The word pace in 𝓟 is undoubtedly a scribal slip, perhaps the result of scribe 2 of 𝓟 having just written the word peace (“and peace did remain for the space of about four years”). Clearly, pace is an error and can be ignored. Oliver Cowdery twice made the same slip in 𝓟, but in both cases he caught his error:
A more significant textual issue here in Mormon 1:12 is whether the verb in the original text read was or were for the clause “there was /were no bloodshed”. 𝓟 has the singular was while the 1830 edition has the plural were. For the 1837 edition, the 1830 were was replaced by the expected was. The question here is how often did scribe 2 of 𝓟 write was instead of the correct were in comparison to how often the 1830 compositor set were instead of the correct was. There are a few instances in the early transmission of the text where “there was ” was changed to “there were ”, but none of these errors involve either scribe 2 of 𝓟 or the 1830 compositor. There is one example where Joseph Smith accidentally made the change in his editing for the 1837 edition, but only momentarily (virtually immediately he restored the original was):
Oliver Cowdery made the change much more frequently in his manuscript work (namely, in 3 Nephi 1:29, 3 Nephi 4:2, 3 Nephi 7:4, 3 Nephi 8:11, and 3 Nephi 8:12), although in all five cases his error was only momentary. So one could argue for a general tendency to revise the text towards “there were”, which would suggest that the 1830 compositor was responsible for the variation here in Mormon 1:12. On the other hand, one could argue that scribe 2 of 𝓟 made the change under the influence of the earlier instance of was in this verse (“there was peace settled in the land”).
Textually, both “there was no ” and “there were no ” occur in the earliest text. The expected singular was dominates (with at least 36 instances), but there are two with were in the earliest text:
Here we exclude two instances of subjunctive were:
Since was is the expected reading, it seems more reasonable to assume that the original manuscript read were and that scribe 2 of 𝓟 made the change to the expected was. The critical text will therefore accept the 1830 reading (“there were no bloodshed”), a textually possible reading despite its difficulty for modern readers.
David Calabro (personal communication) suggests another possibility here: namely, the singular form bloodshed is an error for bloodsheds. As explained under 2 Nephi 10:6, there are seven instances of plural bloodsheds in the original text, and three of them have been changed to the singular bloodshed in the LDS text. Perhaps here in Mormon 1:12 the original text read grammatically as “there were no bloodsheds” but Oliver Cowdery omitted the plural s when he took down Joseph Smith’s dictation, giving “there were no bloodshed” in 𝓞 (and thus leading scribe 2 of 𝓟 to change the were to was ). One problem with this proposed emendation is that all original seven instances of the plural bloodsheds in the Book of Mormon text are immediately conjoined with another plural noun, such as visitations, earthquakes, pestilences, wars, and contentions. Elsewhere in the text, there are ten instances of the singular bloodshed that are not conjoined with another noun, including one more that uses the existential there: “insomuch that there was much bloodshed” (Helaman 4:1). In other words, the plural bloodsheds never occurs alone in the text. Thus it seems unlikely that the original text here in Mormon 1:12 had a plural bloodsheds.
Summary: Restore the difficult 1830 reading in Mormon 1:12: “there were no bloodshed”; there is some evidence for the use of were in existential statements like this one in the earliest Book of Mormon text; scribe 2 of 𝓟 seems to have made the change to the expected was when he copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟.