Institute (hereafter BI), Cape Breton University, Sydney, NS.

35. 35. “Lingan Mines Coal Sales, 1860–1863” (ledger), 20 D5 (c), MG 14, General Mining Association Fonds, Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University, Sydney, NS.

36. 36. Samson, Spirit of Industry, 305–6; Muise, “G.M.A. and Nova Scotia’s Coal,” 78.

37. 37. Bitterman, “Hierarchy of the Soil,” 51–52; Bitterman, “Farm Households and Wage Labour,” 35–36; Samson, Spirit of Industry, 187–224; Muise, “Making of an Industrial Community,” 76–94.

38. 38. James McKeagney, inspector of mines, 31 December 1859, JHA (1860), appendix “Coal Mines,” 284.

39. 39. Cape Breton News, 4 August 1860.

40. 40. JHA (1856), appendix 65, 237.

41. 41. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 621 (Marshall Bourinot, 4 September 1858), 621, Dun & Co., BL.

42. 42. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 618 (John Bourinot, 4 September 1858 and 28 November 1860), Dun & Co., BL. See Buggey, “John Esson,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/esson_john_9E.html.

43. 43. Regulations for Leasing of Mines Established by His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor in Council, appendix 15, JHA (1863), 5–6.

44. 44. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 487 (John Young, 2 December 1858), Dun & Co., BL.

45. 45. “C. J. Campbell’s Petition,” JHA (1864), appendix 48, 2.

46. 46. History of Nova Scotia: Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of the Old Families, vol. 3 (Halifax: A. W. Bowen, 1916), 185.

47. 47. Petition, N. L. Mackay on behalf of Hector McNeil, James McNeil, and Donald McDonald, Glace Bay, 28 April 1862, vol. 61, series C, RG 20, Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands Fonds, Nova Scotia Archives (NSA).

48. 48. Debates and Proceedings of the House of Assembly, Nova Scotia (1864), evening session, 31 March, 212–13.

49. 49. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 621 (Marshall Bourinot, 4 September 1858), Dun & Co., BL.

50. 50. James McKeagney, inspector of mines, 31 December 1859, JHA (1860), appendix “Coal Mines,” 284–85.

51. 51. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 621 (Marshall Bourinot, 24 January 1860), Dun & Co., BL; JHA (1864), appendix 18, 16; New York, vol. 18, 254 (Belloni, Farrar, & Co., 11 February 1857, 27 June 1857, 23 August 1859, and 18 April 1860), Dun & Co., BL.

52. 52. Letter to the editor by “Morien,” Cow Bay, 19 February 1862, Cape Breton News, 22 February 1862.

53. 53. JHA (1863), appendix 15, 12–13; Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 621 (Marshall Bourinot, 13 March 1863 and 23 February 1864), and New York, vol. 376, 397 (Robert Belloni & Co., 23 April 1863), Dun & Co., BL; notice, “Dissolution of Copartnership,” Halifax, 22 April 1863, Cape Breton News, 2 May 1863.

54. 54. New York, vol. 376, 397 (Robert Belloni, 25 March 1861 and 28 May 1863), Dun & Co., BL.

55. 55. John Bourinot to M. B. Almon, 26 May 1863 and 25 April 1863, vol. 69, MG 1, M. B. Almon Fonds, NSA.

56. 56. Marshall Bourinot to M. B. Almon, 23 June 1863, 6 August 1863, 18 August 1863, Almon Fonds, NSA.

57. 57. New York, vol. 372, 943 (Block House Mining Co., 27 December 1867), 943, and vol. 376, 397 (Robert Belloni & Co., 26 June 1864), R. G. Dun & Co., BL.

58. 58. JHA (1865), appendix 6, 7–8; Brown, Coal Fields, 161, table 5.

59. 59. New York, vol. 372, 943 (Block House Mining Co., 14 August 1868), Dun & Co., BL.

60. 60. Archibald & Co. ledgers (1824–46), MG 14, 45, Archibald & Co. Fonds, Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University, Sydney, NS; Sinclair, “Shipowning and Investment,” 25.

61. 61. Fergusson, “Thomas Dickson Archibald.”

62. 62. JHA (1864), appendix 18, 17.

63. 63. Archibald & Co., January 1863, JHA (1863), appendix 15, 13–14.

64. 64. Uniacke, Uniacke’s Sketches, 120.

65. 65. JHA (1864), appendix 18, 17–18.

66. 66. JHA (1865), appendix 6, 7; Brown, Coal Fields, 161, table 5.

67. 67. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 622 (E. P. Archbold, 4 September 1858), Dun & Co., BL.

68. 68. Edward P. Archbold, Sydney, to W. A. Hendry, 21 December 1861, vol. 61, series C, Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands Fonds, NSA; Macdonald, Coal and Iron Industries, 21.

69. 69. Samuel P. Fairbanks, report on coal mines, 12 February 1862, JHA (1862), appendix 35, 2.

70. 70. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 622 (E. P. Archbold, 27 January 1862), Dun & Co., BL.

71. 71. Macdonald, Coal and Iron Industries, 21.

72. 72. Edward P. Archbold, president and manager, Glace Bay Mining Company, 19 December 1862, JHA (1863), appendix 15, 10–12.

73. 73. This was Archbold’s projection in 1862. See his report in JHA (1863).

74. 74. Uniacke, Uniacke’s Sketches, 127.

75. 75. Brown, Coal Fields, 161, table 5.

76. 76. JHA (1865), appendix 6, 8–9.

77. 77. Petition, Little Glace Bay, 12 January 1864, vol. 18, series P, RG 5, Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Fonds, NSA.

78. 78. Macdonald, Coal and Iron Industries, 23–24.

79. 79. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 523 (Block Ho. Mining Co., 25 March 1871), and New York, vol. 372, 943 (Block House Mining Co., 27 December 1867), Dun & Co., BL.

80. 80. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 1 March 1867, vol. 151, MG 1, Richard Brown Family Fonds (hereafter Brown Fonds), NSA.

81. 81. Masters, Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, 75–87; Marquis, In Armageddon’s Shadow, 260.

82. 82. See also Jones, Routes of Power, 23–87.

83. 83. Patterson, Patterson’s History of Victoria County, 71 and 114–15.

84. 84. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 625 (Chas. J. Campbell, 4 September 1858, 13 March 1863, July 1865), and 352 (C. J. Campbell, 16 March 1876), Dun & Co., BL.

85. 85. Macdonald, Coal and Iron Industries, 24; Massachusetts (Boston), vol. 81, 136 (Caledonia Coal Mining Co., 30 November 1870, 29 August 1873), Dun & Co., BL.

86. 86. New York, vol. 411, 16 (International Coal Co., 16 March 1865), Dun & Co., BL; letter to the editor by “Amicus,” 7 September 1870, Cape Breton News, 17 September 1870.

87. 87. Macdonald, Coal and Iron Industries, 23.

88. 88. Moreover, the American Civil War resulted in a dramatic decline in American merchant shipping capacity, from 2,496,894 to 1,387,566 tons between 1861 and 1866. See Saunders, Studies in the Economy, 130.

89. 89. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 13 July 1871, 27 July 1871, 4 August 1871, 2 June 1872, 18 July 1872, 8 April 1873, 20 May 1873, 9 September 1873, Brown Fonds, NSA.

90. 90. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 1 July 1870, Brown Fonds, NSA.

91. 91. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 9 October 1868 and 19 November 1870, Brown Fonds, NSA.

92. 92. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 25 May 1866, 21 December 1866, 22 November 1867, 17 July 1869, 17 June 1869, 19 September 1870, and 13 August 1870, Brown Fonds, NSA.

93. 93. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 18 December 1870, Brown Fonds, NSA.

94. 94. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 27 August 1869, Brown Fonds, NSA.

95. 95. New York, vol. 376, 526 (Louis J. Belloni Jr. & Co., 12 November 1870), 523 (Block Ho. Mining Co., 30 November 1868, 25 March 1871), 789 (Block House Mining Co., 28 March 1874); Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 227 (Almon, Hare & Co., 6 May 1871); New York, vol. 372, 943 (Block House Mining Co., July 1869, 25 March 1871, 4 April 1871), 1046 (Block House Mining Co., 7 January 1874, 14 February 1874), Dun & Co., BL.

96. 96. Marshall Bourinot, St. Nicholas Hotel, New York, to Hon. M. B. Almon, 28 March 1865, file 612.16.D.f.11, Bourinot Fonds, BI, Cape Breton University, Sydney, NS.

97. 97. The Petition of Marshall Bourinot of Sydney in the County of Cape Breton, Esquire, 18 October 1870, file 612.16.D.f.11, Bourinot Fonds, BI, Cape Breton University, Sydney, NS.

98. 98. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 652 (South Head Coal Mining Co, 12 and 24 August 1868), Dun & Co., BL.

99. 99. Jones, “Frederick Newton Gisborne,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/gisborne_frederic_newton_12E.html.

100. 100. Pamphlet, Court House, Sydney, Cape Breton, January 1877, Gisborne versus Kennelly, 3.

101. 101. Petitions, R. B. Sinclair, 9 January 1866 (and attached documents) and 5 March 1866, vol. 19, series P, Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Fonds, NSA.

102. 102. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 20 May 1873, Brown Fonds, NSA.

103. 103. Times (London), 4 June 1878, 4.

104. 104. Times, 1 June 1878, 6; The Law Reports: Appeal Cases before the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Also Peerage Cases, vol. 12 (London: Council for Law Reporting, 1887), 656.

105. 105. Nova Scotia, vol. 12, 391 (W. S. Symonds & Co., 21 May 1865, 30 September 1871), Dun & Co., BL; P. S. Hamilton, chief commissioner, Department of Mines, Mines Report, 12 December 1864, JHA (1865), appendix 6, 6.

106. 106. Times, 21 August 1871, 11; Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 8 September 1871, Brown Fonds, NSA.

107. 107. Times, 4 June 1878, 4.

108. 108. Times, 14 April 1871, 4; Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 13 July 1871, Brown Fonds, NSA.

109. 109. Times, 21 August 1871, 11.

110. 110. Concern over the potential exhaustion of domestic coal supplies emerged within Britain in the 1860s and 1870s, and by 1871, there was a “coal panic.” See Madureira, “Anxiety of Abundance,” 415.

111. 111. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 5 December 1871, Brown Fonds, NSA; Times, 11 January 1872, 5.

112. 112. Times, 3 April 1879, 12.

113. 113. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 6 May 1872, Brown Fonds, NSA.

114. 114. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 27 August 1872, Brown Fonds, NSA.

115. 115. Times, 7 March 1873, 11.

116. 116. Times, 14 March 1873, 7.

117. 117. Law Reports, 657; Times, 6 November 1873, 4.

118. 118. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 13 July 1871, Brown Fonds, NSA.

119. 119. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 8 September 1871, Brown Fonds, NSA.

120. 120. See Law Reports, 552–72.

121. 121. Times, 1 June 1878, 6.

122. 122. Richard Brown to R. H. Brown, 16 June 1872 and 11 February 1871, Brown Fonds, NSA.

123. 123. Belich, Replenishing the Earth, 200–206.

124. 124. McKay, “Crisis of Dependent Development,” 24.

125. 125. See, for instance, John Shaw to William C. McDonald, 25 March 1878, file 27, MG 9, William McDonald Fonds, BI, Cape Breton University, Sydney, NS; McKay, “Crisis of Dependent Development,” 35–41.

126. 126. Minutes of Evidence, Select Committee on “Coal and Inter-provincial Trade,” Robert Belloni, 16 March 1877, Sessional Papers, vol. 11 (1877), appendix 4; McKay, “Crisis of Dependent Development,” 23.

127. 127. See Acheson, “National Policy and the Industrialization,” 3–28.

128. 128. Darwin, Empire Project, 150 and 159.

129. 129. MacGillivray, “Henry Melville Whitney,” 54–56; Frank, “Cape Breton Coal Industry,” 5–13; Beckert, “American Danger,” 1137–70.

130. 130. See Harvey, Limits to Capital, 190–282.

131. 131. Pomeranz, Great Divergence; Wrigley, Energy and the English Industrial Revolution. See also Freese, Coal.

132. 132. See Forsey, “Economic and Social Aspects,” 133; Frank, J. B. McLachlan, 179–392; Frank, “Rise and Fall of the British Empire Steel Corporation,” 3–34; Schwartzman, “Mergers in the Nova Scotia Coalfields.”

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