That was the question that confronted many residents of Queens County when word came down that the American colonies were attempting to break away from the British Empire in 1775.

 It was a delicate subject. After all, so many of the county's citizens were intimately connected with the New England region in one capacity or another. Many, such as militia colonel Simeon Perkins, had immigrated from the states, whether it was Massachusetts, Connecticut or elsewhere.

 An equally impressive number did regular shipping trade with the major ports, such as Boston and Portland. Without the constant exchange of goods between the two regions, would it be possible for the fledgling community at Liverpool, barely a decade in age, to survive?

 And almost from the outbreak of the conflict, it was clear that the American Revolution was dividing loyalties - not just in the New England colonies, but in Nova Scotia as well.

 William Smith, a merchant in Halifax who was serving as the county member in government, was one of those who overtly made clear his support for the Americans in the revolution.

 Smith even went so far as to attempt to rally support for the American cause by holding a meeting at Robert Slocomb's house in Liverpool. The meeting did, indeed, attract a large number of interested people, but for his efforts Smith was ultimately discharged of his government offices and sent packing back to New England.

 Worse yet, the Smith incident was far from the only time a member of the Liverpool community had caused problems for the community.

 In 1776, Benjamin Cole, who had been one of the original proprietors of the town, led a raiding party, subduing the sentry at the fort on the point and taking a handful of prisoners there before marching into the centre of town with the intent of robbing the community's storehouses.

 Fortunately, having gotten word of the coup, Col. Simeon Perkins organized an ambush and was able not only to capture Cole, but to rally the wary townsfolk. Cole tried to broker a deal - an exchange of prisoners and a limited amount of goods in exchange for sparing the town - but Perkins and the residents of Liverpool would settle for no terms.

 The militia were ultimately able to resecure the fort with no bloodshed, sending the raiders and Mr. Cole on their way.

 But Col. Perkins, himself, was among those who lost much to the plundering American privateers early in the war.

 On October 16, 1776, after having already lost three cargoes to attacks, Perkins' stake in the schooner Betsy evaporated when the vessel, which was loaded with fish, boards and staves and being prepared for departure to Halifax, disappeared from its dockside mooring under the cover of darkness.

 The cargo was valued at more than £110.

 Perkins indicated in his daily writings that Capt. Nathaniel Stewart had gone on board the vessel under the guise of getting some bedrest around 8 p.m. the previous evening, but that in the light of the new morning both the Betsy and Capt. Stewart were gone.

 To compound matters further, the following Wednesday Perkins also lost a cargo of hay at the hands of privateers, which was thrown overboard south of Liverpool.

 The mid-1770s did, indeed, present troubling times for the people of Queens County. It seemed that the increasingly dangerous waters along the South Shore were taking their toll on everyone from Port Joli to Port Medway.

 Among the more troublesome of American privateers operating off Nova Scotia during the American Revolution were a handful of Leaches.

 First, there was John Leach, who wrought havoc in 1777.

 On the seventh day of July that year, John Leach was able to capture the brig Rising Sun, belonging to Malachy Salter. The vessel had been bound for Halifax and was carrying a valuable cargo when she was captured by Leach's ship, the Dolphin, two leagues east of Liverpool.

 Leach, who hailed from Salem, struck again six days later on July 13. That day, he captured a vessel under command of Capt. Ira Pride near Port Roseway. The ship had been loaded with barrel staves and some dry goods.

 For his trouble, Capt. Pride was put off his ship in a longboat, and had to make the long journey back to port with only the power of oars.

 Amazingly, days later, still rowing his longboat toward home, Pride spied Capt. Leach on the horizon once again. This time, Leach - now in the vicinity of Ragged Island - appeared to have pulled up alongside a schooner. Though Capt. Pride couldn't identify the victimized vessel, he made a note of it and reported it upon his return to Liverpool.

 Sure enough, on the 20th of July, Capt. Hugh Paynter arrived in Liverpool from Bermuda and reported that his vessel had been boarded by Leach near Ragged Island and plundered of a full cargo of rum, salt and molasses.

 But John Leach was but the first of three Leaches to cruise the Nova Scotia coast during the protracted war.

 The following year, in October of 1778, two vessels, one of them the Lizard under command of Capt. Blackler, the other the Enterprise under the command of Joseph Leach, were spotted near Port Mouton.

 Shortly after being spotted, word reached shore that they had seized a schooner near the port, and that they were last seen on course for Ragged Island.

 Back in Liverpool, aware of the possibility that the pair might make an effort to ransack the town, Col. Perkins ordered that all available arms in the community be made ready. The fort had been reinforced with an additional 20-man garrison since Benjamin Cole had attempted his raid in 1776, but there was no way of knowing what Joseph Leach and his partner, Blackler, might be capable of.

 As anticipated, the Lizard and Enterprise were soon spotted at the mouth of the harbour. The captains sent word that the town would be spared if they conceded to pay a ransom in goods, specifically, sugar and rum.

 Unwilling to plunder his own stores to save the community, Col. Perkins returned a message stating that the captains were welcome to any provisions they needed - provided they paid for them.

 Leach, evidently turned off by the defiance of the community, removed himself from the area, while Blackler made arrangements for a small acquisition before departing the area as well. Once again, while ships on the coastal waters were open to assault, the town of Liverpool had avoided a potential catastrophe, thanks in no small part to its readied militia.

 The third reference to a Capt. Leach comes from the Perkins diaries of 1780 when, in April of that year, another Leach - this one supposedly from Marble Head - captured a vessel owned by one John Hopkins Jr.

 Following the seizure, Leach and two of his privateering comrades were reported to be skulking in the waters off Port Mouton once again, harassing businesses and plotting assaults on Liverpool, none of which ever materialized.

 While things may have seemed rather chaotic along the coast, Nova Scotians were far from defenceless against the threats of assault from privateering Americans, and many residents of Queens County, in particular, took up privateering of their own as a way of restoring some of their wealth lost at the hands of their southern neighbours.

 In 1777, British Parliament granted permission for merchant vessels in Nova Scotia to begin lawfully arming themselves in order to protect their cargo from any raiders, and they also agreed to permit restricted privateering by loyal British vessels, provided that any captured ships or cargoes be claimed within the stated rules of warfare.

 Prize vessels, when captured, were to be catalogued by the Court of Admiralty and sold, with a portion of the proceeds going to the entrepreneurial souls who had captured the vessel. As a result, many Liverpool vessel owners applied for Letters of Marque to recoup some of the losses they had sustained during the early years of the conflict.

 Joseph Barss, in command of the privateer Despatch, was one of the first to make a major privateering score in the name of Liverpool. Capt. Barss was able to secure an unknown brigantine off the coast. Upon bringing the vessel into port, Barss and local administrators learned that the brigantine was actually the Diane, a British ship that now had returned to British hands.

 The local observer for the Admiralty, William Johnson, agreed that the perishable foods among the cargo - including a store of ham, cheese and flour - could be landed immediately and sold as part of the prize.

 The Court of Admiralty eventually concluded that the rightful owners of the Diane, McGill & Co. in Halifax, could salvage the vessel by paying a fee of one-eighth the value of the cargo. They agreed to the terms and the warship Delaware escorted the Diane back to Halifax.

 Unfortunately for Capt. Barss, when the Diane landed, observers for McGill & Co. claimed that a portion of the cargo had been plundered, and a bit of research revealed that it had happened after the Diane had been returned to Liverpool.

 Capt. Barss took the blame for the missing cargo and as a penalty he was forced to forfeit his Letter of Marque.

 Also successful was the schooner Dreadnaught, under command of Capt. Ephraim Dean. The Dreadnaught captured herself a number of American prizes but, like Capt. Barss, Capt. Dean often found himself tied up in legal matters.

 In one case, after securing a sloop commanded by John Humphrey, Dean claimed the cargo on board the ship, but released the vessel; the gesture in releasing the captured ship ended up causing Dean more trouble than he must have anticipated, as the owners of the vessel brought their case before the Court of Admiralty seeking repayment for the cargo Dean had taken.

 In another similar case, after the Dreadnaught had managed to secure a brigantine named Union, a complaint was brought before the Admiralty, but in that instance, they ruled that Capt. Dean was entitled to one-eighth the value of the vessel.

 The first, and probably the most famous, of the Liverpool privateers from the Revolutionary War, however, was the Lucy.

 The Lucy first set out on January 5, 1780, with a crew of 28 in total, including three of its owners, Mr. Tinkham, Capt. Collins and Mr. McDonald. Two months later, on February 5, the Lucy returned to Liverpool with a pair of prizes, the Sally and the Little Joe. The cargo and the two vessels were auctioned off the following month, on March 8. Accommodations were made for the crews of the two captured ships, and they were held as pseudo-prisoners.

 On March 16, less than a week later, and just over two months into her privateering career, the Lucy captured a sloop near Tennant Harbour, fully loaded with a cargo of rum, molasses, sugar, cotton, coffee and other goods from the West Indies that Col. Perkins assessed to be worth more than £2,000.

 While the American Revolution presented many problems for the people of Liverpool - divided loyalties between New England and the British Empire, constant threats to supply lines and shipping routes - the trying nature of the conflict also helped to forge an identity for the people of Queens County, even in its early days.

 The very fact that the stories of those first privateering days are still remembered and celebrated more than two centuries later is a credit to just how important those adventures were in defining the region.

 Sources: "Diary of Simeon Perkins, 1780-1789," published by The Champlain Society; More, James F., "The History of Queens County"; "Diary of Simeon Perkins, 1760-1780," published by The Champlain Society.

Written and researched by Patrick Hirtle.