Document Signed ‘S.S.Blowers, Chief Justice’, certifying the enrolment of John Duncan Archibald as an Attorney of His Majesty’s Supreme Court of Judicature for Nova Scotia

Halifax, 18 April 1826. Vellum, 12 x 6½ inches, wafer seal affixed, vertical folds, in good condition. Sampson Salter Blowers (1742 –1842), noted North American lawyer and jurist. He was educated in Boston and at Harvard College, then went on to study law. Blowers is probably most noted as one of the defence attorneys representing the soldiers accused after the Boston Massacre, along with such notables as John Adams and Josiah Quincy Jr. In 1783, he went to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The following year, he was appointed attorney general for New Brunswick but refused the post, not wanting to relocate his family. Later that year, he was named attorney general for Nova Scotia. In 1785, he was elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly for Halifax County and was chosen to be speaker for the assembly. In 1788, he was named to Nova Scotia's Council. In his later years, he served as Chief Justice of Nova Scotia for 36 years, from 1797 to 1832. Blowers was also judge in the vice admiralty court from 1821 to 1833. Because Blowers put the onus on slave owners to prove that they had a legal right to purchase slaves, slavery died out in Nova Scotia early in the 19th century. John Duncan Archibald (1804-1830) of Truro, Nova Scotia, son of Samuel George William Archibald (1777 - 1846), Master of the Rolls.