Release date is 2025-12-11

Chris Hapka and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

Encovragements, for such as shall have intention to bee vnder-takers in the new…. by Lochinvar is a colonial promotional pamphlet written in the early 17th century. It seeks to rally Scottish support for a plantation on Cape Breton—renamed New Galloway in America—by blending religious zeal, service to crown and country, and promises of material gain. The likely topic is the case for settling and exploiting New Galloway, including its geography, resources, inhabitants, and the terms offered to prospective settlers.

The text opens with an appeal to biblical and classical precedents for colonization, then sets out three motives: spreading the Gospel, enlarging the realm and disciplining idleness at home, and securing private profit. It defends the legality and morality of settlement and conversion, praises active nation-building, and counters fears about danger, climate, and soil. A detailed survey follows: the island’s location, harbors, rivers, temperate climate, and abundant resources—especially fisheries, but also timber, pitch and tar, sassafras, vines, dyes, furs, grains (maize, beans), tobacco, fruits, roots, game, and fowl—along with an “easy” Atlantic passage. The inhabitants are portrayed as few and lightly armed. The pamphlet then lists concrete “Offers”: free passage and initial support for ministers; an oath of allegiance and religious conformity; free transport, land grants, and a three-year rent holiday for undertakers; terms for tenants; incentives for artisans; compensation guarantees; and a rent set as one-thirteenth of produce in kind. It closes with an urgent exhortation to the gentry to relieve debt, provide for younger children, and win lasting honor by embracing the plantation. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Edinburgh: Iohn Wreittoun, 1625