The glorious city that never was

MARQ DE VILLIERS

LOYALISTS AND LAYABOUTSThe Rapid Rise and Faster Fall of Shelburne, Nova Scotia 1783-1792By Stephen KimberDoubleday Canada,335 pages, $34.95Some years ago, I published a book in which Shelburne, N.S., played something of a bit part. So hard was I on the town that I felt the need to apologize, sort of, in an author's note, which rather cravenly suggested that the town was now a much more agreeable place than it was at its beginning, with a "population friendlier and much less fractious than appears in this book." Craven because I rather like going to Shelburne (it has at least one rather good restaurant, and is a pretty and photogenic little place) and didn't want to turn the townsfolk surly. The town had "started badly, but finished rather well," I wrote.