History of Prince Edward Island. Campbell Duncan
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