The American Revolution (1775–1783) had a significant impact on shaping Nova Scotia. At the beginning, there was ambivalence in Nova Scotia, "the 14th American Colony" as some called it, over whether the colony should join the Americans in the war against Britain and rebellion flared at the Battle of Fort Cumberland and the Siege of Saint John (1777). Throughout the war, American privateers devastated the maritime economy by capturing ships and looting almost every community outside of Halifax. These American raids alienated many sympathetic or neutral Nova Scotians into supporting the British. By the end of the war a number of Nova Scotian privateers were outfitted to attack American shipping.British troops from Nova Scotia helped evacuate approximately 30,000 United Empire Loyalists (American Tories), who settled in Nova Scotia, with land grants by the Crown as some compensation for their losses. Of these, 14,000 went to present-day New Brunswick and in response the mainland portion of the Nova Scotia colony was separated and became the province of New Brunswick with Sir Thomas Carleton the first governor on August 16, 1784.[28] Loyalist settlements also led Cape Breton Island to become a separate colony in 1784, only to be returned to Nova Scotia in 1820.The Loyalists exodus created new communities across Nova Scotia, including Shelburne, which was briefly one of the larger British settlements in North America, and infused the province…