History of Prince Edward Island
by Duncan Campbell · English · Gutenberg #35835 · 475,619 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: History of Prince Edward Island
Author: Duncan Campbell
Release date: April 14, 2011 [eBook #35835]
Most recently updated: September 19, 2011
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND ***
Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net
HISTORY
OF
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
By DUNCAN CAMPBELL,
AUTHOR OF A
"HISTORY OF NOVA SCOTIA," ETC.
CHARLOTTETOWN:
BREMNER BROTHERS, 44 QUEEN STREET.
1875.
Entered according to Act of Parliament, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and seventy-five, by Duncan Campbell, in the
office of the Minister of Agriculture and Statistics of the
Dominion of Canada.
PREFACE.
The principal aim of the Author has been to produce a History of Prince
Edward Island, which might claim some degree of merit as to conciseness,
accuracy, and impartiality, from the period it became a British
possession until its recent union with the other confederated provinces
of British North America. With the view to secure these ends, it was
necessary that not only all available books and pamphlets relating to
the island should be attentively perused, and the correctness of their
statements tested; but that a vast mass of original papers, hitherto
unpublished, should be carefully examined. Application having been made
to His Excellency Lord Dufferin, through Sir Robert Hodgson, the
Lieutenant-governor of the island, permission was granted to examine all
the numerical despatches. This task imposed an amount of labor which had
not been anticipated, and which seemed incompatible with the production
of so small a volume. The Author is aware that there lies in the French
archives at Paris a large deposit of interesting matter bearing on the
history of the Maritime Provinces, and it is to be hoped that it will
soon be rendered accessible to the English reader.
It was necessary that a considerable portion of the work should deal
with the Land Question. To its consideration the Author came in
comparative ignorance of the entire subject, and therefore unprejudiced
by ideas and associations of which it might be impossible for a native
of the island entirely to divest himself. The soundness of the
conclusions arrived at may be questioned; but it can be truly said that
they have not been reached without deliberate consideration, and an
anxious desire to arrive at the truth.
The Author desires to express his special obligations for valuable
matter to His Honor Sir Robert Hodgson, the Honorable Judge Pope,
Professor Caven, Mr. Henry Lawson, the Honorable Judge Hensley, the
Honorable Mr. Haviland, Mr. John Ings, Hon. Francis Longworth, Mr. J. B.
Cooper, Mr. Arthur DeW. Haszard, Mr. Donald Currie, the Reverend Mr.
McNeill, Mr. T. B. Aitkins, of Halifax, Mr. John Ball, Mr. F. W. Hughes,
the Reverend Dr. Jenkins, Mr. Charles DesBrisay, Mr. J. W. Morrison, and
others too numerous to mention.
The Honorable Judge Pope possesses rare and most important documents
connected with the island, without which it would have been impossible
to produce a satisfactory narrative, and which he at once courteously
placed at the temporary disposal of the Author, rendering further
service by the remarkable extent and accuracy of his information.
The Author has also to thank the People of Prince Edward Island,
especially, for the confidence reposed in him, as proved by the fact of
his having received, in the course of a few weeks, orders for his then
unpublished work to the number of more than two thousand seven hundred
copies,--confidence which he hopes an unprejudiced perusal of the book
may, to some extent, justify.
Charlottetown, October, 1875.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Geographical position of the Island--Early possession--Population
in 1758--Cession by Treaty of Fontainebleau--Survey of Captain
Holland--Holland's description of the Island--Position of Town
sites--Climate--The Earl of Egmont's scheme of settlement--Proposed
division of the Island--Memorials of Egmont--Decision of the
British Government respecting Egmont's Scheme
CHAPTER II.
Determination of the Home Government to dispose of the whole
Island--The manner in which it was effected--Conditions on which
grants were made--Appointment of Walter Patterson as
Governor--Novel duties imposed on him--Callbeck made prisoner by
Americans--Arrival of Hessian Troops--Sale of Land in
1781--Agitation in consequence--Complaints against the Governor,
and his tactics in defence--Governor superceded, and Colonel
Fanning appointed--Disputes between them--Charges of immorality
against Patterson--His departure from the Island
CHAPTER III.
Proprietors indifferent to their engagements--Extent to which
settlement was effected--Complaints of the People of
nonfulfilment of engagements--Character of the Reply--The
influence of the Proprietors with the Home Government--The Duke
of Kent--Proposal in 1780 to name the Island New Ireland--The name
adopted--Formation of Light Infantry and Volunteer
Horse--Immigration of Highlanders--Memoir of General Fanning
CHAPTER IV.
Colonel F. W. DesBarres, successor to General Fanning--His
character as a Governor--Succeeded by Charles Douglas Smith--His
character as displayed in his opening address--Proclamation of
immunity from Proprietory conditions--Oppressive measures in
regard to Quitrents--John McGregor, Sheriff--Public meetings
called in the Counties--Tyranny of the Governor exposed--Arrival
of Colonel Ready, and departure of Smith
CHAPTER V.
Governor Ready desires to govern constitutionally--Energetic
legislation--George Wright, Administrator--Change in the mode of
paying Customhouse Officials--Fire in Miramichi--Petitions of
Roman Catholics to be relieved from civil
disabilities--Proceedings of the Assembly touching the
question--Dispute between the Council and Assembly--Catholic
Emancipation--The Agricultural Society--Death of George the
Fourth--Cobbett on Prince Edward Island--Colonel Ready succeeded
by A. W. Young--The Census--Death of Governor Young--Biographical
Sketch of him
CHAPTER VI.
George Wright, Administrator--Court of Escheat refused--Central
Academy--Severe Frost in September--Death of William the
Fourth--Educational Condition of the Island--Forcible Resistance
to Rent-paying--Rebellion in Canada--Able Report of Committee of
Legislature on Land Question--The Coronation of Queen
Victoria--Mechanics' Institute formed--Lord Durham on Land
Question--The formation of an Executive, separate from a
Legislative Council ordered--Mr. Cooper a delegate to London
CHAPTER VII.
Marriage of the Queen--Education in 1842--Foundation-stone of the
Colonial Building laid--The Governor withdraws his patronage from
Public Institutions--Dispute between the Governor and Mr.
Pope--Election disturbances in Belfast--The Currency
Question--Responsible Government discussed--Governor Huntley
succeeded by Sir Donald Campbell--Earl Grey's reason for
withholding Responsible Government--The death of Sir Donald
Campbell--Ambrose Lane, Administrator--Sir A. Bannerman,
Governor--Responsible Government introduced--Temperance
movement--The loss of the "Fairy Queen"--Dissolution of the
Assembly--Governor Bannerman succeeded by Dominick Daly--The
Worrell Estate bought by the Government--J. Henry Haszard
perishes in the Ice Boat--Census of 1855--A loan wanted--The
Imperial Guaranty promised, but not given--Resolutions praying
for a Commission on the Land Question--Charles Young,
Administrator--Biographical Sketch of Bishop McDonald--Death of
James Peake
CHAPTER VIII.
Arrival of the Prince of Wales--His Reception--The British
Colonial Secretary expresses satisfaction with the Assembly's
proceedings in regard to the Land Commission--The Report of the
Commissioners--Its cardinal points presented--Their views with
regard to Escheat and other subjects--The case of the Loyalists
and Indians. Remarks on the Commissioners' Report: its merits
and its defects. The evils incident to the Land Question
fundamentally attributable to the Home Government--The Immigrants
deceived--The misery consequent on such deception--The burden of
correction laid on the wrong shoulders--Volunteer
Companies--General Census--Death of Prince Albert--The Duke of
Newcastle and the Commissioners' Report
CHAPTER IX.
Bill to make the Legislative Council elective--Change of
Government--Address to the Queen, craving to give effect to the
Commissioners' Award--A Review of recent Proceedings in regard to
the Land Question--The Assembly willing to meet the views of
Proprietors in regard to the appointment of Commissioners--The
Assembly and the Commissioners right, and the Colonial Secretary
wrong--The Reason why given--The rejection of the Award
unreasonable--Delegates sent to England on the Land Question--The
Result
CHAPTER X.
James C. Pope and the Railway--Assimilation of the
Currency--Confederation--Conference in Charlottetown--Speeches of
Edward Whelan and T. H. Haviland--Opposition to
Confederation--Resolutions in the Assembly--Offer of Terms to J.
C. Pope--Further Proceedings--The Question of Confederation
Resumed--Delegations to Ottawa--Messrs. Haythorne and
Laird--Messrs. Pope, Haviland, and Howlan--Final Settlement of the
Question
CHAPTER XI.
Biographical Sketches:--Bishop McEachern--Rev. Donald
McDonald--Rev. Dr. Kier--Hon. T. H. Haviland--Hon. E. Whelan--Hon.
James Yeo--Hon. George Coles--James D. Haszard
CHAPTER XII.
Commercial Statistics--Imports--Exports--Revenue--Government
Policy--Fisheries--Education--Manufactures--Charlottetown--Census of
1798
HISTORY OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.
CHAPTER I.
Geographical position of the Island--Early possession--Population
in 1758--Cession by Treaty of Fontainebleau--Survey of Captain
Holland--Holland's description of the Island--Position of Town
sites--Climate--The Earl of Egmont's scheme of settlement--Proposed
division of the Island--Memorials of Egmont--Decision of the
British Government respecting Egmont's Scheme.
Prince Edward Island is situated in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It
lies between 46 deg. and 47 deg. 7' north latitude, and 62 deg. and
64 deg. 27' longitude west, from Greenwich. As viewed from the
north-east, it presents the form of a crescent. Its length, in a
course through the centre of the Island, is about one hundred and
forty miles, and its breadth, in the widest part, which is from
Beacon Point to East Point, towards its eastern extremity,
thirty-four miles. It is separated from Nova Scotia by the Strait of
Northumberland, which is only nine miles broad between Cape Traverse
and Cape Tormentine. From the Island of Cape Breton it is distant
twenty-seven miles, and from the nearest point of Newfoundland one
hundred and twenty-five miles.
The Island was amongst the first discoveries of the celebrated
navigator, Cabot, who named it Saint John, as indicative of the day of
its discovery. Britain failing to lay claim to it, the French afterwards
assumed it as part of the discoveries made by Verazani in 1523. In 1663
it was granted, with other Islands, by the Company of New France, to the
Sieur Doublet, a captain in the French navy, with whom were associated
two adventurers who established a few fishing stations, but who did not
reside permanently on the island.
In the year 1713 Anne, the Queen of Great Britain, and Louis XIV, the
King of France, concluded the celebrated treaty of Utrecht, by which
Acadia and Newfoundland were ceded to Great Britain. The fourteenth
article of that treaty provided that the French inhabitants of the ceded
territory should be at liberty to remove within a year to any other
place. Many of the Acadians, availing themselves of this liberty,
removed to the Island of Saint John, which was then under French rule.
Subsequently a French officer, who received his instructions from the
Governor of Cape Breton, resided with a garrison of sixty men at Port la
Joie (Charlottetown).
A Frenchman who had visited the island in 1752 published an account of
it shortly afterwards. His report as to the fertility of the soil, the
quantity of game, and the productiveness of the fishery was extremely
favorable, and he expressed astonishment that with these advantages the
island should not have been more densely populated--its inhabitants
numbering only 1354.
The great fortress of Louisburg fell in 1745, but was restored to the
French in 1748. War was again declared by Britain against France in
1756, and in 1758 Louisburg again fell under the leadership of the
gallant Wolfe. After the reduction of the fortress several war ships
were detached to seize on the Island of Saint John; an object which was
effected without difficulty. Mr. McGregor, in his account of the island,
says that the population was stated to be at this time ten thousand, but
an old Acadian living when he wrote informed him that it could not have
exceeded six thousand. A little over four thousand seems to have been
the number of inhabitants at this period. [A] The expulsion of the
Acadians from Nova Scotia took place in 1755, and many of them having
escaped to the island in that year, its population must have been nearly
doubled by the influx of fugitives.
The fall of Quebec followed that of Louisburg, and by the treaty of
Fontainebleau, in 1763, Cape Breton, the Island of Saint John, and
Canada were formally ceded to Great Britain, Cape Breton and the Island
of Saint John being placed under the Government of Nova Scotia.
In the year 1764 the British Government resolved to have a survey of
North America executed, and with that view the continent was divided
into two districts,--a northern and southern,--and a Surveyor General
appointed for each, to act under instructions from the Lords'
Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. Captain Samuel Holland was
appointed to superintend the survey of the northern district, which
comprehended all the territory in North America "lying to the north of
the Potowmack River, and of a line drawn due west from the head of the
main branch of that river as far as His Majesty's dominions extend."
Captain Holland received his commission in March, and was instructed to
proceed immediately to Quebec, in order to make arrangements for the
survey. He was instructed to begin with the Island of Saint John. The
government vessel in which Captain Holland had left sighted the Island
of Cape Breton on the eleventh of July, 1764. A thick fog having come
on, the vessel had approached too near to the land, when the crew heard
a musket shot, and the alarming cry of breakers ahead, which had
proceeded from a fishing boat. The ship barely escaped the rocks.
Contrary winds were subsequently encountered, and Captain Holland
resolved to proceed in a rowing boat to Quebec. He accordingly left the
ship on the nineteenth of July, and arrived in Quebec on the second of
August. In Quebec Captain Holland met Captain Dean, of the _Mermaid_,
who had visited the Island of Saint John during the summer, and who
advised him to take "all sorts of material and provisions with him, as
there was nothing left on the island but a detachment posted at Fort
Amherst, who were indifferently provided, and could not furnish himself
and his staff with lodgings." Captain Holland arrived on the island in
October, 1764. He describes Fort Amherst "as a poor stockaded redoubt,
with barracks scarcely sufficient to lodge the garrison,--the houses near
it having been pulled down to supply material to build it." "I am
obliged," he adds, "to build winter quarters for myself. I have chosen a
spot in the woods, near the sea shore, properly situated for making
astronomical observations, where I have put up an old frame of a barn,
which I have covered with what material I brought with me, and some
boards that we collected from the ruins of some old houses. I fear that
it will not be _too_ comfortable." The vessel in which Captain Holland
was conveyed to North America was called the _Canceaux_, and had been
fitted out by the government with the view of aiding him in his
professional operations; but on applying to Lieutenant Mowatt, her
commander, for boats and men, he was coolly told that such aid could
not--according to instructions--be granted. Having complained to Lord
Colville, then in command of the naval force in North America,
instructions were at once issued to Lieutenant Mowatt to give the
required assistance; and Governor Wilmot instructed Captain Hill, the
commanding officer on the island, to render all the assistance in his
power in forwarding the important service in which Captain Holland was
engaged.
In a letter addressed to the Earl of Hillsborough, Captain Holland
reports most favourably respecting the capabilities of the island. He
adds, "There are about thirty Acadian families on the island, who are
regarded as prisoners, and kept on the same footing as those at Halifax.
They are extremely poor, and maintain themselves by their industry in
gardening, fishing, fowling, &c. The few remaining houses in the
different parts of the island are very bad, and the quantity of cattle
is but very inconsiderable." At Saint Peter's, Captain Holland met an
old acquaintance, Lieutenant Burns, of the 45th Regiment, who had
removed with his family to the island, and had built a house and barn,
and of whom he writes to the Board of Trade very favorably.
The energy with which Captain Holland prosecuted the survey is
sufficiently proved by the fact that in October, 1765, he sent home by
Mr. Robinson, one of his deputies, plans of the island, as well as of
the Magdalen Islands; also, a description of the Island, from which we
shall quote copiously as conveying the impressions of an acute and
reliable observer.
"The soil," says Captain Holland, "on the south side of the island is a
reddish clay, though in many places it is sandy, particularly on the
north coast. From the East Point to Saint Peter's it is a greyish sand.
The woods upon this coast, from the East Point as far southward as
Hillsborough River, and to Bedford Bay on the west, were entirely
destroyed by fire about twenty-six years ago. It was so extremely
violent that all the fishing vessels at Saint Peter's and Morell River,
in Saint Peter's Bay, were burned. In many parts round the island is a
rough, steep coast, from forty to fifty feet high, in some places a
hundred, composed of strata of soft red stone, which, when exposed to
the air for some time, becomes harder, and is not unfit for building.
Wherever this sort of coast is, it diminishes considerably every year
upon the breaking up of the frost, which moulders away a great part of
it. It may probably be owing to this cause that the sea betwixt the
island and the Continent is frequently of a red hue, and for that reason
by many people called the red sea. The rivers are properly sea creeks,
the tide flowing up to the heads, where, generally, streams of fresh
water empty themselves. In most parts of the island the Sarsaparilla
Root is in great abundance, and very good. The Mountain Shrub and Maiden
Hair are also pretty common, of whose leaves and berries the Acadian
settlers frequently make a kind of tea. The ground is in general covered
with strawberries and cranberries, in their different seasons, which are
very good. In those places which have been settled, and are still
tolerably cleared, is very good grass, but a great part of the land
formerly cleared is so much overgrown with brush and small wood that it
would be extremely difficult to make it fit for the plough. It may be
proper to observe that very few houses mentioned in the explanation of
the Townships are good for anything, and by no means tenantable, except
one or two at Saint Peter's, kept in repair by the officers, and one
kept by myself at Observation Cove."
After describing the kinds of Timber to be found on the island, Captain
Holland proceeds to say: "Port la Joie (Charlottetown), Cardigan and
Richmond Bays are without dispute the only places where ships of burthen
can safely enter, and consequently most proper to erect the principal
towns and settlements upon. In point of fishing, Richmond Bay has much
the advantage of situation, the fish being in great plenty most part of
the year, and close to the harbour.
"The capital, to be called Charlottetown, is proposed to be built on a
point of the harbour of Port la Joie, betwixt York and Hillsborough
Rivers, as being one of the best and central parts of the island, and
having the advantage of an immediate and easy communication with the
interior parts by means of the three fine rivers of Hillsborough, York,
and Elliot. The ground designed for the town and fortifications is well
situated upon a regular ascent from the waterside. A fine rivulet will
run through the town. A battery or two some distance advanced will
entirely command the harbour, so that an enemy attempting to attack the
town cannot do so without great difficulty. Having passed the battery at
the entrance to the harbour, he must attempt a passage up Hillsborough
and York Rivers, the channels of both which are intricate; and the
entrance of the respective channels will be so near the town that a
passage must be attended with the greatest hazard. Should an enemy land
troops on either side the bay of Hillsborough, they must still have the
river of the same name on the east, or Elliot or York rivers on the west
to pass before they can effect anything of consequence.
"As this side of the Island cannot have a fishery, it may probably be
thought expedient to indulge it with some particular privileges; and as
all the judicial and civil, as well as a good part of the commercial
business will be transacted here, it will make it at least equally
flourishing with the other county towns.
"Georgetown is recommended to be built on the point of land called
Cardigan Point, there being a good harbour for ships of any burthen on
each side of Cardigan river on the north, or on Montague river on the
south side; but the latter--though a much narrower channel in coming
in--is preferable, as the bay for anchoring will be close by the town
immediately on entering the river, and going round the Goose Neck--a long
point of dry sand running half over the river and forming one side of
Albion Bay--the place of anchorage. On the Goose Neck may be a pier,
where goods may be shipped with great facility and convenience. The
place proposed is so situated as to be easily made secure, as well as
the entrance into the two respective harbours. There is a communication
inland by means of Cardigan, Brudenell, and Montague rivers, from the
top of which last to the source of Orwell river, is not quite ten miles;
and Orwell river, emptying itself into the great bay of Hillsborough,
makes a safe and short communication, both in winter and summer, betwixt
two of the county towns.
"Princetown is proposed to be built on a most convenient spot of ground
as well for fishery as fortification. The site is on a peninsula, having
Darnley Basin on the northeast, which is a convenient harbour for small
vessels, and where they may lie all winter. The town will have
convenient ground for drying fish, and ships of burthen can anchor near
it in the bay. It can be fortified at little expense; some batteries and
small works erected along the shore would entirely secure it."
It is interesting to note what Captain Holland, writing upwards of a
century ago, says respecting the climate:--"The time of the setting in of
the frost in winter, and its breaking up in the spring, is very
uncertain. In general it is observed that about October there usually
begins to be frost morning and evening, which gradually increases in
severity till about the middle of December, when it becomes extremely
sharp. At this time north-west wind, with small sleet, seldom fails. In
a little time the rivers on the island are frozen up, and even the sea
some distance from land. The ice soon becomes safe to travel on, as it
is at least twenty-two to thirty inches thick. The snow upon the ground,
and in the woods, is often a surprising depth, and it is impossible to
travel except on snow-shoes. The Acadians now have recourse to little
cabins or huts in the woods, where they are screened from the violence
of the weather, and at the same time have the convenience of wood for
fuel. Here they live on the fish they have cured in the summer, and game
which they frequently kill, as hares and partridges, lynxes or wild
cats, otters, martins, or musk rats,--none of which they refuse to eat,
as necessity presses them. In the spring the rivers seldom break up till
April, and the snow is not entirely off the ground until the middle of
May. It ought to be observed that as Saint John is fortunately not
troubled with fogs, as are the neighboring Islands of Cape Breton and
Newfoundland, neither has it so settled and constant a climate as
Canada. Here are frequent changes of weather, as rain, snow, hail, and
hard frost."
On the completion of the survey of the Island of Saint John, Captain
Holland proceeded to prosecute that of Cape Breton. Here he had the
misfortune to lose his most efficient deputy, Lieutenant Haldiman, who
was drowned, by falling through the ice on the 16th of December, 1765.
He was a Lieutenant, on half pay, when Captain Holland engaged him,
having served since the age of fifteen in America. He was an excellent
mathematician, and quite an adept in making accurate astronomical
observations. This excellent young man perished in the twenty-fourth
year of his age. Whilst Captain Holland was busy on the Island of Saint
John, Haldiman was detached to superintend the survey of the Magdalen
Islands. In the report sent by Holland to the Board of Trade, from which
we have given extracts, was embodied Haldiman's account of the Magdalen
Islands, which is extremely interesting. We regret our space will not
permit its insertion.
In December, 1763, the Earl of Egmont, then first Lord of the Admiralty,
presented an elaborate memorial to the King, praying for a grant of the
whole Island of Saint John, to hold the same in fee of the Crown
forever, according to a tenure described in the said memorial. On the
supposition that the island contained two millions of acres,--for it had
not then been surveyed,--he proposed that the whole should be divided
into fifty parts of equal extent, to be designated _Hundreds_, as in
England, or _Baronies_, as in Ireland; forty of these to be granted to
as many men who should be styled Lords of Hundreds, and each of whom
should pay to the Earl, as Lord Paramount, twenty pounds sterling
yearly. On the property of the Earl--to whom, with his family of nine
children, ten hundreds were to be allotted--a strong castle was to be
erected, mounted with ten pieces of cannon, each carrying a ball of four
pounds, with a circuit round the castle of three miles every way. The
forty _Hundreds_ or _Baronies_ were to be divided into twenty manors of
two thousand acres each, which manors were to be entitled to a Court
Baron, according to the Common Law of England. The Lord of each
_Hundred_ was to set apart five hundred acres for the site of a
township, which township was to be divided into one hundred lots, of
five acres each, and the happy proprietors of five acres were each to
pay a yearly _free-farm_ rent of four shillings sterling to the Lord of
the Hundred. Each Hundred was to have a fair four times a year, and a
market twice in every week. There were also to be Courts Leet and Courts
Baron, under the direction of the Lord Paramount. A foot-note referring
to these Courts, attached by the framers of the memorial, indicates the
ideas which were entertained at this time in the old country respecting
protection to life and property in the North American Colonies. "These
courts--established by Alfred and others of our Saxon Princes, to
maintain order, and bring justice to every man's door--are obviously
essential for a small people, forming or formed into a small society in
the vast, impervious, and dangerous forests of America, intersected with
seas, bays, lakes, rivers, marshes, and mountains; without roads,
without inns or accommodations, locked up for half the year by snow and
intense frost, and where the settler can scarce straggle from his
habitation five hundred yards, even in times of peace, without risk of
being intercepted, scalped, and murdered."
To epitomise the proposal: there was to be a Lord Paramount of the whole
island, forty Capital Lords of forty Hundreds, four hundred Lords of
Manors, and eight hundred Freeholders. For assurance of the said
tenures, eight hundred thousand acres were to be set apart for
establishments for trade and commerce in the most suitable parts of the
island, including one county town, forty market towns, and four hundred
villages; each Hundred or Barony was to consist of somewhat less than
eight square miles, and the Lord of each was bound to erect and maintain
forever a castle or blockhouse as the capital seat of his property, and
as a place of retreat and rendezvous for the settlers; and thus, on any
alarm of sudden danger, every inhabitant might have a place of security
within four miles of his habitation. A cannon fired at one of the
castles would be heard at the next, and thus the firing would proceed in
regular order from castle to castle, and be the means, adds the noble
memorialist, "of putting every inhabitant of the whole island under arms
and in motion in the space of one quarter of an hour."
As we have already stated, Lord Egmont's memorial was presented in
December, 1763, and in January, 1764, it was backed by three different
communications, addressed to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, and
signed by thirty influential gentlemen, who were supposed--on account of
military or other services--to have claims on the government.
On the 13th February, 1764, a report was made on the memorial by the
Board of Trade, to which it had been referred by the King. The Board
reported that the scheme was calculated to answer the purposes of
defence and military discipline rather than to encourage those of
commerce and agriculture, and seemed totally and fundamentally adverse
in its principles to that system of settlement and tenure of property
which had of late years been adopted in the colonies, with so much
advantage to the interests of the kingdom; and they therefore could not
see sufficient reason to justify them in advising His Majesty to comply
with Lord Egmont's proposal.
In forming plans for the settlement of the American Colonies, the object
the Commissioners had principally in view was to advance and extend the
commerce and navigation of the kingdom, to preserve a due dependence in
the colonies on the mother country, and to secure to them the full
enjoyment of every civil and religious right, so that the colonists
might have just reason to value themselves on being British subjects. In
order to attain these objects, the Board had recommended such a mode of
granting lands as might encourage industry, which is the life and spirit
of commerce; and in the form of government, they recommended a
constitution for the colonies as nearly similar to that of Britain as
the nature of the case would permit. In adopting this policy they had
followed what appeared to have been almost the invariable practice of
Government ever since the surrender and revocation of those charters
which were formerly granted for the settlement of America; and the
effects could be best judged of by the present flourishing state of the
colonies, and the progress they had made in cultivation and commerce,
compared with their condition under those charters, which, though
granted to persons of rank and consequence, and accompanied by plans of
government,--the result of the study and reading of wise and learned
men,--yet, being founded in speculation more than in experience did, in
the event, not only disappoint the sanguine expectations of the
proprietors, but check and obstruct the settlement of the country.
The report pointed to the grant made to the Lords Proprietors of
Carolina, as a striking example of the inexpediency of such a plan of
settlement, little progress having been made in the execution of it till
the property, being reinvested in the crown, a new foundation was laid,
which resulted in prosperity and advancement. The report, of which we
have attempted to give a sketch, ended with the following words:--"We
have not thought proper to take the opinion of Your Majesty's servants
in the law upon the question whether Your Majesty can legally make the
grant desired by the Earl of Egmont, because we cannot think it
expedient, either in a political or commercial light, for Your Majesty
to comply with his Lordship's proposals; and as Your Majesty has been
pleased to annex the Island of Saint John to your Province of Nova
Scotia, we humbly recommend the settling it upon the plan and under the
regulations, approved of by Your Majesty for the settlement of that
province in general."
On receiving this reply to his memorial, the Earl addressed a second one
to the King, substantially the same as the former, to which no reply
seems to have been made. He accordingly had a third one drawn out and
presented, attaching the names of his co-adventurers, who had agreed to
assist his Lordship in the settlement of the island. The list included
four admirals, a large number of officers, and eight members of
parliament. This memorial, like the first, was referred to the Board of
Trade, who prepared a lengthened report in answer to it. The opening
passage was of such a nature as to make the memorialists imagine that
all desired was to be granted. "We are of opinion," said the Board, "it
may be highly conducive to the speedy cultivation of your Majesty's
American Dominions that the nobility and other persons of rank and
distinction in this country should take the lead, and show the example
in the undertaking and carrying into execution the settlement thereof,
and that all due encouragement should be given to officers of Your
Majesty's fleet and army, to whose distinguished bravery and conduct
this kingdom is so much indebted for the acquisitions made in the last
war." But this soothing paragraph was followed by others which blasted
the hopes of the ardent adventurers, by insisting on the distribution of
land on the island being made in conformity to those principles of
settlement, cultivation, and government which had been previously
adopted, and were founded on experience.
The King referred this report, and all the other papers, to a committee
of council, to whom Lord Egmont sent observations on the report, drawn
up with great ability, in which his former arguments were repeated, and
others adduced to strengthen them. These observations are pervaded by a
bitterness of expression which, in the circumstances, is pardonable. The
committee of council coincided in the views of the Board of Trade, and
on the 9th of May, 1764, came the climax to Lord Egmont's proposal, in
the form of a minute of council, embodying a report adverse to the
proposition of the Earl, and ordering that no grants be made of land in
the Island of Saint John upon any other principles than those comprised
in the reports of the Lords Commissioners of trade and plantations.
About the time of the arrival in London of Captain Holland's plans of
the island, the friends of Lord Egmont again mustered in great strength,
including officers of high rank in the naval and military service,
bankers, and merchants, and drew up a final memorial in behalf of his
Lordship's scheme, which closed with these words:--"That if at the end of
ten years any ill consequence should be found to have arisen therefrom,
upon an address to the two houses of parliament, His Majesty in council
might change the jurisdiction in such manner as experience of the use or
abuse might then dictate or demand." That Lord Egmont was sanguine as to
the success of this last appeal in his behalf, appears evident from a
manuscript letter now before us, addressed by him on the 8th October,
1765, to Captain Holland, in which he says:--"I think it proper to let
you know that a petition will be again presented to His Majesty in a few
days for a grant of the Island of Saint John, upon the very same plan as
that proposed before, which I have now reason to expect will meet with
better success than the former. The same persons very nearly will be
concerned, those only excluded who were drawn away by proposals and
grants elsewhere by the Board of Trade, in order if possible to defeat
my scheme. For yourself, you may be assured of your Hundred, as formerly
intended, if I have anything to do in the direction of the affair,--which
probably I shall have in the same mode and manner. Whether the grant may
be made before the arrival of the survey or not I cannot certainly say,
but we wait patiently for it, and hope it will be done accurately as to
Hundreds, Manors, Freehold Villages, Towns, and Capitals, that a
moment's time may not be lost afterwards in proceeding to draw the lots,
and then in proceeding to erect the Blockhouses of the Hundreds on a
determined spot, which is the very first work to be put in execution,
and agreed to be completed by all the chief adventurers within one
twelvemonth after the grant shall be obtained." This communication leads
to the conviction, that if the island had been then granted no time
would have been lost in erecting the strongholds referred to. It is
evident that the erections were intended to consist mainly of wood. The
adventurers were, for the most part, wealthy and influential, and under
their auspices thousands would have emigrated to the island. It were
vain to speculate as to the effect which would be produced if Egmont's
scheme had been put in execution. In looking over the list of those to
whom Hundreds were to be allotted, we find that of the forty persons
specified, thirty-two were military or naval officers,--men whose
profession did not, as a rule, fit them for the direction of the
settlement of a new colony. It is probable, however, that the expense to
which, at the outset, the forty Lords of Hundreds were to be put would
prompt them to take a more lively interest in their property than was
exhibited by the subsequent grantees. It is, however, possible that not
a few of the proposed lords intended to dispose of their property to the
highest bidder soon after the lots were drawn, and thus to avoid the
expense of the blockhouse erections, such a transference of interest
being allowable under the proposed original grant. That Egmont intended
to carry out his scheme in its integrity, there is no room to doubt. He
must have employed the highest legal ability to frame his memorials,
which are distinguished by a mastery of the ancient feudal tenures of
the kingdom, which elicited expressions of admiration from the
government. The pertinacity with which he urged his scheme showed that
he was not a man easily diverted from any settled purpose, and few
governments could have resisted the powerful influence he brought to
bear for the attainment of his object. There can be little doubt that
whatever might be the consequences of possession to the Lord Paramount
himself and his family of nine children, the destiny of the island would
have been far better in his keeping than in that of the men to whom it
was afterwards unfortunately committed. In order to conciliate Lord
Egmont, and make reparation to him for the trouble and expense to which
he had been put in urging his scheme, the Board of Trade, by a minute
dated the 5th of June, 1767, offered him any entire
parish,--comprehending about one hundred thousand acres,--which he might
select, but his lordship addressed a letter to the Board on the eleventh
of the same month declining to take the grant. [B]
CHAPTER II.
Determination of the Home Government to dispose of the whole
Island--The manner in which it was effected--Conditions on which
grants were made--Appointment of Walter Patterson as
Governor--Novel duties imposed on him--Callbeck made prisoner by
Americans--Arrival of Hessian Troops--Sale of Land in
1781--Agitation in consequence--Complaints against the Governor,
and his tactics in defence--Governor superceded, and Colonel
Fanning appointed--Disputes between them--Charges of immorality
against Patterson--His departure from the Island.
Although the government had resolutely opposed the scheme of settlement
proposed by Lord Egmont, yet it was disposed to divide the island among
persons who had claims on the ground of military or other public
services; and it was accordingly determined, in order to prevent
disputes, to make the various allotments by ballot. [C] The Board of
Trade and Plantations accordingly prepared certain conditions, under
which the various grants were to be made. On twenty-six specified lots
or townships a quitrent of six shillings on every hundred acres was
reserved, on twenty-nine lots four shillings, and on eleven lots two
shillings, payable annually on one half of the grant at the expiration
of five years, and on the whole at the expiration of ten years after the
date of the grants. A reservation of such parts of each lot as might
afterwards be found necessary for fortifications or public purposes, and
of a hundred acres for a church and glebe, and of fifty acres for a
schoolmaster, was made, five hundred feet from high-water mark being
reserved for the purpose of a free fishery. Deposits of gold, silver,
and coal were reserved for the Crown. It was stipulated that the grantee
of each township should settle the same within ten years from the date
of the grant, in the proportion of one person for every two hundred
acres; that such settlers should be European foreign protestants, or
such persons as had resided in British North America for two years
previous to the date of the grant; and, finally, that if one-third of
the land was not so settled within four years from the date of the
grant, the whole should be forfeited. Thus the whole island was, in
1767, disposed of in one day, with the exception of lot sixty-six,
reserved for the King, and lots forty and fifty-nine,--which had been
promised to Messrs. Spence, Muir, and Cathcart, and Messrs. Mill,
Cathcart, and Higgens, by the government, in 1764, in consideration of
their having established fisheries, and made improvements on the island,
[D]--and three small reservations, intended for three county towns. A
mandamus addressed to the Governor of Nova Scotia, the island being now
annexed to that province, was handed to each of the proprietors,
instructing the governor to issue the respective grants, on the
conditions specified. In the following year, 1768, a large majority of
the proprietors presented a petition to the King, praying that the
island should be erected into a separate government; that the quitrents
which would become payable, according to stipulation, in 1772, should
become payable from the first of May, 1769, and that the payment of the
remaining half should be deferred for the period of twenty years. This
proposition was accepted by the government, and accordingly Captain
Walter Patterson, one of the island proprietors, was appointed governor.
He, accompanied by other officers, arrived on the island in 1770, at
which period, notwithstanding the conditions of settlement attached to
the land grants, there were only one hundred and fifty families and five
proprietors residing on it. It was calculated by the government that the
quitrents would amount in the aggregate to fourteen hundred and seventy
pounds sterling. The governor was instructed to pay out of that fund the
following annual salaries, in sterling currency: to himself, as
governor, five hundred pounds, to the secretary and registrar, one
hundred and fifty pounds, to the chief justice, two hundred pounds, to
the attorney general, one hundred pounds, to the clerk of the crown and
coroner, eighty pounds, to the provost marshal, fifty pounds, and to a
minister of the Church of England, one hundred pounds. This arrangement
was to remain in force not more than ten years, and in the event of the
quitrents falling short, from any cause, of the required sum, the
salaries were to be diminished in proportion.
The governor was required to perform other duties, which were grossly
unjust, and in some cases beyond human capability. He was, for example,
enjoined by the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh articles of his
instructions to permit "liberty of conscience to all persons (except
Roman catholics), so they be contented with a quiet and peaceable
enjoyment of the same, not giving offence and scandal to the
government," and he was also "to take especial care that God Almighty
should be devoutly and duly served throughout his government." No
schoolmaster, coming from England, was permitted to teach without a
license from the Bishop of London; and it was assumed in his
instructions that all Christians, save those connected with the Church
of England, were heterodox. Some denominations were, indeed,
_tolerated_; but in conformity to the bigoted British policy of the
times, Roman catholics were not permitted to settle on the island. This
sectarian policy has borne bitter fruit in Ireland, in the alienation of
a great mass of the Irish people. So deeply has alienation struck its
roots, and so widely spread are its branches, that, notwithstanding
catholic emancipation, its effects are still painfully visible, not only
in Ireland, but also in the masses of the Irish people located in the
United States, as strikingly evinced in the election of the late John
Mitchell, for Tipperary, and in the honors which have been paid to his
memory in the States. More than one generation will pass away ere the
evil effects of unjust anti-catholic legislation are totally obliterated
from the continent of America.
The little progress made in the settlement of the island, from the time
it was granted until the year 1779, is indicated by the fact that no
step had been taken to introduce settlers into all the lots, ranging
from one to sixteen, besides other thirty-three which were in the same
condition. Thus, although more than ten years had elapsed since the
ballot took place, in scarcely a score of lots was there any attempt
made to conform to the conditions attached to the sixty-seven townships.
Notwithstanding the very small population of the island, it was resolved
to grant it a complete constitution. This step the governor was
commanded in his instructions to take as early as possible. "The forming
a lower house of representatives for our said Island of Saint John,"
said His Majesty, "is a consideration that cannot be too early taken up,
for until this object is attainable, the most important interests of the
inhabitants will necessarily remain without that advantage and
protection which can only arise out of the vigor and activity of a
complete constitution." In the year 1773, the first assembly was
convened. The first act passed was one confirming the past proceedings
of the governor and council, and rendering valid all manner of process
and proceedings in the several courts of judicature within the island,
from the first day of May, 1769, to the present session of assembly.
The proposal to pay the government officials in the island from the
amount realized from the quitrents completely failed, as but few of the
proprietors acted as if they had been under obligation to comply with
the conditions on which they obtained their grants. The sum realized
from the amount of quitrents paid was totally inadequate to pay the
official salaries. Hence it was necessary that some other arrangement
should be adopted. The governor was reduced to such straits for want of
money, that he was under the necessity of appropriating three thousand
pounds, granted by parliament for the erection of public buildings in
the island, for the maintenance of himself and the other government
officers. The governor went to England in 1775, when it was agreed that
the proprietors, in order to meet the difficulties of the case, should
present a memorial to the Secretary of State for the colonies, praying
that the civil establishment of the island should be provided for by an
annual parliamentary grant, as in the case of the other colonies. By a
minute of the seventh August, 1776, it was ordered by the government
that the arrears of the quitrents due should be enforced by legal
proceedings, and that the sum thus obtained should be devoted to the
refunding of the amount expended, in a manner incompatible with the
object for which it was voted. The power for the recovery of the
quitrents, with which the governor was thus invested, was not speedily
exercised, as he was anxious not to offend the proprietors, through
whose influence the payment of the civil establishment of the island was
placed on a more satisfactory footing.
During the governor's absence in England the Hon. Mr. Callbeck, being
the senior member of the council, was sworn in as administrator. In
November of that year, a ship from London, having on board a number of
settlers, and loaded with a valuable cargo, was unfortunately wrecked on
the north side of the island. All on board were saved, but the cargo was
either lost, or destroyed to such an extent as to be of little value,--an
accident which involved no small hardship to the inhabitants.
In this year too a memorable incident occurred. Whilst the good people
of Charlottetown were living in apparent security from hostile
aggression, two American armed vessels which had been sent to cruise in
the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, in order to intercept English ordnance
store-ships, supposed to be on the way to Quebec, entered the harbor,
and a landing was effected without any opposition, when the
administrator, Mr. Callbeck, Mr. Wright, the surveyor general, and other
officers of the government were made prisoners, and put with such
valuable booty as the Americans could lay hands on, on board ship, and
conveyed to New England. On arriving at the head-quarters of the
American army, then at Cambridge, General Washington disapproved of the
hostile act, dismissing the principal officers from their commands,
telling them that "they had done those things which they ought not to
have done, and left undone those things which it was their duty to have
done." At the same time he discharged the prisoners with expressions of
regret, and returned all the property.
In the following year the _Diligent_, an armed brig, was detached by the
admiral, commanding in America, to protect the island, which vessel was
replaced by the _Hunter_, sloop of war, towards the end of the year, and
which remained till November, 1777. The arrival of the latter vessel was
extremely opportune, as a hostile expedition to the island was being
organized by rebels from Machias, in Massachusetts, who had arrived at
Fort Cumberland, in Nova Scotia. These men paid a visit to Pictou, where
they seized on an armed merchant ship, then loading for Scotland.
Fearing resistance, which they were not in a condition to overcome
successfully, these rebels entered, with their prize, into the Bay of
Verte, for the purpose of receiving reinforcements. But not being
successful in this effort, on account of a defeat at Fort Cumberland,
the vessel was given up to one of the officers, the rebels escaping on
shore. The vessel then came to Charlottetown, where she remained during
the winter.
In 1777 the administrator received instructions from the secretary of
state for the colonies to raise an independent force for the defence of
the island; but from the small number of the male population, which had
been previously considerably reduced by recruiting officers, this force
was never completed. In the following year, however, four provincial
companies were sent from New York, under the command of Major Hierliky,
for whom barracks were erected, under the direction of an engineer from
Nova Scotia, and the island was thus placed in a defensive position,
which greatly reduced the chances of a successful attack during the
American war. With the exception of a few sheep, occasionally taken by
the men of privateers, and some valuable property seized at the harbor
of Saint George (now Georgetown), the inhabitants of the island
experienced no further annoyance from the Americans during the
continuance of the contest. The monotony of Charlottetown was betimes
enlivened during the summer by the presence of the British war vessels
employed in accompanying convoys to Quebec, and the occasional conduct
into the harbor of American privateers which had been captured at sea by
the British cruisers, and whose men were marched as prisoners through
the woods to Halifax.
An interesting trial took place in Charlottetown in 1779, in the case of
_Thomas Mellish_, _v_. the Convoy ship _Dutchess of London_, which Mr.
Mellish seized for smuggling. The trial lasted for several months. Mr.
Mellish was an officer in the First Troop of Horse Guards, and served
also in the colonial military service. He was a member of the house of
assembly, and held the office of collector of customs and other public
positions for many years. His son, Thomas Mellish, died at an advanced
age in 1859. Referring to his death, the _Islander_ describes him as a
most loyal British subject, and a devoted adherent of the Church of
England.
Towards the end of October, 1779, the town of Charlottetown received a
temporary accession to its inhabitants, by the arrival of the Hessian
regiment of Knyphansen, under convoy of the war ship _Camilla_. Severe
gales were encountered in the River Saint Lawrence, which compelled the
ship to take refuge in the island. The troops were landed, and there
being no barrack accommodation for them, some succeeded in hutting
themselves most comfortably. Some of the men were suffering from fever,
but speedily recovered, on account of the admirable character of the
climate. The town supply of provisions was utterly inadequate to meet
the demand occasioned by so large an addition to the population, but the
farmers soon made up the deficiency, and the Hessians remained till the
month of June, when they left for their destination. Not a few of the
men were so favorably impressed with the island, that they returned to
it from Germany, many years afterwards, and became industrious settlers.
Governor Patterson returned to the island in 1780, relieving the
Honorable T. DesBrisay, who had succeeded Mr. Callbeck as administrator;
and shortly after his arrival he appointed Mr. Nisbet, his
brother-in-law, then clerk of the council, to the office of the receiver
of quitrents. It was now determined by the governor to enforce a law
passed by the assembly in 1773, "for the effectual recovery of certain
of His Majesty's quitrents in the Island of Saint John," and in
conformity to the treasury minute of the seventh of August, 1776, to
which reference has already been made. Accordingly, early in 1781,
proceedings were commenced in the supreme court against the townships in
arrear of quitrents, as enumerated in the act of 1773, and the sale of a
number of townships was thus effected. These reasonable proceedings were
complained of to the British government, and powerful influence was
brought to bear for the purpose of counteracting them. As the act of
1773, which had been confirmed by His Majesty, only applied to a part of
the lands granted, it was deemed necessary to pass another act in 1781,
which was intended to take a wider scope, and to render the sale of all
lands in the island, where quitrents remained unpaid, legal. This act
had, however, a clause suspending its operation till the King's pleasure
should be known. It appears by a manuscript copy of a report, dated
tenth of July, 1783, by the lords of the committee of council for
plantations, now before us, that this act was referred to Andrew
Jackson, one of the King's council, who reported that, in point of law,
no objection could be made to it; and the same report also furnishes
interesting information as to the considerations by which the government
was influenced in its treatment of the action of the House of Assembly
in regard to land. An application was made in behalf of officers abroad
in the King's service, who were proprietors of land, praying that the
arrears of quitrent due on their lands should be remitted, and that no
proceedings should be taken to dispose of those lands for future arrears
until the conclusion of the war, when they might be enabled to settle
and improve the same. Thomas Townshend, the colonial secretary,
accordingly recommended that no action during the war should be taken
against the property of absent officers. A petition was about the same
time presented by other proprietors of land in the island, reciting the
difficulties peculiarly incident to the island, showing that their
expectations, mainly in consequence of the American war, had proved
abortive, and complaining that many of the allotments in the island had
been sold under the assembly act of 1774, and of the treasury order of
1776, _to officers resident in the island_, for little more than the
arrears and charges of confiscation. They further prayed for a remission
of the quitrents in arrear, and that in future they might have the
option of paying the quitrents either in London or the island. The
council proceeded, on the first of May, to take these matters into
consideration, when it was agreed "that all such as, on or before the
first of May, 1784, should have paid up all the arrears of quitrent due
upon their respective lots to the first of May, 1783, should, from the
said first of May, 1783, until the first of May, 1789, be exempted from
the payment of more than the quitrent now payable upon each of their
lots, and that, for and during the further term of ten years,--to
commence from the said first of May, 1789,--the same quitrent only as is
now payable on each of their lots should continue to be paid in lieu of
the advanced quitrent, which, by the terms of the grants, would have
become due and payable from the said first of May, 1789." In accordance
with this decision, a bill was prepared, which not only granted the
redress specified in the above quotation, but also disallowed the act of
1781, and repealed the act of 1774, and rendered all the sales effected
under it void, on the payment by the original proprietors of the
purchase-money, interest, and charges incurred by the present holders,
compensation being also required for any improvements made on the lands
since the date of sale. This bill was drawn out in London, and sent to
Governor Patterson in 1784, in order that it might be submitted to and
adopted by the house of assembly. But the governor, having been himself
a purchaser to a large extent of the confiscated property, assumed the
responsibility of postponing official action in the matter, on the
ground that the government was mistaken as to facts connected with the
sale of the land, and, on consulting with the council, it was resolved
to send to the home government a correct representation of the
circumstances under which confiscation took place, in justification of
delay in submitting the bill to the assembly for approval.
A Mr. John Stuart, [E] an intimate friend of Governor Patterson, and who
had resided in London for fourteen years, was in 1781 appointed by the
house of assembly as their London agent. We have been favored with the
perusal of a number of private and confidential letters which passed
between the governor and this gentleman. These throw considerable light
on the island history of this period. The sales of land recently made
excited intense indignation against the governor on the part of those
whose property had been confiscated, who were backed in their
applications for redress by the general body of proprietors. The act
sent to the governor, and which he failed to present to the house of
assembly, was the result of these applications. In the preamble of that
portion of the act which provided for relief to the complainants, it was
stated that the governor and council, on the first day of December,
1780, unanimously resolved, in order to give absent proprietors whose
lands were liable to be sold an opportunity of relieving their property,
that no sales should take place until the first Monday of November
following, and that in the meantime the colonial agent in London should
be instructed to inform the proprietors of the proposed sale; and
"whereas," runs the act, "notwithstanding such determination and
resolution, no such notice was given by the colonial agent to the
proprietors, it seems reasonable that they should obtain effectual
relief in the premises." It is only fair that the governor should be
allowed to reply in his own words, as contained in a letter now before
us, which he addressed to his friend Stuart on the twelfth of May, 1783.
In order that a portion of that letter may be understood, it is
necessary to say that Captain McDonald, one of the proprietors resident
in London, had written a pamphlet reflecting on the conduct of the
governor in disposing of the land, which contributed in no small degree,
as Mr. Stuart affirms, in causing the act of relief to be prepared.
After referring to business matters, which have no bearing on our story,
the governor says: "What appears most pressing at present is to say
something in answer to my friend Captain McDonald's proceedings. But
first I must express my astonishment at your not having received any
letters from me since December, 1781. I wrote and sent two by the
express, which went to the continent in February, 1782,--not to you,
indeed, because I thought you had sailed for India; but Mr. Townshend
received them, I am certain, for I have answers to them from you. I
wrote a long one to you in October, 1782, on a variety of subjects. If
this letter has not reached you, I am very unfortunate, as I have no
copy of it. I wrote you three others in the course of the winter, copies
of which shall accompany this, though they will be now, I fear, of
little use, except to show that I have not been idle, or negligent in my
attention to the interests of this government. If I succeed, I may be
rewarded by my own feelings, but as to any grateful returns, I expect
them not. In bodies of men there is no such virtue as gratitude, nor
indeed but very rarely in individuals. I feel this, and in few instances
more sensibly than in the behaviour of Captain McDonald. Believe me, my
friend, I have rendered him and his family many disinterested and
essential services; nor do I know that I can let an opportunity slip of
doing so, when in my power. But _now_, when he thinks his interest is in
the least affected, he becomes my enemy, and that, too, in a matter
where I am only a spectator, or rather, when I ought to have been only
such; for the fact is, I did step out of my line in the business of
forfeiting the lots, but then it was only to continue my wonted practice
to benefit the proprietors. For this purpose I advised sending the
advertisements to England, which the law did not require. I, by the
advice of council, postponed the sales from time to time, in hopes the
proprietors would take some steps in consequence of the advertisements,
and, with this view, prevented their taking place till the latter end of
November, when every hope was over. This the law did not require, and
the advertisements not reaching England in time was not my fault, as the
resolution of council directing their being sent is dated twenty-sixth
November, 1780, and the sales did not take place for a year afterwards.
I did more: I prevented all the lots from being sold belonging to
proprietors who I knew were inclined to improve their lands, and this I
did by taking the debt upon myself, which was not required by the law,
nor perhaps in justice to my own family; nor do I believe there is an
instance of such conduct in any other man. Among the number so saved is
the lot belonging to this same Captain McDonald, though I had no hopes
of his paying his quitrents, or of his doing any one thing relative to
the settling of it; for he has repeatedly told me himself that he would
not, as he thought he had engaged to pay too much money for it to the
chief baron from whom he bought it. What I did was out of tenderness to
his sisters, who live upon the lot, and to give him time to think
better. I saved Lord Townshend's, the chief baron's, etc., and, in
short, what I thought worth the saving,--and all at my own risk. I have
done still more, for I have prevented any further sales since the first.
This I also did for the benefit of the proprietors, knowing the lands
would not bring their value; and I did it at the risk of my commission,
for I did it in the face of a positive order from the treasury. So far,
I hope I am not to blame.
"As to the regularity and legality of the proceedings in other respects,
I am not accountable. The lands were seized in terms of a law passed
near ten years since, and the proceedings conducted by the law
officers,--I have no doubt properly.
"There is some idea, I find, of rescinding the purchases, and that
government will order it. Whoever has formed such an idea must have
strange notions of government. Government may order me; and, if I have a
mind to be laughed at, I may issue my orders to the purchasers; but can
anyone believe they will be obeyed? Surely not; nor would I be an
inhabitant of any country where such a power existed. My money may with
as much justice be ordered out of my pocket, or the bread out of my
mouth. A governor has just as much power to do the one as the other. I
should like to know what opinion you would have of a country where the
validity of public contracts depended on the will of the governor.
"The purchases were made in the very worst period of the war, when the
property was very precarious indeed, and when no man in England would
have given hardly a guinea for the whole island. It is now peace, and
fortunately we still remain a part of the British Empire. The lands are
consequently esteemed more valuable, and the proprietors have become
clamorous for their loss. Had the reverse taken place,--had the island
been ceded to France,--let me ask, what would have been the consequence?
Why, the purchasers would have lost their money, and the proprietors
would have been quiet, hugging themselves on their own better judgment.
There can be no restoring of the lots which were sold. There has not
been a lot sold on which a single shilling has been expended by way of
settlement, nor upon which there has been a settler placed; so that
those proprietors who have expended money in making settlements have no
cause of complaint."
Complaints had been made to the home government, of which Mr. Stuart had
informed the governor, that a large quantity of the land disposed of had
been bought for trifling sums by the governor and other officials of the
island. The truth of this charge was acknowledged by the governor, for
he says in the letter from which we have quoted so largely: "That the
officers of the government have made purchases is certain, and that I
have made some myself is also as certain; but I should be glad to know
who would be an officer of government if, by being such, he was deprived
of his privileges as a citizen."
Mr. Stuart writes the governor on the twenty-ninth of June, 1783, that
he received, on the twenty-second of April, three letters from him,
dated respectively, thirtieth November, first and seventh December,
1782, and in reference to the sales of land which had been effected,
remarks: "The time of the sale, in the midst of a distressful war, when
there could be neither money nor purchasers; the rigid condition of
obliging the proprietors to pay their quitrents in the island, and not
giving at least a twelvemonth's notice of the sale in England, as well
as in the island, are everywhere urged and admitted as sound arguments
against the confiscation of lands in an infant colony, and I must
frankly confess that they have too much force in them to be totally
denied."
Whilst it is impossible to deny that Governor Patterson had ample
governmental authority to dispose of the lands, yet his doing so before
he had any evidence whatever that the advertisements sent had obtained
the desired publicity, or even that his letters had reached their
destination, was, to say the least, a most unreasonable proceeding, and
constituted sufficient ground of grave complaint against his conduct.
That as an intending purchaser he had a material interest in bringing
the lands speedily to the hammer, cannot be denied; and that after so
many years had elapsed since the act and the treasury minute by which a
sale of the townships whose quitrents were in arrears was rendered
legal, he should have chosen a period for the sale when, according to
his own confession, capitalists might not be disposed to give a guinea
for the island, seems to import that the governor had, in the conduct of
the business, consulted his own interest rather than that of the
proprietors. This impression is deepened by the proceedings which
followed.
It has been already stated that, on receiving from England the act which
was intended to restore the property sold to the original holders, he
had delayed to submit it to the house of assembly. Believing that the
present house would pass the act in question, in the event of his being
again ordered to submit it for their approval, he resolved dissolution
of the house, and to exert his influence in obtaining one better suited
to his purpose. He accordingly carried out his resolution early in 1784,
and, in March following, a general election took place, and the
legislature met soon after. It is a most significant indication of the
state of public opinion at this time, in reference to the governor's
conduct in so hastily disposing of the lands, that the new house,
instead of approving of the governor's conduct, resolved to present a
complaint against him to the King, and was actually engaged in framing
it, when a dissolution, by command of the governor, again took place.
His Excellency, appreciating the importance of the crisis to himself
personally, determined to leave no means untried to secure an assembly
favorable to his views. The danger was imminent; for the recent
proceedings were adopted by the house in ignorance of the views of the
home government as to the governor's conduct, which he had carefully
concealed, and which were known only to the council, who were bound by
oath to secrecy. He expected an order from England to submit the dreaded
act to the house, and was most desirous that, before that could be done,
the forthcoming house should pledge itself to an approval of the sales
of 1781, and thus neutralize the effect which a knowledge of the
intended disapproval of the previous assembly might produce on the home
government.
Circumstances favored his design. New York having been evacuated by the
British troops, many of them had resolved to settle in the island. A
large number of loyalists were now leaving the States and settling in
Nova Scotia. Efforts were made by the governor to induce some of them to
settle in the island. In addressing Mr. Stuart in 1783, he says, in
reference to this subject: "I do not as yet hear, notwithstanding my
efforts, of any of the loyalists coming this way. They have all gone to
Nova Scotia, through the influence of Mr. Watson. I will not, however,
as yet despair of having a part. I am sending a person among them on
purpose, and at my own expense, to carry our terms and to invite some of
the principal people to our lands. If they will but come,--and depend on
the evidence of their own senses,--I am certain they will prefer this
island to any of the uncultivated parts of Nova Scotia. It is
exceedingly unlucky that my despatches of last November did not reach
you in time. Had the proprietors sent an agent to New York, offering
liberal terms to the loyalists, they would have reaped more benefit
thereby than by all the memorials they will ever deliver to government."
We find, by a letter from Mr. Stuart to the governor, dated a month
later than that from which a quotation has just been given, that the
proprietors were sensible of the importance of presenting inducements to
the loyalists, for they subscribed liberally to a fund raised for the
purpose of conveying them to the island. Orders were issued to the
governor to apportion part of the land to the loyalists; the attorney
general was to make out the deeds of conveyance without any expense to
the proprietors, who were to be exonerated from the quitrents of such
shares of their land as were granted to the loyalists. In consequence of
these arrangements, a considerable number of loyalists were induced to
come to the island, to whom the governor paid due attention, and whose
votes he had no difficulty in securing at the coming election. In order
to complicate matters still more, and throw additional obstacles in the
way of the much dreaded act, he took care that not a few of the
allotments made to the refugees should be on the lands sold in 1781.
Being thus fortified for the coming battle, he determined to risk
another election in March, 1785, when he secured the return of a house
bound to his interests, which Mr. Stewart, of Mount Stewart--on whose
testimony implicit reliance can be placed--assures us "was not
accomplished without a severe struggle, much illegal conduct, and at an
expense to the governor and his friends of nearly two thousand pounds
sterling." The time of the assembly was, to a considerable extent, taken
up during the session by proceedings which had a tendency to produce a
favorable impression as to the governor's acts. Not a word was said in
the house regarding the proceedings of 1781; but, when the house met in
the following year, the governor determined that a measure should be
adopted which would frustrate any attempt to render the sales of 1781
futile. To effect this object, he caused a measure to be introduced
entitled "An act to render good and valid in law all and every of the
proceedings in the years one thousand seven hundred and eighty and one
thousand seven hundred and eighty-one, which in every respect related to
or concerned the suing, seizing, condemning, or selling of the lots or
townships hereinafter mentioned, or any part thereof." This act was
adopted without scruple by the assembly, but was disallowed by His
Majesty; and, affording as it did convincing proof of the governor's
determination to act in opposition to his instructions, led to his being
superceded in his office.
Mr. Stuart, the London agent for the island, fought at all times
resolutely for the governor, using all the means in his power to place
his character and transactions in a favorable light before the
government and proprietors. Having obtained information from reliable
sources as to the intentions of the government in reference to the
governor, he addressed a letter to him on the 19th of June, 1786,
informing him of the decision as to his recall. This manuscript
communication, now before us, is especially interesting and valuable, as
showing that, after its receipt, Governor Patterson could not have been
mistaken as to the nature of the recall, and as accounting for some of
his subsequent proceedings. Mr. Stuart says: "Your brother will have
acquainted you with the caballing and intrigueing of your opponents to
effect your removal, and of the invincible silence, or rather
sullenness, of office with regard to their real and ultimate intentions
towards you. Mr. Nepean, I think, has indeed opened himself at last, and
given a pretty plain clew to their disposition not to support you. He
told your brother very lately that Lord Sydney had sent you the King's
leave of absence. This is surely a plain indication, especially after
you were required to answer charges, and those answers still remain
unheard and undecided upon, although your brother has made repeated
application, and even memorialized the council for a hearing. The real
cause and design of this extraordinary and unfair step neither your
brother nor I has yet been able to develop. Mr. Nepean endeavored to
gloss it over by many specious assurances and declarations that it
proceeded from no hostile intentions, but was meant only to afford you
an opportunity of effectually vindicating your conduct, and refuting the
many accusations which had been sent home against you; in which event,
he said, you would return to your government with additional honor and
support. He may think these will pass as very plausible motives; but
what as to their reality? I can only construe it as a measure, of great
and unnecessary severity,--I might say injustice. It is not customary to
call home governors until their conduct has been investigated and
adjudged. They may put what construction they please upon the gentle
terms, 'leave of absence,' but if you think it incumbent to accept this
leave of absence, it must appear in the eyes of the world as an absolute
recall. This is an event, my dear friend, which I have long dreaded; and
what adds inexpressibly to the poignancy of my present feelings, is that
I know not how to offer you advice in a situation of so much delicacy;
for if you disobey this insidious order, your character may suffer in
the public estimation, and if you obey it, your fortune may eventually
be materially injured. It is indeed a cruel alternative, but it is a
case in which you alone can be a competent judge.
"This business has been managed with so much secrecy, or, at least, it
has been so studiously concealed from your friends, that we have not
been able to learn when your leave of absence was sent out, or whether,
indeed, it be yet gone. In case of your removal, your brother has picked
up some intimation that Colonel Fanning, Lieutenant Governor of Nova
Scotia, is likely to be your successor. In the present temper and
disposition of office, I fear that your brother's _succession_ would be
more difficult than to sustain you in the government. I am exceedingly
anxious to learn the fate of the quitrent bill. I hope the assembly may
have passed it in some shape, and that the sales have been revoked. This
is intelligence which should have arrived _ere_ this time. I fear that
your long silence and delay on this head is construed into contumacy and
resistance. Your enemies here are busy and fertile in their
insinuations."
Anxious to serve his friend the governor, Stuart, under pressure from
that gentleman's brother, addressed a letter on the twenty-sixth of
February, 1786, to Lord Sydney, though doubtful of the propriety and
policy of the act, in which he states that he received a letter from the
governor, intimating that he (the governor) was aware that reports had
been circulated in England grossly misrepresenting his motives in having
purchased some of the lots escheated under the quitrent act of 1774,--the
governor declaring that his sole motive in making these purchases was to
secure to himself a part of the very old arrears due to him for
salary,--an act which he conceived to be strictly legal,--and stating that
he had bought the lands at their full value. The governor was prepared,
as stated in his letter, to restore what he had bought on his being
reimbursed the amount of the purchase-money, with interest, agreeably to
their lordships' resolution in 1783.
Stuart's letter, from which we have quoted so largely, was received by
the governor on the tenth of October, 1786, and it is extremely probable
that it was by the same mail that he also received official information
of his having been superceded in the government of the island, and
commanded to submit to the assembly the act rendering the sales of 1781
voidable,--of which another copy was now sent,--which had come to his
hands two years previously, but with regard to which no action had been
yet taken. The governor, as if sensible of his extreme folly in
disregarding the royal instructions, submitted the measure to the house
of assembly; and the bill was read for the first time on the first of
November, and for the second, on the tenth of the same month; but it was
subsequently decently interred by a house which was guided by the
significant nods of the governor. But, in order to conciliate the home
government, his excellency caused a private bill to be introduced,
providing for the restoration of the escheated land to the proprietors,
but so contrived that, even if carried out, the heavy payments required
to be made counterbalanced any benefits that could be derived from its
adoption. When the character of this measure became known to the
proprietors, they brought a criminating complaint against the superceded
governor and the council, which, on being investigated by the committee
of privy council, led to the dismissal of the members of council
implicated, as well as that of the attorney general. No further action
against Governor Patterson was deemed necessary, as he had been already
dismissed.
Early in November, Lieutenant-Governor Fanning arrived from Nova Scotia
to assume the government of the island; but Mr. Patterson refused to
give up the reins of office, on the ground that the season was too far
advanced for his return to England,--the appointment of Fanning being
regarded by Patterson as only intended to supply his place during his
own temporary absence. Mr. Stewart, of Mount Stewart, asserts that
Patterson _affected_ ignorance of the nature of the recall respecting
whose import, as being absolute and final, no reasonable doubt could
exist; but in this we can prove he was mistaken, from the terms in which
the appointment was conveyed to Fanning by Lord Sydney,--a document which
Mr. Stewart evidently had not seen, and which proves that Patterson was
not destitute of a very plausible if not solid reason for holding his
post till the weather admitted of his leaving the island. Lord Sydney,
addressing Fanning, in a despatch dated the thirtieth of June, 1786,
says: "The King having thought it necessary to recall
Lieutenant-Governor Patterson, of the Island of Saint John, in
consequence of some complaints which have been exhibited against him,
that an inquiry should be made into his conduct, His Majesty, from the
opinion which he is pleased to entertain of your ability and discretion,
and with a view to give you an early proof of his royal approbation of
your services, has been pleased to appoint you to carry on the public
service of the island _during Lieutenant-Governor Patterson's absence_,
or until some determination shall have taken place respecting his
proceedings.
"As it is His Majesty's desire that Lieutenant-Governor Patterson should
be relieved in time to enable him to return to England in the course of
the autumn, His Majesty trusts that you will lose no time in repairing
to Saint John, and in settling such arrangements with the said
lieutenant-governor, previous to his departure, as may be necessary for
your carrying on the business of the island." Thus Patterson's retention
of office till the spring does not seem in the circumstances
unreasonable; but Mr. Stewart, in his account of the island, informs us
that his continuance in it was contrary to the desire of the inhabitants
generally, who, during the winter, did not fail to present addresses to
Fanning, calling upon him to assume the government to which, according
to his commission, he had been appointed. On the arrival of Fanning,
Patterson addressed the following letter to Lord Sydney, the Colonial
Secretary:--
"Island of Saint John, 5th November, 1786.
"My Lord,--Lieutenant-Governor Fanning arrived here yesterday,
and by him I have been honored by your lordship's letter of the
thirtieth June, saying that many representations have been made
to the King of improper proceedings in the exercise of the
powers with which I have been vested, and that it is His
Majesty's pleasure that I should repair to England as soon as
may be, to give an account of my conduct; also commanding me to
deliver to Lieutenant-Governor Fanning such papers and documents
as may be necessary to enable him to carry on the public service
during my absence.
"I have received His Majesty's commands with the utmost
veneration and respect, and nothing gives me so much pain as
when I have it not in my power to carry them into immediate
execution.
"Such papers and documents as appear in the least necessary
towards carrying on the present service shall be delivered
without loss of time; but there are unsurmountable reasons why I
cannot this winter quit this island. The season is too far
advanced to leave a possibility of arranging my little matters
so as to prevent total ruin in my absence. Besides, my lord, if
the charges are such as I have already answered, my _ipse dixit_
will add but little weight to my defence, and I have no further
proof to offer. If there have been any new charges sent from
hence, the evidence to disprove them cannot be had in England;
therefore, my going home without them would only prove a useless
trouble to your lordship and to myself. It is an unspeakable
grief of heart to me that I am under the necessity so long of
lying under the appearance of having proved unworthy of my
station. All my labors for thirty years have been in search of
reputation, and I have gained it everywhere but where most I
wished. Be assured, my lord, it will be my pride and glory if I
can restore confidence among the council of my royal master. I
hope and trust your lordship will feel my situation as I do
myself, and that in justice you will order me copies of my
crimes, so as to have them by the first of spring; and be
assured that I shall, as soon after the receipt of them as
possible, with every anxious and eager hope, pay instant
obedience to the royal mandate.
"Were it even possible for me, at so few days' notice, to quit
the island, even with the total ruin of my family, I should be
obliged to accumulate ruin on ruin by being obliged to stay a
whole season in England to wait for evidence from home, and in
place of expediting, it must delay my hearing. But if I cannot
go from hence prepared to answer my accusers, after my arrival
my fate may be soon decided; and if I have not been guilty of
what will deprive me of my liberty, I may return in the course
of the summer to cultivate my farm.
"His Majesty is full of justice. He is the father of his people,
and therefore cannot wish the ruin of a subject, much less of an
old and faithful servant. Then I doubtless shall have justice. I
wish no more. Afford me only an opportunity of clearing my
character, and I shall instantly resign. I have long and
anxiously wished to do it, and most certainly shall the moment I
can with honor.
"I cannot even guess at the nature of my present accusations;
but be they what they may, I wish to meet them; and I shall do
so, my lord, with a confidence and certain knowledge that they
are as unfounded as the last. I know I have done no wrong, and
therefore court inquiry; but I also know my enemies, and must go
prepared among them. A conscious rectitude of heart forms, my
lord, arms of adamant,--a shield which admits no fear.
"I am, my lord, &c.,
"Walter Patterson."
But Patterson had a large number of friends in the island who backed him
in his opposition to Fanning; and the council, consisting of men of his
own selection, and the assembly being ready to act according to his
dictation, he was in hopes that representations proceeding from these
sources would secure his restoration to a position to which he was now
clinging with tenacity. During the winter the government of the island
remained in this anomalous condition; but early in April following,
Governor Fanning issued a proclamation notifying his appointment, and
calling on all loyal inhabitants to recognize his title to the
governorship. But Patterson issued, on the following day, a counter
proclamation, declaring that he was the accredited representative of His
Majesty, and enjoining the people to pay no attention to the pretensions
of a usurper.
A correspondence passed between the rivals. From manuscript copies, now
before us, it appears that Patterson and Fanning had entered into an
agreement on the seventh of November, 1786, by which the latter
gentleman's appointment was to remain in abeyance for some time.
Patterson, on the arrival of Fanning, had intimated his intention of
meeting the assembly as governor; but Fanning contended that Patterson
had promised to give up the government after the legislative business
which he wished transacted was finished. This was emphatically denied by
Patterson, who asserted that the command was, by mutual consent, to
remain with him till the weather permitted his departure from the
island, or more distinct orders were received from England, to which
representations of the state of matters were forwarded by both parties.
On the 17th of February, Patterson addressed a bitter letter to Fanning,
complaining of his violation of the agreement solemnly made between
them, in which he wrote: "Was it consistent with that engagement that
your warrant was exhibited to a large company at your own table, and
afterwards to the public by one of that company, in order to prove your
right to the command? Was it consistent with that engagement that my
avowed and notorious enemies were almost constantly adopted as your
confidential friends? You will not be surprised at my faith in you being
put to a severe trial when I heard that the court of justice was
disturbed, and a copy of your warrant there read by a gentleman very
much in your confidence, questioning the judges as to your right of
command, and calling on all His Majesty's subjects on their allegiance
to assert your right; and when I have been told that the son of that
gentleman, in the same open court, said to the commanding officer that,
if it had not been for his detachment, you should long ago have had the
government,--meaning that he and his friends would by violence have
wrested it from me. I have also been informed that officers of the
government refuse paying any attention to my orders, and quote your
commission and yourself as the reason of such disobedience."
Notwithstanding the intense fermentation occasioned by this unseemly
dispute, the public peace was not disturbed. As was generally
anticipated, on the arrival of the spring mail, the conduct of Patterson
was rebuked by the home government, and he was peremptorily commanded to
transfer the permanent command to Fanning,--a change which, Mr. Stewart
says, was "agreeable to the island in general." [F] Patterson soon left
the island for Quebec, but returned in a few months, and exerted himself
to the utmost in obstructing the operations of the government; but,
after two years' residence, and bitter opposition to the administration
of his successor, he left the island and returned to England, cherishing
the hope of enlisting the sympathy and support of the proprietors
resident there,--a hope which was doomed to be disappointed.
Fidelity to historical accuracy compels us to say that a charge
affecting the moral character of the late governor had been made, in
which the wife of one of his friends was implicated. That charge,
whether true or false, was doubtless forwarded to English headquarters,
where, if supported by satisfactory evidence, it was certain to have no
small influence in determining the fate of Patterson as governor, and
may account for the mysterious silence of officials (as complained of by
Mr. Stuart) when pressed for information with regard to the reasons by
which government was influenced in dismissing him from a post which he
had held for sixteen years. In one of Patterson's private memorandum
books, now before us, there are some curious entries, in his own
handwriting, with regard to that charge, in which he summarises various
arguments which might be urged against the probability of its
truthfulness, but which neither affirm nor deny its validity. If these
notes had not been made by his own hand, and the pronoun _I_ had not
been once inadvertently used, they might be supposed to have been the
production of one on whom was devolved the legal defence of the
governor.
When Patterson arrived in London, he found the friends who had formerly
used their influence in his favor extremely cool; and thus all hope of
his restoration to the governorship was blighted. The large sums he had
expended in the election of a house favorable to his views, and the
impossibility of saving any part of his annual income (five hundred
pounds sterling), without sacrificing the becoming dignity of his post,
added to the circumstance that his wife and family had to be maintained
in England during the whole period of his incumbency, rendered his means
extremely limited. Being pressed by his creditors, his extensive and
valuable property in the island was sold--under hard laws, which had been
enacted under his own administration--at nominal prices. It need
therefore excite no surprise that he never returned to a scene invested
with so many painful recollections.
But the question occurs: what became of the escheated lands which were
ordered to be restored to the original proprietors? After the
proceedings already recorded, no determined effort to obtain the
property was made by the original holders, with regard to whose claims
to restitution no doubt could now exist. The assembly did, indeed, pass
an act in 1792, by which the old proprietors were permitted to take
possession of their property; but eleven years having elapsed since the
sales took place, and complications of an almost insuperable nature
having in consequence ensued, the government deemed it inexpedient to
disturb the present holders, more particularly as not a few of them had
effected a compromise with the original grantees, which entitled them to
permanent possession. Hence the act referred to was disallowed, and thus
a subject which had for years agitated the community was permitted to
remain in continued abeyance.
CHAPTER III.
Proprietors indifferent to their engagements--Extent to which
settlement was effected--Complaints of the People of
nonfulfilment of engagements--Character of the Reply--The
influence of the Proprietors with the Home Government--The Duke
of Kent--Proposal in 1780 to name the Island New Ireland--The name
adopted--Formation of Light Infantry, and Volunteer
Horse--Immigration of Highlanders--Memoir of General Fanning.
As proof that the great body of the proprietors were utterly
indifferent to the engagements they contracted when they obtained their
lands, it is only necessary to state that in only ten of the sixty-seven
townships into which the island was divided were the terms of settlement
complied with, during the first ten years which had elapsed since
possession was granted. In nine townships settlement was partially
effected, and in forty-eight no attempt whatever at settlement seems to
have been made. In 1797, or thirty years after the grants were issued,
the house of assembly, sensible of the necessity of taking action for
the more effectual settlement of the island, passed a series of
resolutions,--founded on a deliberate and painstaking investigation of
all the townships,--which were embodied in a petition to the home
government, praying that measures should be taken to compel proprietors
to fulfil the conditions on which the land had been granted. The
assembly drew attention to the following facts: That, on twenty-three
specified townships, consisting of four hundred and fifty-eight thousand
five hundred and eighty acres, not one settler was resident; that on
twelve townships the population consisted only of thirty-six families,
which, on an average of six persons to each family, numbered in the
aggregate two hundred and sixteen souls, who thus constituted the entire
population of more than half of the island. On these and other grounds,
it appeared to the house that the failure of so many of the proprietors
in implementing the terms and conditions of their grants was highly
injurious to the growth and prosperity of the island, ruinous to its
inhabitants, and destructive of the just expectations and views of the
government in its settlement. The house contended that the long
forbearance of the government, towards the proprietors who had failed to
do their duty, had no other effect than to enable them to speculate on
the industry of the colony. The house was of opinion that the island, if
fully settled, was adequate for the maintenance of half a million of
inhabitants, and it prayed that the proprietors should be either
compelled to do their duty, or that their lands should be escheated, and
granted to actual settlers.
The petition embodying these views was forwarded to the Duke of
Portland,--the colonial secretary at the time,--and the force of its facts
and arguments seems to have been felt by the government, for a despatch
was sent to Governor Fanning, intimating that measures would be adopted
to rectify the grave evils enumerated in the petition. The process of
escheat was not, however, acceptable to the proprietors who had done
their duty by settling their lands, for the obvious reason, that in the
event of free grants being made of the forfeited property, the tenants
on the already-settled laud would prefer to give up their farms and
become proprietors. In conformity with the promise made by government,
Governor Fanning, in his speech to the assembly in November, 1802, said
that he had the satisfaction to inform them, on the highest authority,
that the public affairs of the island had been brought under the
consideration of His Majesty's ministers in a manner highly favorable to
the late humble and dutiful representations made on behalf of the
inhabitants, respecting the many large, unsettled, and uncultivated
tracts of land in the island. In order to give effect to the measures
which had been adopted by His Majesty's ministers, it would be necessary
that the government of the island should be prepared to adopt, when
circumstances should render it advisable, the requisite and legal steps
for effectually revesting in His Majesty such lands as might be liable
to be escheated. The house, in their reply to the address, requested a
more explicit statement from his excellency as to the information which
he had received on this important subject; to which his excellency
replied, that he had already presented all the information which it was
in his power to furnish. It does indeed seem strange that the governor
should have been instructed to refer officially to measures which "_had
been adopted_" by the home government for the rectification of an
admitted evil, and yet was apparently unable to explain the character of
these measures for the guidance of the assembly in a branch of
legislation which they were unequivocally invited to adopt. Such
mysterious reticence was in direct opposition to ordinary governmental
procedure in similar cases. But the local government, never dilatory in
business connected with escheat, prepared a bill entitled "An act for
effectually revesting in His Majesty, his heirs and successors, all such
lands as are, or may be, liable to forfeiture within this island," which
was passed by the assembly and assented to by the governor on the second
of April, 1803. It did seem a mockery of the assembly when that bill
was, contrary to the expectations of the people, disallowed by the home
government, without any reason assigned. A committee on the state of the
colony accordingly drew up a strong and spirited remonstrance, in which
they boldly said:
"It appears to the committee, and they have the strongest reason to
believe, that the royal _assent_ to the said act for reinvesting His
Majesty with such lands as are or may be liable to forfeiture within
this island, has been graciously approved by His Majesty." They then
expressed their conviction, which was well founded, that the formal
royal allowance had been withheld by means of unfounded representations
of interested individuals in England. The committee sent these
resolutions to William and Thomas Knox, the agents for the island in
London, with instructions to use their utmost efforts to give effect to
the remonstrance; and the house of assembly also presented an address to
the lieutenant-governor, complaining of the efforts that had been made
to render His Majesty's intentions abortive, requesting him to transmit
their petition and resolutions to Lord Castlereagh, and duplicates to
the Earl of Liverpool, president of the Committee of the Privy Council
for Trade and Plantations. The house also appointed a committee,
consisting of Holland, Macgowan, Stewart, Palmer, and Macdonald, to draw
up a new bill, substantially the same as the former, which was duly
passed. Nothing was wanting on the part of the assembly to neutralize
the influence brought to bear in London in order to frustrate their
intentions; and if the British government had not on this occasion lost
its usual character for consistency and adherence to principles, so
explicitly enunciated, the royal intentions, as intimated by the
lieutenant-governor, would have been honestly carried out. The period
was one of great political excitement in London. Lord Hobart, through
whom the governor had received a solemn promise that the evil complained
of would be rectified, had given place in the colonial secretaryship to
the exciteable Castlereagh, and the solemn obligations of office appear
to have been forgotten in the political fermentation of the moment. It
would be difficult to point out, in the history of the British colonial
administration, another instance where the dictates of political
consistency and honor were so flagrantly disregarded as in the case
under review.
The influence exerted on government by the proprietors resident in
London seemed irresistible, and was such as no government of our time
could tolerate. The key to their power seems to be found in the
circumstances that they were, for the most part, men in intimate social
relations with parties in office, and, moreover, mainly consisted of
officers who were supposed to have rendered good service in time of war,
and whose complaints or representations, therefore, commanded at all
times the royal consideration and sympathy. The proprietors, besides,
cultivated the good-will and friendship of the under-secretaries, and
other secondary government officials, who kept them informed of what was
going on, and contributed in many indirect ways to promote their views.
Mr. Stuart, in his letters to Governor Patterson,--who was by no means
distinguished for the _suaviter in modo_,--frequently urged him to write
certain persons in the government offices in a conciliatory and friendly
manner, as he was convinced that they could exert no small influence in
behalf of his interests. The proprietors not only succeeded in
preventing the resolutions commended by the Duke of Portland from
leading to any practical result, but also in obtaining, in 1802, an
important reduction in the quitrents which remained unpaid, and which
now amounted to the large sum of fifty-nine thousand one hundred and
sixty-two pounds sterling; the sum due on some of the townships being
actually more than their estimated value. In order to discriminate
between the proprietors who had exerted themselves to carry out the
terms of their grants, and those who had not, the government divided the
commutation into four classes, requiring from the proprietors who had on
their property the necessary number of settlers only five years'
quitrents, instead of thirty-two years',--namely, from 1769 to 1801,--and
making a proportionate deduction in the case of the four other classes.
But as evidence of the determination of many of the landowners not to
conform to the law, and their confidence in their own power to set the
regulations of government at defiance,--as they had hitherto
systematically done,--it may be here stated, that even the reduced amount
does not seem to have been paid; and it was mainly in consequence of
such daring and long-continued violation of obligation that the people,
from time to time, in paroxysms of just indignation, demanded the
establishment of courts of escheat.
In 1794, Prince Edward--afterwards Duke of Kent, and father of Her
Majesty the Queen--arrived in Halifax. In that year two provincial
companies were raised for the protection of the island, and when His
Royal Highness became commander-in-chief of the forces in British North
America, he ordered new barracks to be erected at Charlottetown, and
defensive works for the protection of the harbor to be constructed. The
Duke never visited the island, but its inhabitants were duly sensible of
the practical interest he took in its welfare; and having determined
that its name should be changed, on account of the mistakes incident to
other towns bearing the same designation, a local act was introduced in
1798, which changed the name to Prince Edward Island, which act received
the royal allowance on the first of February, 1799. We find that in the
year 1780, an act for altering the name of the island from Saint John to
that of New Ireland was passed in the assembly with a suspending clause.
In a letter addressed by Mr. Stuart to governor Patterson, dated the
third of March, 1781, he says: "Your passing an act to change the name
of the island is considered as a most unprecedented instance of
irregularity. The reasons you give why it should be changed are admitted
to be of some force, but they insist upon it that you ought, in common
decency, to have set forth those reasons in a petition to the King,
instead of passing a presumptuous act which is neither warranted by law
nor usage." This act was, of course, disallowed; but the governor did
not lose sight of the hint as to petitioning, as appears from a passage
in another letter from Stuart to Governor Patterson, dated, October,
1783, in which he says: "I am not unmindful of your petition for
changing the name of the island, but I keep it back till we shall have
carried points of more importance. When they are accomplished, I shall
bring it forward." Had the first application been made by petition to
the King, it is extremely probable that the proposed change of name
would have been adopted.
Besides the two companies mentioned, a light infantry company and three
troops of volunteer horse were formed in the island, who were handsomely
clothed and mounted at their own expense, and armed at the expense of
the government; at this time every man from sixteen to sixty years of
age was subject to the militia laws. These wise precautions prevented
any hostile descent on the island during the war, and tended to infuse a
spirit of self-reliance and patriotic ardor into the community.
If the reduction of the quitrents failed as an inducement to the
proprietors to pay what was now really due to government, it did not
fail to lead to brisk business in the sale of property, for from the
commutation to the year 1806, nearly a third of the entire land in the
island had been transferred by purchase to persons, many of whom were
really determined, by industry and strict regard to law, to make the
venture permanently profitable.
The year 1803 was remarkable in the history of the island for a large
immigration of highlanders from Scotland. The Earl of Selkirk brought
out to his property about eight hundred souls. They were located on land
north and south of Point Prim, which had been previously occupied by
French settlers, but a large portion of which was now again covered with
wood, and thus rendered difficult of cultivation. Many of his lordship's
tenants became successful settlers.
Lieutenant-General Fanning's connection with the island, as governor,
terminated in 1804. During his administration the island did not make
any remarkable progress in its various interests; but Mr. John
McGregor,--a native of the island, and of whom we shall have more to say
by-and-bye,--in his work on British North America, has hardly done the
general justice, in representing him as of very "obscure origin, and
owing his future to circumstances, the advantages of which he had the
finesse to seize." General Edmund Fanning was a native of America, and
was born in the Province of New York, on the twenty-fourth of April,
1739. He was the son of James Fanning, a captain in the British service,
and of his second wife Mary Smith, daughter of Colonel William Smith,
who for some time administered the government of New York, and was sole
proprietor of Smith Town, on Long Island. The paternal grandfather of
General Fanning came to America, from Ireland, with Earl Bellemont, in
1699.
Captain James Fanning, having disposed of his commission while in
England, returned to New York in 1748, when his son Edmund, then in the
ninth year of his age, was sent to a preparatory school, and thence
removed to Yale College, New Haven, where, after going through the
regular course of collegiate studies, he received the degrees of
Bachelor and Master of Arts; and in 1774 he was honored by the
University of Oxford, England, with the degree of Doctor of Civil Law.
From college he proceeded to North Carolina, where, after studying two
years under the attorney general of that province, he was, in 1762,
admitted to the bar. He was successful in his profession; but the
troubles of the eventful period in America which followed the passing of
the Stamp Act by the British Parliament, induced him to enter the civil
and military service of his country. In 1765 he was appointed by
Governor Tryon of North Carolina one of the Judges of the Supreme Court
in that province in the room of Mr. Justice Moore, who was dismissed
from office upon the supposition of his favoring the public commotions
at the time existing in North Carolina. In 1768 he raised, at the
request of Governor Tryon, a corps of eight hundred provincials to
oppose and put down a body of insurgents who styled themselves
regulators, whose object was to rescue from trial and punishment leading
rebels. In 1771 he was again called upon by Governor Tryon to raise and
embody a corps of provincials to suppress an insurrection in North
Carolina, and was second to Governor Tryon at the battle of Allamance,
in which action, the insurgents, to the number of twelve thousand, were
totally defeated.
In the year 1773 Colonel Fanning went to England, strongly recommended
to His Majesty's ministers for his services in North Carolina. Having
applied for the office of Chief Justice of Jamaica, he received a letter
from Lord Dartmouth, then secretary of state for the American
department, stating that it was impossible in this case to comply with
his wishes, but that he should have the first vacant post that might be
deemed worthy of his services. Having received this assurance, he
returned to America. Two months after his arrival at New York, he was
appointed to the office of surveyor general of that province, the annual
fees of which were said to be worth two thousand two hundred pounds
sterling. But in the following year Colonel Fanning was driven from his
house in New York, and took refuge on board the Asia, ship of war. He
afterwards served in the army, having raised a regiment called "The
King's American Regiment." During the war he was twice wounded. There is
ample proof that he discharged his military duties with courage and
ability.
On the 24th of February, 1783, Colonel Fanning was appointed
Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, an appointment which he accepted
with a promise from Lords Sydney and North that it should lead to
something better. Subsequently John Parr was appointed
Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, and, as previously stated, Governor
Fanning was ordered to relieve Governor Patterson, of Prince Edward
Island, which he did in the confident expectation that he should succeed
to the government of Nova Scotia on the retirement or death of Parr. In
1791 Fanning was informed of the death of Parr by a letter from Richard
Buckeley, president of the council of Nova Scotia, who concluded by
saying, "as the government of this province, by His Majesty's late
instructions, devolves on you, as senior lieutenant-governor, I
accordingly give you early notice of the vacancy." This information was
received too late in the autumn to admit of Governor Fanning's
proceeding to Halifax, and while making preparations for going thither,
he was informed that the position was conferred on Mr.
Wentworth,--intelligence which caused him great disappointment, as he had
well-founded expectations of succeeding to the government of Nova
Scotia. The governor applied immediately for leave of absence, but was
politely refused, on the ground that his absence might, in time of war,
prove dangerous to the island. After repeated applications, he at last
received a letter from Lord Hobart, dated the 6th of May, 1804, granting
him liberty to return to England after the arrival of Colonel DesBarres,
and informing him that His Majesty had directed that, in consideration
of his long and faithful services, a provision at the rate of five
hundred pounds sterling should be made for him yearly in the estimates
of the island. Addresses were presented to the governor before his
departure, by the council, the respective counties, and the grand jury
of the Island. In 1816 General Fanning closed his accounts at the audit
office, when His Majesty's ministers, to mark their approval of his
administration of the government of the island, directed a retrospective
increase of his salary from the period of his appointment to the colony,
in 1786, to that of his retirement. General Fanning died at his
residence in Upper Seymore Street, London, on the 28th of February,
1818, in the seventy-ninth year of his age.
Here we introduce to our readers the Rev. Theophilus DesBrisay, who, by
royal warrant, dated the twenty-first day of September, 1774, was
appointed to "the parish of Charlotte." Mr. DesBrisay was the son of the
gentleman who has been mentioned as administrator of the island during
the absence of Governor Patterson. He was born in Thurles, in the County
of Tipperary, Ireland, on the ninth of October, 1754, arrived in the
island in the year 1775, and was rector of Charlotte Parish till his
death, which occurred on the fourteenth of March, 1823. He was the only
protestant clergyman on the island till the year 1820; was a man of
sterling character, and a faithful servant of the Divine Master. Like
Bishop McEachern and others, he was subjected, in the faithful discharge
of his sacred duty, to privations of which the present generation have
no adequate conception. [G]
CHAPTER IV.
Colonel F. W. DesBarres, successor to General Fanning--His
character as a Governor--Succeeded by Charles Douglas Smith--His
character as displayed in his opening address--Proclamation of
immunity from Proprietory conditions--Oppressive measures in
regard to Quitrents--John McGregor, Sheriff--Public meetings
called in the Counties--Tyranny of the Governor exposed--Arrival
of Colonel Ready, and departure of Smith.
In July, 1805, Colonel Joseph F. W. DesBarres arrived in the island for
the purpose of succeeding Governor Fanning. He was a man well advanced
in life, and had held for some time the position of Lieutenant-Governor
of Cape Breton, when that island was a separate province. His
administration was notable for the occurrence of three important events,
namely, the official announcement to the assembly that the act of 1803,
which was intended to invest in the Crown the lands on which arrears had
not been paid, was disallowed; the passing of the important resolutions
of the assembly, to which reference has been already made, condemning
the disallowance as grossly unjust, and in direct opposition to a
settled and declared imperial policy; and the declaration of war by the
United States against Great Britain. Colonel DesBarres is said to have
been a man of cultivated mind, who, during his administration, strictly
adhered to the official line of duty; and if he did not originate,
during the eight years he was in office, any measure which could be
regarded as of striking public utility, he gave no evidence of a selfish
or tyrannical disposition, which is more than could be affirmed of his
successor, Charles Douglas Smith,--a brother of Sir Sydney Smith,--who
succeeded DesBarres in 1813. The assembly met in November of the same
year. The address which the governor delivered on that occasion was such
as indicated the temper of the man: it was dictatorial and insolent in
its tone. He prorogued the house in January, and indicated his estimate
of the utility of the popular branch of the legislature by not again
convening it till July, 1817. Its proceedings in that year were not
satisfactory to the governor, who was determined to shackle the members
and prevent them from adopting any measures which did not accord with
his own notions of propriety. His excellency accordingly dissolved the
house, and a new one was convened in 1818, which, proving quite as
refractory as the previous one, was also suddenly dissolved, and another
elected in 1820.
On the eighth of October, 1816, the governor had published a
proclamation in which he intimated that the King had graciously resolved
to extend to the proprietors of land in the island immunity from certain
forfeitures to which they were liable by the conditions of their
original grants, and also to grant the remission of certain arrears of
quitrent, and fix a scale for future payment of quitrent. But the
governor, before the amount of quitrent to be exacted had been
determined by the home government, directed the acting receiver general
to proceed, in January, 1818, to enforce payment of the arrears which
had occurred between June, 1816, and December, 1817, on the old scale.
Much distress was occasioned by these proceedings; and on the matter
being represented to the home government, orders were issued to
discontinue further action, and to refund the money exacted above the
rate of two shillings for every hundred acres. It was at the same time
intimated that the new rate would be rigidly exacted in future; but the
years 1819, 1820, and 1821 passed over without any public demand being
made. Several proprietors, during that period, had offered payment to
the acting receiver general, by whom they were informed that he had no
authority to receive it. The impression was therefore prevalent that no
further quitrent would be demanded, more especially as payment was not
exacted in the neighboring provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
But on the twenty-sixth of June, 1822, the following notice was posted
up in Charlottetown by John Edward Carmichael, the receiver general:
"This office will be kept open from the first to the fourteenth of July,
ensuing, for the payment of all arrears of quitrent due and payable
within this island. Office hours, from ten till two o'clock." This
demand not being peremptory in its terms, was disregarded by many who
saw it, and the great body of proprietors in the country never heard of
the notice.
In December, 1822, the acting receiver general posted up another notice,
intimating that payments must be made by the fourteenth of January; but
no steps were taken to give due publicity to the notice throughout the
island, neither was any warning given to the proprietors as to the
consequences of nonpayment. In January a distress was taken on the lands
of two of the principal proprietors on townships thirty-six and
thirty-seven. Immediately after doing this, the officers proceeded to
the eastern district of King's County, which was one of the most
populous on the island, and astonished the people by demanding instant
payment, or promissory notes payable in ten days, on pain of having
their land and stock disposed of by public sale. This district was
inhabited by highlanders, who spoke no other language than their native
Gaelic. Men who would have faced an open foe in the field, with the
courage characteristic of the Celtic race, had a profound respect for
law, and dread and horror of the bailiff; and, in order to pay the
demand so suddenly and unexpectedly made, many of the poor fellows
loaded their carts with such produce as they could collect, and began a
journey of from fifty to sixty miles to Charlottetown, in the depth of
winter, in order to redeem the notes which they had given to the
heartless myrmidons of the law. The sudden influx of grain into the
market thus produced, caused a great decline in prices. This, with the
suffering occasioned by the long journey, roused public indignation, and
the people resolved to hold meetings in the respective counties, and
take measures for their own protection against the tyranny to which they
were subjected. At this time, John McGregor, subsequently Secretary to
the Board of Trade in London, and M.P. for Glasgow, was high sheriff of
the island, and a requisition was immediately drawn up and presented to
him. It began in the following terms: "We, His Majesty's loyal subjects,
freeholders and householders in different parts of this island, in the
present alarming and distressing state thereof,--threatened at this time
with proceedings on the part of the acting receiver general of
quitrents, the immediate effect whereof cannot fail to involve a great
part of the community in absolute ruin,--feel ourselves irresistably
impelled--when the island has been nearly three years deprived of that
constitutional protection and support which might be expected from our
colonial legislature--to call upon you, as high sheriff of the island, to
appoint general meetings of the inhabitants to be held in the three
counties into which this island is divided, that they may have an
opportunity, according to the accustomed practice of the parent country,
of consulting together for the general benefit, and joining in laying
such a state of the colony at the foot of the Throne, for the
information of our most gracious Sovereign, as the present circumstances
thereof require." The requisition was signed by forty individuals, and
the sheriff appointed the meetings to be held at certain specified dates
at Charlottetown, St. Peter's, and Princetown.
This very legitimate procedure on the part of the people did not accord
with Governor Smith's notions of propriety, and he deemed it proper to
remove Mr. McGregor from the office of sheriff, and to confer it on his
late deputy, Mr. Townshend. On the eighteenth of February, the Hilary
term of the supreme court commenced, and Mr. Townshend, at the request
of the governor, struck out the name of John Stewart from the panel.
During the term, petitions were presented to the grand jury, complaining
of the conduct of the acting receiver general and his deputies, and true
bills were found against the latter; but no trial took place in
consequence of the interference of the governor.
On the sixth of March, the first meeting called by the sheriff took
place at Charlottetown. Considering the deep snow on the ground and the
state of the roads, it was numerously attended, and the proceedings were
conducted with the utmost order and regularity. A number of resolutions
were passed, which were embodied in an address to the King, containing
grave charges against the governor. It was said that, though he had
resided on the island for ten years, he had only been once absent from
Charlottetown, when he ventured to drive eighteen miles into the
country, thus failing to make himself acquainted with its actual
condition. He was charged with illegally constituting a court of escheat
in 1818, and, in violation of his own public proclamation of the 8th of
October, 1816, harassing by prosecution the tenants of township number
fifty-five. He was charged with refusing to receive an address from the
house of assembly in answer to his speech at the opening of the session
in November, 1818, though he had appointed an hour for that purpose. In
addition to this public insult, he was accused of sending a message, on
the fifteenth of December, to the assembly, requiring both houses to
adjourn to the fifth of January following; and before the business in
which they were then occupied was finished, and when the lower house was
on the point of adjourning, in accordance with the said message, it was
insulted by Mr. Carmichael, the lieutenant-governor's son-in-law and
secretary, who, advancing within the bar, addressed the speaker loudly
in these words: "Mr. Speaker, if you sit in that chair one minute
longer, this house will be immediately dissolved," at the same time
shaking his fist at the speaker; and while the house was engaged in
considering the means of punishing this insult, the lieutenant-governor
sent for the speaker, and, holding up his watch to him, said he would
allow the house three minutes, before the expiration of which, if it did
not adjourn, he would resort to an immediate dissolution; and this
extraordinary conduct was soon after followed by a prorogation of the
legislature, in consequence of the house having committed to jail the
lieutenant-governor's son for breaking the windows of the apartment in
which the house was then sitting. The lieutenant-governor was also
charged with screening Thomas Tremlet, the chief justice of the island,
from thirteen serious charges preferred against him by the house. He was
also accused of degrading the council by making Mr. Ambrose Lane, a
lieutenant of the 98th regiment, on half pay, and then town major of
Charlottetown, a member of it, without having any claim to the position,
save that of having recently married a daughter of the
lieutenant-governor. Another member was a Mr. William Pleace, who came
to the island a few years previously as a clerk to a mercantile
establishment; from which trust he was dismissed, and then kept a petty
shop of his own, where he retailed spirits. These were some of the
charges brought against the governor, and the address concluded with the
following words: "That your Majesty's humble petitioners regret much the
necessity they are under of approaching your Majesty's sacred person in
the language of complaint now submitted to your paternal consideration,
and humbly trust, on a full review thereof, your Majesty will be
satisfied that the further continuance of Lieutenant-Governor Smith in
the command of your Majesty's island must be distressing to its
inhabitants, and, by preventing the usual course of legislative
proceedings, greatly impede its prosperity." The addresses, adopted by
the other counties were similar to that of which we have just given a
sketch.
One of the accusations brought against the governor, which has not yet
been mentioned, was, that he permitted, as chancellor of a court over
which he himself presided, heavy and vexatious additions to the fees
since the appointment of Mr. Ambrose Lane as registrar and master. On
the fourteenth of October, the lieutenant-governor, on pretence that
this charge was a gross libel and contempt of the court of chancery,
commenced proceedings before himself--on the complaint of his
son-in-law--against the members of the committee appointed by Queen's
County to manage the address to the King, who were all served with an
attachment, and subsequently committed to the custody of a
sergeant-at-arms. The object of these proceedings was evidently to get
hold of Mr. Stewart, in order to prevent him from going to England with
the petitions,--of which the lieutenant-governor had determined to get
possession. Mr. Stewart only got notice of the governor's intentions two
hours before officers arrived at his house on purpose to take him into
custody; but he escaped to Nova Scotia with the petitions, and thence
proceeded to England. Had Stewart been taken into custody, there would,
doubtless, have been a rebellion in the island, for the people were
exasperated. Chagrined beyond measure at Stewart's escape, the
lieutenant-governor determined to lay a heavy fine on the other members
of the committee, and sequestrators were appointed to enter upon their
property and secure the amount; but being now alarmed at unmistakeable
symptoms of a popular tumult, he prudently ordered proceedings to be
delayed till his judgment could be enforced. The defence was ably
conducted by Messrs. Binns and Hodgson.
On Saturday morning, the twenty-sixth of July, 1823, appeared the first
number of the _Prince Edward Island Register_, printed and edited by
James D. Haszard, in which newspaper all the proceedings to which we
have alluded were published. For the publication of these, Mr. Haszard
was served with an order to appear at the bar of the court of chancery,
being accused as guilty of a contemptuous libel against the court and
the officers of the court. Mr. Palmer was agent for the prosecutor. Mr.
Haszard was asked if he would disclose the authors of the publication
complained of,--which he agreed to do. The parties were Messrs. Stewart,
McGregor, Mabey, Dockendorff, Owen, and McDonald. Addressing himself to
Mr. Haszard, the chancellor said: "I compassionate your youth and
inexperience; did I not do so, I would lay you by the heels long enough
for you to remember it. You have delivered your evidence fairly,
plainly, clearly, and as became a man; but I caution you, when you
publish anything again, keep clear, sir, of a chancellor! Beware, sir,
of a chancellor!" And with this solemn admonition, Mr. Haszard was
dismissed from the bar.
But the rule of the chancellor was destined not to be of much longer
duration; for on Thursday, the twenty-first of October, 1824, His
Excellency Colonel Ready, accompanied by Mr. Stewart, arrived in a brig
from Bristol, after a passage of twenty-eight days. "He was loudly
cheered on landing by a great concourse of spectators, and was received
on the wharf by a guard of the 81st regiment and a number of the most
respectable inhabitants." A public meeting of the inhabitants, called by
the sheriff, Mr. William Pope, was held for the purpose of voting an
address to the lieutenant-governor. Colonel Holland, Mr. Hodgson, and
Mr. Binns were appointed to prepare it. "We feel," said the inhabitants,
"the utmost confidence that the harmony which ought always to exist
between the government and the people is perfectly established, and that
your excellency will believe that loyalty, obedience to the laws, and a
love of order is the character of the inhabitants of Charlottetown. We
cannot omit on this occasion to express our unfeigned gratitude and
thanks for the attention which His Majesty has been graciously pleased
to pay to the interests of this colony, in confiding its government to
your excellency's hands, and to add our most fervent wishes that your
administration of it may be long and happy." The town was illuminated in
the evening, and, to the credit of the inhabitants of Charlottetown, the
exuberance of joy and festivity on the occasion was not marred by any
impropriety, or insult to the man who had exercised his functions with a
harshness and tyranny which made him the most unpopular governor who
ever ruled on the island. The new governor was entertained at dinner in
the Wellington Hotel. John Stewart was chairman, and the Honorable
George Wright croupier. It is only fair to say, that an address was
presented to the late governor, previous to his embarkation for England,
signed by the members of council, principal officers of government, and
two justices of the peace. Considering the character of Governor Smith's
administration, there is a spice of humor in the following portion of
his reply: "I assure you I must ever feel a high interest in the
prosperity of a colony whose welfare, it is well known to many of you, I
have unceasingly watched over. It is my confident hope, as well as my
fervent wish, that the island may continue to flourish under my
successor, aided as he will be by the same support and advice from which
I have myself so much and so generally benefited."
CHAPTER V.
Governor Ready desires to govern constitutionally--Energetic
legislation--George Wright, Administrator--Change in the mode of
paying Customhouse Officials--Fire in Miramichi--Petitions of
Roman Catholics to be relieved from civil
disabilities--Proceedings of the Assembly touching the
question--Dispute between the Council and Assembly--Catholic
Emancipation--The Agricultural Society--Death of George the
Fourth--Cobbett on Prince Edward Island--Colonel Ready succeeded
by A. W. Young--The Census--Death of Governor Young--Biographical
Sketch of him.
Governor Smith delighted in autocratical rule, and had not called an
assembly together since 1820; but Governor Ready, wishing to govern the
island in a more constitutional manner, summoned, on his accession to
office, a new house, which met in January, 1825, and proceeded to
business with some degree of spirit and earnestness. Acts were passed
for the encouragement of education, for regulating juries and declaring
their qualifications, for regulating the fisheries, for limiting and
declaring the jurisdiction of justices of the peace, for empowering the
governor to appoint commissioners to issue treasury notes to the extent
of five thousand pounds, and for increasing the revenue by taxation.
Another session of the house was held in October of the same year, when
the house displayed equal energy and diligence in transacting the public
business. John Stewart was speaker, and the members elected for
Charlottetown were Robert Hodgson and Paul Mabey. Mr. Samuel Nelson was
an unsuccessful candidate for the town. He had been accused of not
signing the address to the King, praying for the recall of Governor
Smith. In his reply to that charge, Mr. Nelson stated a fact which shows
the inherent meanness of the late governor in his treatment of the
people. "Governor Smith," said Mr. Nelson, "never did anything for me.
On the contrary, he broke me as a captain in the militia, and when I was
putting a porch to my door he _sent a peremptory demand to pull it
away_."
The governor returned to England towards the close of the year, on
private business, and during his absence the government was administered
by the Honorable George Wright.
The officers of customs received in this year official instructions from
the lords commissioners to discontinue the exaction of fees after the
fifth of January ensuing, as fixed salaries were to be granted to
them,--a regulation which extended to all the colonies.
In this year, eighteen vessels arrived at the island from Great Britain,
and one hundred and twenty-eight from the British colonies. There were
imported fifty-four thousand gallons of rum, two thousand five hundred
gallons of brandy, three thousand gallons Geneva, and two thousand
gallons of wine, which, for a population of about twenty-three thousand,
was a large supply. The imports were valued at $85,337, and the exports
at $95,426.
In the autumn of 1825 an extensive and most destructive fire took place
in Miramichi, which swept over an immense area, destroying timber, farm
steadings, and cattle. Many of the unfortunate inhabitants perished in
the flames, and hundreds were left destitute. A liberal collection was
made in the island for the relief of the suffering, and a vessel
chartered to convey produce to the scene of the disaster.
The governor returned from England towards the close of the year 1826,
and again assumed the reins of government. The house met in March
following. In his opening address, the governor congratulated the house
on the improvements recently made in the internal communications of the
country,--the western line of road being completed up to Princetown, and
surveys having been made for extending the line to Cascumpec and the
North Cape. His excellency also referred to the advantages which would
accrue from the establishment of an agricultural society. Among other
useful measures passed during the session was one for ascertaining the
population of the island, and for authorizing the formation of a fire
engine company for Charlottetown.
During the last session a petition was presented by the Roman catholics
of the island, praying that they should be relieved from those civil
disabilities under which they suffered. Consideration of the important
subject was at that time deferred on account of the advanced period of
the session. The subject was now brought up by Mr. Cameron, in a
temperate and sensible speech, in which he stated that, notwithstanding
the predictions of persons hostile to the prayer of the petitioners, not
a single petition was presented to the house against the proposed
change. Mr. Cameron concluded by proposing the following resolution:
"_Resolved_, that it is the opinion of this house that the right of
voting at elections of members to serve in the general assembly ought to
be extended to His Majesty's subjects of the Roman catholic religion
within the island, and that the election laws should be altered
conformable to this resolution." A long and animated discussion took
place, in which the attorney general, Dr. McAulay, Mr. Hodgson, and
others supported it; and Mr. Campbell, Mr. McNeill, and Mr. Montgomery
led in opposition. On the question being put, the votes were equal; but
the speaker, Mr. Stewart, gave the casting vote against the resolution,
on the ground that the question had not been settled in England. The
speaker was one of the most enlightened men in the assembly, and his
decision on this occasion cannot be said to have been in accordance with
his general character. Had the resolution passed, the assembly would
have had the honor of being in advance, on this question, of the
parliament of Great Britain. As subjects of the Crown, the Roman
catholics, in asking to have a voice in the election of the
legislature,--whose laws they were bound to obey in common with
protestants,--claimed no favor, but a right which ought never to have
been withheld, and the subsequent concession of which experience has
proved to be as satisfactory in practice as it is equitable in
principle. On the presentation of the petition in 1825, a voluminous and
very able correspondence was carried on in the columns of the
_Register_, in the conduct of which the best talent in the island, on
both the catholic and protestant sides, was enlisted. Theological
questions, that had no bearing on the subject in dispute, were,
unhappily, imported into the controversy; and, whatever difference of
opinion may exist as to the discussion in its religious aspect, there
can be none as to the fact of every argument advanced against the Roman
catholic's right to be put on an equal footing with the protestant in
all matters appertaining to civil and religious liberty, being
completely demolished by the accomplished advocates of the Roman
catholic claims. While the elaborate communications to which we have
referred were imbued on both sides with considerable bitterness, yet, to
the credit of the island combatants, it may be truly said that such
bitterness was sweetness itself compared with the venom characteristic
of similar controversies, as carried on at this period in other places.
Fidelity to historical accuracy, at the same time, constrains us to
state that, while on the part of catholics, as the aggrieved party,
whose rights were tyranically and persistently disregarded, paroxysms of
irritation were the natural result of oppression, no such apology can to
the same extent be offered in behalf of their opponents.
In October, 1825, the council passed a resolution to the effect that
they would not in future be disposed to give their assent to any bill
for appropriating money, unless the sums and services therein contained
should be submitted in separate resolutions for their concurrence. This
resolution was not agreeable to the assembly, who claimed the sole right
of originating all money bills, and who denied the right of the council
to alter or amend them. This difference of opinion led to a protracted
controversy. In May, 1827, the council sent a message to the assembly,
in which the question was elaborately argued, to which the assembly
returned an equally elaborate reply. The dispute resulted, in 1827, in
the council agreeing to the two principal bills of supply, and rejecting
an _ad valorem_ duty bill; but in the following session--that of 1828--the
appropriation bill was rejected by the council, which obliged the
governor to confine the expenditure of the year to purposes of
necessity. In meeting the house, in 1829, the governor expressed the
hope that the unfortunate dispute of the last session would be brought
to an amicable adjustment, and recommended a system of mutual compromise
as the most effectual mode of securing that object. Although the council
had resolved to transact no further business with the assembly until the
latter body expunged a previous resolution from their journals
containing certain imputations on the council, yet the house had refused
to do so. Business communication was, however, resumed, and continued as
if nothing had happened.
On the sixth of January, 1825, died Benjamin Chappell, late postmaster
of the island, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. He and his brother
William emigrated from England in the year 1775. They owned one of the
first packets that sailed between Charlottetown and the mainland. He saw
the country in its rude and wilderness state, and was an attentive
observer of all the vicissitudes it underwent in its gradual progress
towards improvement, and few took a deeper interest in its prosperity.
He was a man of sterling piety, actively devoted to the cause of
religion, and may with truth be considered the founder of the present
Methodist establishment of the island. He was personally known and
beloved by John Wesley, who was in the habit of corresponding with him
for many years; and it afforded Mr. Chappell much delight to detail to
his friends many interesting anecdotes that grew out of his intimacy
with that great and good man. He was brought up to the millwright
business, and was well acquainted with machinery in all its extensive
branches. He was a man of intelligence and strong mind, and, with a
perfect knowledge of his own business, possessed a great deal of useful
information. If a life of consistent piety, as expressed in the virtues
that dignify human nature, can endear a man to society, the memory of
Benjamin Chappell will be long and affectionately cherished in the
island.
In the session of 1829 a select committee of assembly, for preparing a
specific plan on which a bill might be founded for promoting classical
education, presented their report, recommending the establishment of a
classical academy in Charlottetown, to be designated the "Central
Academy," vesting the management in a patron and nine trustees. Two
masters were to be employed, each to receive a salary of one hundred and
fifty pounds a year; and no religious test was to be permitted. A bill
in conformity with these recommendations was accordingly introduced and
sanctioned.
The most important act passed in the session of 1830 was one "for the
relief of His Majesty's Roman catholic subjects." The agitation for the
removal of the disabilities under which the Roman catholics suffered in
the old country resulted in catholic emancipation; and the British
government recommended the adoption of similar measures in the colonies,
which recommendation weakened unreasonable opposition to the change. The
act now passed provided that all statutes which imposed on Roman
catholics civil or political disabilities should be repealed, and that
all civil and military offices and places of trust or profit should be
as open to them as to other portions of the King's subjects.
The agricultural society, which had been for some time in operation in
the island, was active in accomplishing the beneficent purposes for
which it was established: it encouraged improved stock by an annual
exhibition and premiums, and imported seeds. District societies were
formed at Saint Eleanor's and Princetown. The governor took a practical
interest in the operations of the society, of which the Honorable George
Wright was president; the Honorable T. H. Haviland, vice-president; and
Mr. Peter MacGowan, secretary and treasurer.
In August, 1830, intelligence of the death of King George the Fourth,
which had occurred on the twenty-sixth of June, reached the island. The
reign of His Majesty lasted about ten years and a half; but, including
his regency, he was at the head of the government more than nineteen
years. He was succeeded by William the Fourth.
The ignorance which in our days prevails in the old country respecting
the American colonies is not quite so deplorable as that which existed
at the period of the island history at which we have now arrived. It may
amuse the reader to learn what the celebrated Cobbett thought at this
time of Prince Edward Island, as a home for emigrants, and of the kind
of business that was prosecuted there: "From Glasgow," wrote Cobbett,
"the sensible Scots are pouring out amain. Those that are poor, and
cannot pay their passage, or can rake together only a trifle, are going
to a rascally heap of sand, rock and swamp, called Prince Edward Island,
in the horrible Gulf of Saint Lawrence; but when the American vessels
come over with indian corn and flour and pork and beef and poultry and
eggs and butter, and cabbages, and green pease, and asparagus for the
soldier, and other tax-eaters that we support upon that lump of
worthlessness,--for the lump itself bears nothing but potatoes,--when
these vessels return, the sensible Scots will go back in them for a
dollar a head, and not a man of them will be left but bed-ridden
persons." If such are the doctrines which were taught to the people of
Britain by men like Cobbett, what must have been the depth of ignorance
respecting the North American colonies which pervaded the masses? The
very articles which the islanders were prepared to export to the states,
if an inlet for them were permitted, were the articles which the foolish
grammarian imagined they were importing. He little thought that in the
capital of this island of "rock" a cargo of whinstones would be very
acceptable, and find ready sale.
In September, 1831, Colonel Ready was relieved from the government of
the island by the arrival of Lieutenant-Colonel A. W. Young. The
departure of Colonel Ready was deeply regretted by the people. His
administration was distinguished by activity, energy, and usefulness,
constituting a striking contrast to that of his predecessor. During his
retention of office there was a large increase of the population. From
the year 1829 to 1831, eighteen hundred and forty-four emigrants had
arrived, and new life was infused into the commerce and agriculture of
the island.
In January, 1832, Governor Young met the house of assembly for the first
time. There was a dread of cholera, now raging in Europe, which led to
the passing of a measure in the assembly "to prevent the spread of
infectious diseases." A day of fasting was appointed in the month of
May, and, happily, the island was not visited by a pestilence which, in
other places, laid tens of thousands in the grave. In this year an act
was also passed to provide for the conveyance of the mails between
Charlottetown and Pictou, by a steam vessel, a grant of three hundred
pounds yearly having been voted for that purpose. The service was
accordingly performed by the Steamer _Pocahontas_, which ran twice a
week to Pictou,--the cabin passage-money being twelve shillings currency.
In the following year the census was taken, from which it appeared that
the population of the island, which, in 1827, had been twenty-three
thousand, had increased to thirty-two thousand. An act was also passed
in this year by which the duration of the assembly was reduced from the
period of seven to that of four years.
In May, 1834, Governor Young went to England, whence he returned in
September, as Sir Aretas W. Young. In June of the same year died John
Stewart, of Mount Stewart, at the age of seventy-six. He came to the
Island in 1778. He was speaker of the house of assembly for a number of
years, and was one of the most useful public men of his day. We have
read much of his private and official correspondence, which has led us
to form a high opinion of his integrity, industry, and zeal. His book on
the island, published in 1806, is a reliable work, so far as facts are
concerned, though not written with the grace and freedom which
distinguished the letters of his contemporary, John Stuart, the London
agent of the island.
A general election took place towards the close of 1834, and the new
house met in January, 1835. A dispute arose between the assembly and the
council, respecting the revenue bills, which led to the necessary
supplies not being granted, but after a short interval the governor
convoked the assembly in April, and as the result of a previous informal
conference between the disputants, it was arranged that the revenue bill
should be separated from the appropriation bill,--as a solution of the
difficulty,--and thus the dispute terminated. In consequence of the
illness of his excellency, the session of one week's duration was
prorogued by a commission, who were desired to express to the assembly
his excellency's pleasure at the satisfactory termination of its labors.
On Tuesday, the first of December, 1835, His Excellency Sir Aretas
William Young died at his official residence in Charlottetown. At the
age of seventeen he obtained an ensigncy, by purchase, in Podmore's
regiment, and a company, by purchase, in the 13th foot, in 1796. He
served with the 13th regiment, in Ireland during the rebellion, and was
present with that corps, under the command of Sir Charles Colville, in
every memorable action fought in Egypt under the gallant Sir Ralph
Abercrombie, in 1801, for which he received a medal. He was subsequently
employed for several years in Sicily and Gibralter, as aide-de-camp to
General the Honorable Henry Edward Cox, the commander-in-chief in the
Mediterranean. He was promoted, in 1807, to be major in the 97th
regiment, then commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir James Lyon, and
served with the 4th division, under Lieutenant-General Sir Lowry Cole,
in the Peninsular campaigns of 1808, and in subsequent years was engaged
in the battles of Vimiera, Talavera and Busaco, and in the first siege
of Badajoz. Whenever the division was in movement, the light companies
were entrusted to his charge, and during a part of the retreat of the
army from the frontiers of Portugal to the lines of Torres Vedras, these
companies were embodied under his command as a light battalion.
In an affair with the enemy at Tobral, near Lisbon, his horse was shot
dead under him; and it has been remarked by a distinguished general
officer that, on every occasion, in every difficulty and in many hours
of trial, the example he set, the steps he trod, led the men cheerfully
and fearlessly to do their duty. The 97th, owing to its thinned ranks,
having been ordered to England, he was promoted, in 1813, to a
lieutenant-colonelcy in the 3rd West India Regiment, stationed at
Trinidad; and, with five companies of that corps, was sent to join the
expedition against Guadaloupe in 1815, and received one of the badges of
the Order of Merit, presented by Louis the Eighteenth. On his return to
Trinidad, he was selected by Sir James Leith to command the troops in
Granada; and, on leaving the regiment in 1815, received a letter,
accompanied with a piece of plate, from the officers, expressive of
their unfeigned feelings of regard and esteem for the comfort and
happiness experienced under his command. On his being ordered back to
Trinidad, in 1816, he was voted the thanks of the council and assembly
of Granada, with a sword valued at one hundred guineas. During the
absence, in 1820, of Governor Sir Ralph Woodford from Trinidad, he
administered the government for four months; and in consideration of the
advantage which the community had derived during that period by his
being a member of the council, was requested still to continue a
member,--to which he acceded, subject to the approval of the commander of
the forces, who, in giving his consent, remarked, that in whatever
situation Lieut.-colonel Young might be placed, the public service would
be benefited. In 1823, in again giving up the government, which he had
held for two years,--during a second absence of the same governor,--he was
presented with four addresses, namely, one from the council, one from
the Board of Cabildo,--with a vote of one hundred and fifty guineas to
purchase a sword, and with the request that he would sit for his
portrait, to be placed in their hall as a token of their sense of the
efficient manner in which he had presided over that board, and to record
their opinion of the moderation, steadiness, and ability which, on all
occasions, marked his administration; one from the inhabitants, with a
piece of plate, to record their gratitude for the integrity and
impartiality of his government; and one from the colored inhabitants,
acknowledging their deep sense of the prudence, moderation, and humanity
which distinguished his administration of the government.
On the final disbandment of the 3d West India Regiment, in the beginning
of 1825, he was waited on by a deputation of the inhabitants of
Trinidad, with a farewell address, and with the request of his
acceptance of a piece of plate of the value of two hundred and fifty
sovereigns. He was appointed in 1826 to the newly-created office of His
Majesty's Protector of Slaves in the colony of Demerara,--the arduous
duties of which he conscientiously performed for five years. He retired
from the army, by the sale of his commission, in May, 1826, and was
allowed by His Majesty, on the recommendation of the commander-in-chief,
to retain the local rank of lieutenant-colonel in the West Indies, in
consideration of the value of his services, and of the zeal,
intelligence, and gallantry with which he had discharged every duty. He
was gazetted, as already stated, to be governor of Prince Edward Island,
on the twenty-fifth of July, 1851; and in consequence of the favorable
opinion entertained by the King of his merits, communicated in a
despatch from Lord Stanley, His Majesty conferred on him, on the ninth
of July, 1834, the honor of knighthood.
At the period of his death he was in the fifty-eighth year of his age,
and had thus terminated an honorable career of forty-one years in the
King's service.
CHAPTER VI.
George Wright, Administrator--Court of Escheat refused--Central
Academy--Severe Frost in September--Death of William the
Fourth--Educational Condition of the Island--Forcible Resistance
to Rent-paying--Rebellion in Canada--Able Report of Committee of
Legislature on Land Question--The Coronation of Queen
Victoria--Mechanics' Institute formed--Lord Durham on Land
Question--The formation of an Executive, separate from a
Legislative Council ordered--Mr. Cooper a delegate to London.
On the death of Governor Young, the Honorable George Wright was sworn in
as administrator of the government until the appointment of a new
governor. In February, 1836, Colonel Sir John Harvey was appointed
governor, and arrived in the island in August, when the usual addresses
of welcome were presented. There had been a popular agitation for some
time for the establishment of a court of escheat, and despatches were
received from the colonial secretary intimating that the prayer of
certain petitions, presented to His Majesty on the subject, could not be
granted. As we intend to devote, at a more advanced stage of the
narrative, a chapter to the elucidation of the land question, we refrain
at present from any lengthened remarks on the subject.
In January of this year the Central Academy was opened. Its first
teachers were the Rev. Charles Loyd and Mr. Alexander Brown, formerly
teacher of the grammar school. Mr. Loyd, having retired on account of
ill health, was succeeded by the Rev. James Waddell, son of the Rev.
John Waddell, of Truro, N. S.
The governor made a tour through the island for the purpose of becoming
acquainted with its principal inhabitants, and observing its
capabilities and resources. He was received everywhere with that degree
of respect to which his position entitled him; and, in replying to the
numerous addresses presented, expressed himself as highly gratified by
the hospitality of the people, and the indications of progress
manifested.
On the seventh of September, 1837, a frost of unprecedented severity for
the season set in, by which the potato crop was greatly injured, and
cereals were much damaged. Thus the prospect of a plentiful harvest was
blighted in a night throughout the entire island. The loss thus
sustained was referred to by the governor on opening the assembly in the
spring following; and he called attention to the expediency of granting
pecuniary aid for the purpose of supplying seed-grain and potatoes to
such of the sufferers as required them.
In March, 1837, Colonel Sir J. Harvey, after being promoted to the rank
of major general, was appointed Governor of New Brunswick, for which
province he left towards the close of May. After the departure of the
governor, the Honorable George Wright, as senior member of the council,
took the oath of office, as administrator of the government until the
arrival of Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy, who was appointed to succeed
Sir John Harvey. The new governor arrived in June.
On the twentieth of June, William the Fourth died. Intelligence of His
Majesty's death reached the island towards the close of July. On the
twenty-first of July, Queen Victoria was proclaimed in London.
The first official visitor of schools was appointed this year, in the
person of Mr. John McNeill, who, in his report for the year, gave the
number of schools in the three counties as fifty-one, and the number of
scholars as fifteen hundred and thirty-three. In his report, Mr. McNeill
gives us an interesting peep at the educational condition of the country
at this period, specifying the various causes to which the extreme
deficiency of the educational machinery was attributable. In many of the
settlements the inhabitants were poor, and having to struggle with
numerous difficulties in procuring subsistence for their children, their
education was regarded as a matter of secondary importance. Little
encouragement was, in most cases, held out to teachers of character and
qualification, and the precarious mode in which their salaries were paid
operated powerfully as a bar in the way of educational advancement.
Hence it not unfrequently happened, when the necessary literary
attainments were wanting, that it was only persons of shipwrecked
character, and blasted prospects in life, who had assumed the important
office of schoolmaster. "I must also mention," reported Mr. McNeill,
"another practice which is too prevalent in the country, and which, I
conceive, is exceedingly injurious to the respectability of the teacher
in the eyes of his pupils, and, consequently, hurtful to his
usefulness,--that is: receiving his board by going about from house to
house; in which case he is regarded, both by parents and children, as
little better than a common menial." Mr. McNeill's suggestions, by way
of reformation, were judicious and well put. He held the situation of
visitor for ten years, and seems to have been well qualified for the
post. When he vacated the situation, in 1847, there were one hundred and
twenty schools, of all grades, and over five thousand scholars.
The new governor visited all the principal districts of the island, and,
as the result of his inquiries and observations, addressed a circular to
the proprietors of land, in which he advocated the granting of important
concessions to the tenantry, with a view of allaying the agitation for
escheat, and removing any just grounds of complaint. The governor stated
to the proprietors that it was impossible for any one, unacquainted with
the local circumstances of a new colony, to form a correct estimate of
the difficulties and privations which the past settlers on wilderness
lands had to encounter. He said it was a long series of years before he
could obtain from the soil more than a bare subsistence for himself and
his family, notwithstanding the most unwearied perseverance and
industry. It ought not, therefore, to be matter for surprise that,
although he might be ready and willing to pay a fair equivalent, either
in rent or otherwise, for the land occupied, he should feel dismayed at
the prospect of being deprived of the hard-earned fruits of the labor of
the earliest and best years of his manhood, whether from an accumulation
of heavy arrears of rent, which he was unable to realize from the land,
or from the refusal of the proprietor to grant him a tenure of
sufficient endurance to ensure to his family the profits of his
industry; and this, probably, in the decline of life, with a
constitution broken, and health impaired by incessant toil. In these
circumstances it could not be matter for surprise that he should be
discontented with his lot, or that he should instil hostile feelings
into the minds of his family, and be ready to lend a willing ear to
proposals, however fallacious, which held out a hope of relief.
After alluding to the fact, that the high sheriff of King's County had
been recently resisted by a considerable body of armed men, while
engaged in enforcing an execution on a judgment obtained in the supreme
court for rent, and had his horses barbarously mutilated, he
recommended, as a remedy for the evil, that land-agents should have a
discretionary power to relieve tenants of arrears of rents, in cases
where it was impossible they could ever pay them; and that long leases
should be granted at the rate customary in the colony, the rent to be
payable in the productions of the soil at the market prices. He also
recommended that, in cases where long leases were objected to, the
tenants should be allowed to purchase the fee simple at twenty years'
purchase, or that payment for their improvements, at a fair valuation,
should be ensured on the expiration of their terms.
The governor forwarded a copy of the circular containing these
reasonable suggestions to the secretary of state for the colonies. This
mode of dealing with the tenantry, it may be here remarked, had already,
in numerous instances, been acted upon with the best results, so that
the efficiency of the change recommended in securing harmony between
landlord and tenant had been most satisfactorily tested.
Towards the close of 1837, a rebellion broke out in Canada. The
insurgents mustered in considerable numbers, but without sufficient
organization, and their leaders--utterly incompetent and cowardly--were
the first to escape after a few shots were fired. The militia of the
island offered their services in vindication of the King's authority;
but the troops in Canada were quite sufficient to extinguish the
rebellion, ere it had attained to any formidable dimensions.
The colonial secretary, Lord Glenelg, transmitted to the governor the
copy of a memorial from the proprietors of land, protesting against the
royal assent being given to an act of the legislature of the island for
levying an assessment on all lands in the island, and demanding an
opportunity of stating their objections to it, by their counsel, before
the judicial committee of the privy council. This document was referred
to a joint committee of the legislative council and assembly, who, in
April, 1838, produced an able and elaborate report in justification of
the law. The committee, of which T. H. Haviland, R. Hodgson, John
Brecken, Joseph Pope, Edward Palmer, and others were members, showed
that the local expenditure of the government for the last twelve years
had been $107,643, of which $27,506 had been expended on roads and
bridges, to the great advantage of the property of the memorialists;
$13,556 on public buildings and wharfs; and $66,562 for other local
purposes. And of these large sums, the whole amount contributed by the
proprietors of the soil had been only $7,413, leaving the balance of
$100,000 to be borne by the resident consumers of dutiable articles. The
committee fortified their position by extracts from despatches sent by
Lords Stanley and Glenelg, and completely justified the imposition of a
tax of four shillings currency on wilderness lands. The report, when
printed, occupied upwards of five newspaper columns, set in minion type,
and bore striking evidence of the industry and ability of its framers.
It appears from a despatch from Lord Durham, then governor general of
British North America, which we found at Government House in
Charlottetown, and which was not published either at the time or
subsequently, that Lord Glenelg forwarded this able report, along with
other documents bearing on the subject of escheat, in September, 1838,
to his lordship, for the purpose of obtaining his special opinion on the
subject, for the guidance of the home government. It is scarcely
necessary to premise, before giving this important state document, that
Lord Durham is considered the highest authority on those colonial
subjects of which he treats in his celebrated report,--a document which
will stand for successive generations as a lasting monument of his
ability as a statesman, and which has been and is now recognized as
embodying the most masterly exposition of colonial questions which has
ever been published.
"Castle of Saint Lewis, Quebec,
8th October, 1836.
"My Lord,--I have had the honor of receiving your despatch of the
fifth October, whereby you desire that I will express to you my
judgment on the whole subject of escheat in the Island of Prince
Edward. After perusing the voluminous documents with your
lordship's despatch, I do not feel that it is in my power to add
anything to the very full information on the subject which these
documents comprise. The information before me is now so ample
that upon no matter of fact can I entertain a doubt. Nearly the
whole island was alienated in one day by the Crown, in very
large grants, chiefly to absentees, and upon conditions of
settlement which have been wholly disregarded. The extreme
improvidence--I might say the reckless profusion--which dictated
these grants is obvious: the total neglect of the government as
to enforcing the conditions of the grants is not less so. The
great bulk of the island is still held by absentees, who hold it
as a sort of reversionary interest which requires no present
attention, but may become valuable some day or other through the
growing want of the inhabitants. But, in the meantime, the
inhabitants of the island are subjected to the greatest
inconvenience--nay, the most serious injury--from the state of the
property in land. The absent proprietors neither improve the
land themselves, nor will let others improve it. They retain the
land and keep it in a state of wilderness. Your lordship can
scarcely conceive the degree of injury inflicted on a new
settlement hemmed in by wilderness land, which has been placed
out of the control of government, and is entirely neglected by
its absent proprietors. This evil pervades British North
America, and has been for many years past a subject of universal
and bitter complaint. The same evil was felt in many of the
states of the American Union, where, however, it has been
remedied by taxation of a penal character,--taxation, I mean, in
the nature of a fine for the abatement of a nuisance. In Prince
Edward Island this evil has attained its maximum. It has been
long and loudly complained of, but without any effect. The
people, their representative assembly, the legislative council,
and the governor have cordially concurred in devising a remedy
for it. All their efforts have proved in vain. Some influence--it
cannot be that of equity or reason--has steadily counteracted the
measures of the colonial legislature. I cannot imagine it is any
other influence than that of the absentee proprietors resident
in England; and in saying so I do but express the universal
opinion of the colony. The only question, therefore, as it
appears to me, is whether that influence shall prevail against
the deliberate acts of the colonial legislature and the
universal complaints of the suffering colonists. I can have no
doubt on the subject. My decided opinion is, that the royal
assent should no longer be withheld from the act of the colonial
legislature.
"At the same time, I doubt whether this act will prove a
sufficient remedy for the evil in question. It was but natural
that the colonial legislature--who have found it impossible as
yet to obtain any remedy whatever--should hesitate to propose a
sufficient one. Undeterred by any such consideration,--relying on
the cordial cooperation of the government and parliament in the
work of improving the state of the colonies,--I had intended,
before the receipt of your lordship's despatch, and still
intend, to suggest a measure which, while it provides a
sufficient remedy for the evil suffered by the colonists, shall
also prove advantageous to the absent proprietors by rendering
their property more valuable. Whether the inhabitants of Prince
Edward Island prefer waiting for the now uncertain results of a
suggestion of mine, or that the act which they have passed
should be at once confirmed, I cannot tell; but I venture
earnestly to recommend that Her Majesty's government should be
guided by their wishes on the subject; and in order to ascertain
these, I propose to transmit a copy of the present despatch to
Sir Charles FitzRoy, with a request that he will, after
consulting with the leading men of the colony, address your
lordship on the subject.
"With respect to the terms proposed by the proprietors, I am
clearly of opinion that any such arrangement would be wholly
inadequate to the end in view.
"I am, &c.,
"Durham.
"Lord Glenelg."
The reference in the closing paragraph of the despatch is evidently to a
memorandum of terms proposed by the proprietors for the sale and
settlement of land in the island, and forwarded to Lord Genelg by Mr. G.
R. Young, their talented solicitor and counsel, in January, 1838.
The very decided opinion expressed by Lord Durham led to the
confirmation by Her Majesty of the act passed in 1837 for levying an
assessment on all lands in the island, which confirmation was effected
at a meeting of the privy council, held on the twelfth of December,
1838; but his lordship's despatch was not communicated to the assembly
by the governor. Its publication would have gratified the inhabitants of
the island, and mightily strengthened the agitation which had been
prosecuted for so many years with so comparatively little success.
Lord Durham, in his report, has repeated many of the arguments contained
in the despatch which we have given, and the valuable evidence given by
John W. Le Lacheur, Robert Hodgson,--now Sir Robert,--Sir Charles FitzRoy,
George Wright, Thomas Haviland, John Lawson, and G. R. Goodman is
published as a portion of the appendix to His Lordship's
report,--evidence which presents a clear and most reliable account of the
land question, and exhibits within a moderate compass, with startling
effect, the evils which had their origin in the reckless disposal of the
island to non-resident proprietors, who disregarded the conditions on
which it had been granted.
The coronation of Her Majesty the Queen took place on the twenty-eighth
of June, and the event was celebrated in Charlottetown in a manner
becoming the loyalty of the inhabitants. The prison doors were thrown
open and the debtors set free. A plentiful repast was provided for the
poorer classes, of which they joyfully availed themselves. The city was
illuminated in the evening, and large bonfires kindled. At a county
meeting, held in the court-house, a congratulatory address to the Queen
was adopted, and forwarded to London by the governor.
Towards the close of the year 1838, a Mechanics' Institute was
established in Charlottetown, mainly through the instrumentality of Mr.
Charles Young,--now the Honorable Judge Young, LL. D. The introductory
lecture, which was subsequently published in the _Gazette_, was
delivered by that gentleman. The Lieutenant-governor, Lady Mary FitzRoy,
the chief justice, and a large number of the leading people of the town
were present. A course of lectures was thus inaugurated which for many
years furnished entertainment and instruction to those who availed
themselves of the privilege of attendance. In Charlottetown, as well as
in other towns, there is a good deal of latent talent which might be
beneficially elicited in the delivery of lectures during the winter
evenings. It not unfrequently happens that lecture-committees apply for
lecturers in quarters where more able ones than can be found with
themselves do not exist.
"'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view."
In the year 1838, the chief of the Micmac tribe presented a petition to
the governor, praying for a grant of land to his tribe, which he
represented as consisting of five hundred souls. This number seems to
have been exaggerated; for the governor, in writing to Lord Glenelg, in
reply to an application for information, states that the number of
Indians on the island did not exceed two hundred. The governor
recommended a grant of Lennox Island--the property of Mr. David
Stewart--to the tribe.
Two sessions of the assembly were held in 1839. Whilst the first was
proceeding with the public business, a despatch arrived ordering the
governor to form an executive, separate from a legislative council. He
immediately prorogued the house, and made the necessary nominations to
both the councils. The house again met in March, in order to complete
the business which remained unfinished at the recent prorogation. During
the short interval which had elapsed since the termination of the late
session, intelligence had reached the governor that active measures had
been taken by the State of Maine to enforce by arms their alleged claims
to the territory in dispute between that state and the province of New
Brunswick. The season of the year did not admit of any active assistance
being rendered in the emergency; but the island authorities determined
to respond to the feelings and sentiments expressed by the council and
assembly of the neighboring province of Nova Scotia.
W. Cooper was the speaker of the house of assembly in 1839, and was sent
as a delegate to London on the land question. Three propositions were
made on the subject, namely, the establishment of a court of escheat;
the resumption by the Crown of the rights of the proprietors; and a
heavy penal tax on wilderness land. The home government rejected the
project of escheat, and did not feel at liberty to recommend the advance
of two hundred thousand pounds from the treasury. With respect to the
third proposal, Lord John Russell, the colonial secretary, expressed his
unwillingness to adopt it at the moment, so soon after the imposition of
a tax of the same description, and until it had been clearly proved that
no remedy was to be expected from the imposition of that tax, and from
the disposition of the proprietors to come to an equitable arrangement
with the tenantry. The colonial secretary declined to discuss the
question with Mr. Cooper, and made his decision known, through the
governor of the island, in a despatch dated the seventeenth of
September, 1839, in which he expressed his approval of the terms
proposed by the proprietors, through their agent, Mr. Young,
recommending them as the basis on which Her Majesty's government desired
that the question should be arranged.
CHAPTER VII.
Marriage of the Queen--Education in 1842--Foundation-stone of the
Colonial Building laid--The Governor withdraws his patronage from
Public Institutions--Dispute between the Governor and Mr.
Pope--Election disturbances in Belfast--The Currency
Question--Responsible Government discussed--Governor Huntley
succeeded by Sir Donald Campbell--Earl Grey's reason for
withholding Responsible Government--The death of Sir Donald
Campbell--Ambrose Lane, Administrator--Sir A. Bannerman,
Governor--Responsible Government introduced--Temperance
movement--The loss of the "Fairy Queen"--Dissolution of the
Assembly--Governor Bannerman succeeded by Dominick Daly--The
Worrell Estate bought by the Government--J. Henry Haszard
perishes in the Ice Boat--Census of 1855--A loan wanted--The
Imperial Guarantee promised, but not given--Resolutions praying
for a Commission on the Land Question--Charles Young,
Administrator--Biographical Sketch of Bishop McDonald,--Death of
James Peake.
In February, 1840, the Queen was united in marriage to Prince Albert, of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and in November of the same year the Princess Royal
was born. Intelligence of an attempt to assassinate the Queen reached
the Island towards the end of July. The culprit was a lad named Edward
Oxford, a servant out of place. As Her Majesty, accompanied by Prince
Albert, was proceeding in a carriage for the purpose of paying a visit
to the Duchess of Kent, at her residence in Belgrave Square, they were
fired upon by Oxford, who held a pistol in each hand, both of which he
discharged. The shots did not, however, take effect, and it was
subsequently discovered that the youth was insane.
The governor, Sir Charles A. FitzRoy, having been appointed to the West
Indies, he was succeeded by Sir Henry Vere Huntley, who arrived in
November, 1841, and received the usual welcome. In March of the year
following died the Honorable George Wright. He had been five times
administrator of the government, a duty which devolved upon him as
senior member of the council, to which he had been appointed in 1813. He
also, for many years, filled the office of surveyor-general. He appears
to have discharged his duties conscientiously, and his death was
regretted by a large circle of friends.
In February, 1842, Mr. John McNeill, visitor of schools, presented his
report, which furnished interesting facts respecting the progress of
education in the island. In 1833 the number of schools was
seventy-four,--in 1841 they had increased to one hundred and twenty-one.
While the number of schools had increased in this ratio, the number of
children attending them had in the same period been more than doubled.
Total Population. No. of Schools. No. of Scholars. Average Attendance
in each school.
----------------- --------------- ---------------- ------------------
In 1833--32,293 74 2176 29.4
In 1841--74,034 121 4356 36
In November, 1842, Mr. John Ings started a weekly newspaper, designated
_The Islander_, which fully realized in its conduct the promises made in
the prospectus. For thirty-two years it continued an important public
organ, when, for reasons into which it is not our business to inquire,
it was discontinued.
In March, 1843, a serious disturbance took place in township forty-five,
King's County, when a large assemblage of people forcibly reinstated a
person named Haney into the possession of a farm from which he had been
legally ejected. The dwelling-house of a person employed by the
proprietor to protect timber was also consumed by fire, resulting from
the torch of an incendiary. Energetic measures were adopted to enforce
the majesty of the law.
On the sixteenth of May, 1843, the corner stone of the colonial building
was laid by the Governor, Sir Henry Vere Huntley. A procession was
formed at government house, and moved in the following order: masons,
headed by a band of music; then followed the governor on horseback,
surrounded by his staff; after whom came the chief justice, the members
of the executive and legislative councils, the building committee, the
various heads of departments, the magistracy,--the members of the
Independent Temperance Society bringing up the rear. Having, with trowel
and mallet, gone through the ceremony, His Excellency said: "The
legislature having granted means for the erection of a provincial
building, and the corner stone having been now laid, I trust that a new
era of prosperity will open in this colony, and am satisfied that the
walls about to rise over this stone will resound with sentiments
expressive of British feeling, British principles, and British loyalty."
A royal salute was then fired, and three hearty cheers for the Queen
were given by hundreds who had collected to witness the proceedings. The
design was drafted by Isaac Smith, President of the Mechanics'
Institute, and the building was to be composed of freestone, imported
from Nova Scotia,--the estimated cost being nearly eleven thousand pounds
currency.
At the annual meeting of the Central Agricultural Society, a letter was
read from Mr. T. H. Haviland, intimating that in consequence of recent
public measures with relation to government house, the governor withdrew
his name from the public institutions of the island, and that
consequently he ceased to be the patron of the agricultural society. It
seems that the governor deemed the action of the assembly, in reference
to government house, illiberal in a pecuniary sense; but that was a very
insufficient reason for a step so fatal to his excellency's popularity
and usefulness. The committee, with a negative sarcasm which the
governor must have felt keenly, simply passed a resolution expressing
regret that any public measures--in reference to government house--over
which the society had no control, should have been deemed by his
excellency a sufficient reason for the withdrawal of his name as patron
of the society; and a resolution was passed, at the annual meeting,
soliciting the honor of His Royal Highness Prince Albert's patronage,
which, it is unnecessary to add, was readily granted.
In 1846 a dispute arose between the governor and Mr. Joseph Pope, which
excited considerable interest at the time, and which resulted in a
correspondence between the colonial office and the governor. It seems
that Mr. Pope had opposed strenuously, as an influential member of the
house of assembly,--he was then speaker,--a proposal to add five hundred
pounds to the governor's annual salary, and this generated in the mind
of his excellency a very undignified feeling of hostility to Mr. Pope,
who had only exercised a right which could not be legitimately called in
question. Writing to Mr. Gladstone, then colonial secretary, the
governor said of Mr. Pope: "As for any support from Mr. Pope, I am quite
satisfied that in all his private actions, since the time of my
persisting in reading the speech, at the opening of the session of 1845,
respecting the debt he had accumulated, he has been my concealed enemy."
The governor resolved to get quit of Mr. Pope, as an executive
councillor, and proceeded, in utter disregard of his instructions, to
effect that object by suspending that gentleman from his seat at the
board, without any consultation with other members of the council,
assigning to Mr. Gladstone, as his reason for dispensing with the usual
forms, that he had learnt from good private sources that the council, if
consulted, would have dissuaded the suspension of Mr. Pope, and would
have recommended the commencement of proceedings, by referring the
question to Her Majesty's government. This reason could not prove
satisfactory to the colonial secretary, and the governor was ordered to
bring the case before the executive council, in which Mr. Pope was to be
reinstated as a member; and if they should advise his suspension, then,
but not otherwise, he was to be suspended from his office as an
executive councillor, until Her Majesty's pleasure was known. Copies of
the despatches in which charges were brought against Mr. Pope were
ordered to be sent to himself, to which he had an opportunity of
replying; but, in the meantime, he prudently tendered his resignation to
the governor, in a long communication, in which he gave his reasons for
so doing, and in which he embodied a reply to the governor's charges,
and condemned his gubernatorial action in very plain and energetic
terms.
The legislature met for the first time in the new colonial building in
January, 1847. An election for the district of Belfast was ordered to be
held on the first of March. There were four candidates in the field:
Messrs. Douse and McLean on one side, and Messrs. Little and McDougall
on the other. A poll was opened at Pinette. The chief supporters of the
two former gentlemen were Scotchmen, and of the two latter, Irishmen. A
riot ensued, in which a man named Malcolm McRae was so severely injured
that he died. Several others lost their lives in this disgraceful scene.
Dr. Hobkirk testified before the executive council that from eighty to a
hundred persons were suffering from wounds received in the contest. A
large force was sent to the locality, and, on the nineteenth of March,
Messrs. Douse and McLean were returned without opposition. There is not
now a more peaceful locality in the island than that in which the riot
took place; national prejudice and political rancor are lost in kindly
fellowship.
Messrs. Charles Hensley, Daniel Hodgson, and George Birnie having been
appointed by the governor commissioners to examine into all matters
connected with the state of the currency of the island, presented their
report in February, 1847,--a report which was creditable both to their
industry and judgment. It appears from a letter addressed by Mr. Robert
Hodgson, then attorney general, to the commissioners, that the legal
currency of the island was the coinage of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, and the Spanish milled dollar, which was valued at
five shillings sterling,--the debtor having the option of paying in
either of these descriptions of money. The commissioners drew attention
to the fact, that the currency of the island was greatly depreciated,
and that the process of depreciation was going on, which was proved by
the circumstance that the Halifax bank note of a pound, which twelve
months previously, would purchase no more than twenty-three shillings of
the island currency, was now received and disbursed at the treasury for
twenty-four shillings. This depreciation the commissioners attributed to
an extensive issue of unconvertible paper, both notes and warrants,
combined with a growing distrust of the economical administration of the
finances of the colony, arising from the continued excess of the
expenditure over the receipts of revenue for some years past. They
therefore recommended the reversal of the order of procedure, by
diminution of outlay, the increase of revenue, the gradual abolition of
notes, and the restraining of the issue of warrants to the amount
required yearly for the public service. They also alluded to the
advantages that would result from the establishment of a substantial
bank, issuing notes payable on demand, and affording other facilities
for the commercial and agricultural operations of the island. The
commissioners concluded their report by expressing their deliberate
opinion that whilst a paper circulation, based on adequate and available
capital, was, under prudent management, of the utmost benefit to a
commercial and agricultural population, and would contribute largely to
its prosperity, unconvertible paper was a curse and a deception,--a
delusive and fictitious capital, which left no solid foundation to rest
upon in any time of reverse and difficulty. They also expressed the hope
that on no pretext should a permanent debt be established in the colony,
as the evil effects of such a burden would not be confined to the
additional charge upon the revenue, but would necessitate the absorption
of capital which might be more beneficially employed in commerce,
manufactures, or agricultural improvement.
The subject of responsible government was discussed at length in the
assembly during the session of 1847, and an address to the Queen on the
subject was adopted by the house, in which it was represented that the
lieutenant-governor or administrator of the colony should be alone
responsible to the Queen and imperial parliament for his acts, that the
executive council should be deemed the constitutional advisers of the
representative of Her Majesty, and that when the acts of the
administrator of the government were such as the council could not
approve, they should be required to resign. The house recommended that
four members of the executive council should be selected from the lower
branch of the legislature, such members being held responsible to the
house for the acts of the administrator of the government. As the local
resources of the assembly did not admit of retiring pensions being
provided for the officers who might be affected by the introduction of
the system of departmental government, it was suggested that the
treasurer, colonial secretary, attorney general, and surveyor general
should not be required to resign, but that they should be required to
give a constitutional support to the measures of government. In closing
the session, the governor intimated his intention of giving the address
which had been voted by the house his cordial support.
As the governor's term of office was about to expire, a petition was got
up by his friends, praying for his continuance in office. This movement
stimulated a counter movement on the part of an influential section of
the community, who were antagonistic to the governor, and, consequently,
a counter petition was framed, and a subscription set on foot to pay the
expenses of a deputation to convey the petition to England. The
deputation consisted of the following gentlemen: Mr. Joseph Pope,
speaker of the house of assembly, Mr. Edward Palmer, and Mr. Andrew
Duncan, a prominent merchant. The main grounds on which the continuance
in office of the governor was objected to were the following:--That he
had recently coalesced with parties who had been unremitting in their
endeavors to bring his person and government into contempt; that he had
shown a disinclination to advance the real interests of the colony, by
withdrawing his patronage and support from all public societies in the
island, because the legislature had declined to accede to his
application for an increase of salary from the public funds; that on one
occasion, through the colonial secretary, he publicly denounced every
member of society who would dare to partake of the hospitality of a
gentleman--a member of the legislative council--who was then politically
opposed to him; that he had, on various occasions, improperly exercised
the power given to him by the Queen, by appointing parties totally
unqualified by education and position to the magistracy; that on a late
occasion he had personally congratulated a successful political
candidate at government house, with illuminated windows, at a late hour
of the night, in presence of a large mob, who immediately after
proceeded through the town, and attacked the houses of several
unoffending inhabitants. This formidable catalogue of complaints was
calculated to produce a most unfavorable impression on the home
government, as to Sir Henry Vere Huntley's competency to govern the
colony. But the home government had come to a determination on the
subject before the arrival of the deputation. "I regret to say," wrote
Lord Grey, then the colonial secretary, addressing the governor on the
twelfth of August, "that having carefully reviewed your correspondence
with this office, I am of opinion that there is no special reason for
departing in your case from the ordinary rule of the colonial service,
and I shall, therefore, feel it my duty to recommend that you be
relieved in your government on the termination of the usual period for
which your office is held."
Sir Donald Campbell, of Dunstaffnage, was appointed to take the place of
Governor Huntley. He arrived in Charlottetown early in December, and as
belonging to an ancient highland family, was greeted with more than
ordinary enthusiasm.
When in London, the speaker of the house of assembly and Mr. Palmer
called the attention of Earl Grey to the state of the currency, and his
lordship subsequently addressed a despatch to the lieutenant-governor on
the subject. He alluded to the practice of the local government issuing
treasury warrants for small sums of money, and treasury notes for still
smaller sums, for the purpose of meeting the ordinary expenses of the
government, as tending to depreciate the currency below its nominal
value. Two remedies presented themselves: first, whether it would be
proper to endeavor to restore this depreciated currency to its original
value; or, secondly, whether it would not be better to fix its value at
its present rate, taking the necessary measures for preventing its
further depreciation. He recommended the latter course, as more
injustice was usually done by restoring a depreciated currency to its
original value than by fixing it at the value which it might actually
bear. To prevent further depreciation, he recommended that the
legislature should pass a law enacting that the existing treasury
warrants should be exchanged for treasury notes to the same amount, and
that these notes should be declared a legal tender; that it should not
be lawful to make any further issue of treasury notes, except in
exchange for the precious metals, the coins of different countries being
taken at the value they bore in circulation, and that the treasury notes
should be made exchangeable at the pleasure of the holders for coin at
the same rate. In order to enable the colonial treasurer, or such other
officer as might be charged with the currency account, to meet any
demands which might be made upon him for coin in exchange for treasury
notes, it might be necessary to raise a moderate sum by loan, or
otherwise, for that purpose. Though these suggestions were not entirely
carried out, yet an act was passed in the session of 1849, which
determined the rates at which British and foreign coins were to be
current, and how debts contracted in the currency of the island were to
be payable.
The year 1848 was not remarkable for any historic event in the
island,--the taking of the census being the most noteworthy, when the
population was ascertained to be 62,634. But it was a most memorable
year in the history of Europe, for in that year Louis Philippe, the King
of the French, vacated the throne, and fled to England for protection,
an event which occasioned a general convulsion on the continent of
Europe.
The attention of the assembly was called to the evils which resulted
from elections taking place in the island on different days, which
presented an opportunity to the evil-disposed to attend in various
districts, and create a disturbance of the public peace. A measure was
accordingly introduced and passed, which provided for the elections
taking place in the various electoral districts on the same day,--an
antidote to disorder which has operated admirably, not only in Prince
Edward Island, but in all places where it has been adopted.
During summer, the governor--in order to become acquainted with the state
of the country--paid a visit to the various sections of the island, and
was well received. He was entertained at dinner by the highland society,
and the whole Celtic population rejoiced in the appointment of one of
their countrymen to the position of lieutenant-governor.
In January, 1849, a public meeting was held in Charlottetown, for the
purpose of forming a general union for the advancement of agricultural
pursuits. The chair was occupied by Sir Donald Campbell, and resolutions
were adopted, and a subscription begun to carry out the object of the
meeting.
Earl Grey transmitted a despatch to the governor in January, 1849,
stating the reasons why the government did not accede to the desire, so
generally expressed, to have responsible government introduced. He
stated that the introduction of the system had, in other cases, been
postponed until the gradual increase of the community in wealth,
numbers, and importance appeared to justify it. He referred to the
circumstance that Prince Edward Island was comparatively small in extent
and population, and its commercial and wealthy classes confined almost
entirely to a single town. While its people were distinguished by those
qualities of order and public spirit which formed the staple foundation
of all government, in as high a degree as any portion of their brethren
of British descent, yet the external circumstances which would render
the introduction of responsible government expedient were
wanting,--circumstances of which time, and the natural progress of
events, could alone remove the deficiency. For these reasons Earl Grey
concurred with his predecessor, Mr. Gladstone, that the time for a
change had not yet arrived. He, at the same time, expressed his
conviction that the existing system of administration was compatible
with the complete enjoyment by the inhabitants of the colony of the real
benefits of self-government.
The colonial secretary thought that the period had come when the
assembly of the island should undertake to provide for the civil list.
He accordingly addressed a despatch to the governor, intimating that the
home government was willing to provide the salary of the governor, which
it proposed to increase to fifteen hundred pounds sterling a year,
provided the other expenses of the civil government were defrayed from
the funds of the island. To this proposal the house expressed
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