YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 06815 3585 Zqq LO>„.r YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You may not reproduce this digitized copy of the book for any purpose other than for scholarship, research, educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy (or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes. 1334. PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. CITIZENS. Petitions from Prince Edward Island, addressed to the King, repre senting the conduct of Lieut.-Governor Charles Douglass Smith; the defec tive state of the administration of justice; and concluding with a-prayer-for his removal from office. London: Printed by W. Clowes, Northumberland court, Strand. [1824]. , _ iv, 55 p. 8vo. [Preface], p.iii-iv, signed: J. Stewart. London, March i7th, 1824; text of four petitions, p.[l]-35; Appendix, p.[37]-55, contains supporting documents. 20 x 12.2 cm. Sabin 65636. PETITIONS FROM PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, ADDRESSED TO THE KING, REPRESENTING THE CONDUCT OV LIEUT-GOVERNOR CHARLES DOUGLASS SMITH ; DEFECTIVE STATE OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE; AMD CONCLUDING WITH A PRAYER FOR HIS REMOVAL FROM OFFICE^ LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES, NORTHUMBERLAND COURT, STRAND. C a. 5" 6 ZOO The Subscriber being called upon by the general vpice of Prince Edward Island, to take upon him the presenta tion of their Petitions to the King, and being confident that nothing but the serious interposition of His Ma jesty's Government could save the landed and commercial interest of the Island from total ruin, at the earnest request ofthe principal inhabitants, he agreed to under take the public duty of becoming the bearer of their complaints. The following Petitions are founded on the Resolutions of the inhabitants assembled in County Meetings, under the sanction of the High Sheriff of the Island, in March last. The Resolutions were agreed to without one dis senting voice, and Committees of eight persons in each county chosen to embody the whole in Petitions addressed to the King. Great exertions were made by the Lieu tenant-Governor's family and a few others in behalf of the Colonial Government, to prevent their being gene rally signed, and when it was understood that they had been carried round the Island for the signature of the inhabitants, and were nearly ready to be transmitted, a proceeding was instituted in the Court of Chancery against the members of the Queen's County Committee, under which it was intended to get hold of the Petitions and imprison the Subscriber and the other members of the Committee, and thereby effectually prevent their ever reaching this country ; of this proceeding, and that the principal object thereof was his detention, he only received notice two hours before the attempt was made, and A2 being certain, from his knowledge of the publicfeeling on the subject, that his being committed to prison, and tbe Petitions falling into the Lieutenant-Governor's hands, would endanger the peace of the Colony, he next day left the Island and proceeded to Nova Scotia, under the laws and public authorities Of which he was safe from the power of Lieutenant-Governor Smith. The other Members of the Committee were served with the pro cess of the Court of Chancery, and were for sometime detained in the custody of a Serjeant at Arms, when his Excellency becoming alarmed at the general indignation with which his proceedings were viewed by the Colony, he thought fit to discontinue them until, as he says him self, he should be possessed of the means of enforcing his judgments in the case. J. STEWART. London, March 17th, 1S24. KING'S COUNTY PETITION. TO THE KING S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. May it please your Majesty, WE, your Majesty's faithful and affectionate Subjects, the Freeholders, Householders, and other Inhabitants of King's County in Prince Edward Island, assembled by public notice from the High Sheriff of the Island on the thirteenth of March last, to take into consideration the present alarming and distressed state of the Colony, beg leave to approach your Majesty with sentiments of the most loyal and devoted attachment to your Majesty's person, family, and government, and to lay at your Majesty's feet this our humble representation and peti tion, stating the conduct of Charles Douglass Smith, Lieutenant Governor of this Island ; in the ardent and anxious hope that your Majesty will be graciously pleased tq command such an investigation into the state of this Colony under his administration, as to your Majesty in your royal wisdom may seem proper and adequate to produce a full and satisfactory exposition thereof! That your Majesty's Subjects assembled on this occa sion entered into a number of Resolutions, stating the following specific charges against the said Lieutenant Governor Charles Douglass Smith, which they are ready to make good at any inquiry which your Majesty may be graciously pleased to order on the subject thereof, under which charges your Majesty's petitioners state, that ever since the Lieutenant Governor entered upon the Ad ministration of this Government, he has conducted him self towards your Majesty's Subjects therein with harsh ness, injustice, and contumely, of which we beg leave to adduce the following instances : — First. That, in January, 1818, he caused proceedings to be instituted for enforcing payment of your Majesty's Quit Rents, when the New Scale thereof, announced in hisown public proclamation ofthe 8th of October, 1816*, to be then under your Majesty's consideration, was still undetermined on, whereby many of your Subjects in this County suffered severely, and were much injured in their * See Appendix, Note I. property, notwithstanding the relief afterwards granted to them under your Majesty's gracious Orders, by which all that had been exacted from them above the rate of two shillings per hundred acres was returned, yet as the amount paid (with heavy costs and expenses which were not returned) was raised by the forced sale of their pro perty at less than one third of its general current value, the relief graciously intended by your Majesty fell far short of a remuneration for the loss which this unau thorized proceeding brought upon them. Second. That in January last a similar scene of extor tion took place, by the Lieutenant Governor's orders, on pretence of again enforcing payment of your Majesty's Quit Rents, whereby your Majesty's Subjects in this County suffered great loss and injury under a proceeding totally unnecessary, if regular payments ofthe Quit Rents according to the arrangement approved of by your Ma jesty in 1818, had been called for by the Acting Receiver- General ; instead of Which that officer refused to receive payment from various persons during the years 1819, 1820, 1821, 1822, which induced your Majesty's peti tioners to believe that no farther payment on account of Quit Rents would be called for, particularly as they ob served that Quit Rents were not demanded from your Majesty's Subjects in the neighbouring Colonies ; that on this occasion the first intimation they had of the demand was by seeing the Acting Receiver-General's Bailiffs coming among them to enforce the payment of four and a half years' arrears, with costs equal, in most instances in this County, to twenty years' Quit Rent on a hundred acres. That this proceeding, without notice, was com menced in the middle of a severe winter, with a great depth of snow on the ground, and your Majesty's peti tioners compelled* to give promissory notes for the amount of the demand payable in ten days, to realize which they were under the necessity of immediately resorting to the Capital of the Island, with such articles of agricultural produce as they were possessed of, and were likely to meet a market in that place, and there to dispose of the same at a rate which would not constitute any thing like a remuneration for the labour and ex pense of the journey they had to perform. Third. That in addition to the hardship of this pro ceeding, we humbly beg leave to state to your Majesty that the same took place at a time when little or no money was in circulation in the Colony, and when it was nearly impossible to comply with the demand; small as the amount may appear, the majority of the resident landholders having no means of meeting it, but by a great sacrifice of their property, which they were called on to submit to, while the smallest satisfaction was refused to the Colony as to the authority under which the de mand was now made by a person styling himself Acting Receiver-General, after an interruption of four and a half years in the collection, during which time tenders of payment from many individuals were refused. That by the constitution of the office of Receiver of your Majesty's Quit Rents in this Island it appears that the proceedings of the person holding that appointment are to be conducted under the directions of the Lords Com missioners of your Majesty's Treasury ; Mr. Carmichael, the person now holding the same, was appointed thereto more than six years since by Lieutenant Governor Smith, and nothing has ever appeared to satisfy the Colony that his appointment has been approved of or confirmed by their Lordships, while we have seen from the result of the proceedings carried on by him under the directions of Lieutenant Governor Smith in 1818, that these pro ceedings were unauthorized by their Lordships. Fourth. That your Majesty's petitioners humbly crave your Majesty's paternal attention to the extraordinary management under which these proceedings haye been conducted after the lapse of four years and a half with out any demand for payment being made, and when many circumstances had led your Majesty's petitioners to believe that unless the payment of Quit Rents was enforced in the neighbouring Colonies at the same time, that no farther demand would be made on them ; under these circumstances they naturally expected that a com munication from authority would have been made to the Colony, announcing to your loyal and affectionate Sub jects, the landholders thereof, that the demand for payment, after so long an interruption to the collection, was authorized and directed by the Lords Commis sioners of your Majesty's Treasury, and not as in 1818, the act of Lieutenant Governor Smith, and at the same time we might have expected that sufficient notice to enable your Majesty's petitioners to comply with the demand without subjecting them to a ruinous sacrifice of property would have been given ; instead of which, the only notice ever given or pretended to be given was an obscure and B 2 ambiguous Advertisement*, as will be seen on the face thereof, put up by the Acting Receiver in a few places about Charlotte Town, the Capital of the Island, in December, intimating that the Quit Rent Office would be open from the First to the Fourteenth of January inclusive, for three hours a day ; and this same notice, which contained no demand, was so managed that it never was heard of, or known to one tenth part of the landholders, and the first knowledge they generally had thereof, was by seeing the Acting Receiver-General's Bailiffs coming among them to distrain their property for not complying with a demand of which they had never heard, at the same time insisting on the payment of heavy expenses, as hereinbefore mentioned. These circumstances, we humbly conceive, mark strongly that the intention of proceedings conducted in this manner, was for the double object of giving a legal colour to the demand of heavy expenses in addition to the arrears of Quit Rent, and in case of resistance to the same, sup port to the Lieutenant Governor's accusation of disaffec tion, which he has thought fit to impute to your Majesty's Subjects in this Island without the smallest foundation. J3uch, may it please your Majesty, is the conduct ob served by Lieutenant Governor Smith, and his Son-in- law, the Acting Receiver of Quit Rents on this occasion, and we feel the utmost confidence that the loss and injury which we have thereby suffered, and which fell with great severity on this County, could never have been intended by your Majesty's confidential Servants. Fifth. That Lieutenant Governor Smith has not, since his residence in this Island, a period of ten years, been absent from Charlotte Town, except on one occasion that he ventured about eighteen miles from thence for two days ; that he has therefore failed in his duty to make himself acquainted with the actual state of the Country committed to his charge by personal observation and inspection, and is in absolute ignorance of its state and condition, to the manifest dereliction of the trust reposed in him, to the great injury of the Island in various ways, but more particularly to the extensive neglect of the High Roads and Bridges in this County and the constant misapplication of the Public Money, and the Statute Labour of the Inhabitants thereof to * See Note [I, Appendix. these highly important objects, by which our progress and prosperity has been greatly impeded and prevented. Sixth. That great loss and injury has resulted to several of the Proprietors and Inhabitants of this County, by the illegal and oppressive measures adopted by the Lieutenant-Governor, for locating and laying out the reservations in the different Townships for Church and school lands, the whole of which have been taken in some instances out of the property of persons holding but a small comparative extent of land in the Township, and in other instances these reservations have been lo cated in one moiety of a Township, originally granted in severalty, and the other moiety has been thereby entirely exempted from contributing any part of the extent required, to make up the full compliment of the reservation of one hundred and thirty acres in each Town ship, a state of things evidently contrary to common sense and honesty, and attended with the farther absur dity if persisted in, of defeating, in a great measure, the original object of the Reservation, as by such ill-chosen and inconvenient locations, the site of the future Church and School will be at such a distance from the principal part of the Inhabitants of the Township, as to be of little or no value in promoting the object thereof. That in other cases, these Reservations have been taken within the Boundaries of Farms long occupied and more or less improved by the Proprietors or their Tenants, without any allowance or consideration for the same being made ; that in all the cases herein referred to, other Locations equally valuable and convenient for the object might have been made, to which no objection exists, and which would have avoided all interference with the rights of the Proprietors and Landholders of the respec tive Townships, while the injury complained of is ap parently without other object, than that of compelling the party thereby aggrieved to resort to the Court of Chancery for redress, where His Excellency sits as sole Judge, upon a claim which must be prosecuted in opposi tion to what he considers as legally within his power and authority as Lieutenant-Governor, and where the Costs of such a proceeding, according to the now general rate thereof, will amount to a much larger sum than the present fee simple value of the Land sought to be re covered , and while there is not at this day one of these Re servations occupied, or likely to be occupied, forthe pur pose thereof, during the life of any person now in existence. 6 Seventh. That the Inhabitants of this County have suffered most oppressive exactions in the shape of Cus- tom-House fees, the effect whereof has operated with great severity on the export of our agricultural produce to the JMarkets of Newfoundland and Halifax, where the prices obtained for the last two years have been so low, as in many instances to produce on the sale of a Cargo only sufficient to pay the Freight and the Custom-House charges, though at both these ports the amount of the latter does not exceed one half the sum which we are com pelled to pay at your Majesty's Custom-House in this Island. That this evil has been long felt and repeatedly complained of without obtaining any redress, a misfor tune which we attribute to the officers being protected by Lieutenant-Governor Smith, (his son Henry being for three years past at the head of the Department), whereby they are enabled to obtain a decision in their favour on these complaints, without the Facts or State ment transmitted in answer thereto being ever seen by or communicated to the Complainants, or any reply thereto being called for or permitted. Eighth. That in January, 1818, the Lieutenant-Go vernor constituted a Court of Escheats without legal authority, and therein prosecuted to condemnation the valuable and extensive Tract of Land or Township, Number 55, part of this County, in an illegal and op pressive manner, and in violation of his own Public Pro clamation of the 8th of October, 1816 *, announcing to the Colony your Majesty's gracious intentions of extend ing immunity to the Proprietors of Land in this Island from the Forfeitures to which they were liable under the terms of their Original Grants, and that this proceeding was commenced and brought to a close before the absent Proprietors thereof could be made acquainted therewith, thereby depriving them of every means of protecting their rights, a proceeding which your Majesty's Peti tioners are apprehensive may hereafter be drawn into a Precedent, under which your Majesty's Subjects in this Island may be deprived of their whole property. As the sentence of Forfeiture against the Proprietors of one of the best-settled and improved Townships on the Island, * See the Proclamation in a note on the first charge : in June 1818, five months after this proceeding', his Majesty was pleased, according to the promise of immunity from forfeiture announced in this proclamation, to grant a full release from the obligation of settling the lands, with foreign Protestants, and they may now be settled with persons from any country, without inquiring as to their particular religious tenets. was therein declared to proceed on that condition of the Grant, which required the Township to be settled with Foreign Protestants, instead of which this valuable Township, containing 20,000 acres, was chiefly settled by persons of the Roman Catholic Religion from Scot land, a Population which certainly did not fulfil the Terms of the Grant in favour of the Original Proprietors and their Heirs, but which afterwards so far found favour in the Lieutenant-Governor's eyes, that he was pleased to give them Grants under the Great Seal of the Island, for a considerable part of the Township thus escheated, though their previous settlement thereon, under the title ofthe Original Proprietors, was held insufficient to preserve the rights of the latter from Forfeiture. Ninth. That your Majesty's Subjects in this County, in common with their fellow Subjects in Queen's and Prince County, humbly request your Majesty's gracious attention to the treatment which our -Colonial Legisla ture has experienced from Lieutenant-Governor Smith. who has proceeded to insult, vilify, and calumniate, the House of Representatives, and to reduce and dishonour your Majesty's Colonial Council, and for nearly three years past to deprive the Island of all benefit or protec tion from its Colonial Legislature, in proof of which we humbly state the following extraordinary facts. Tenth. That in November, 1818, he did most uncon stitutionally refuse to receive an Address from the Lower House of Assembly, in Answer to his Speech at the open ing ofthe Session, and persisted in refusing the same, after he had appointed an hour to receive the House with the said Address, such refusal being a breach of the Privileges of the House, highly injurious to the Colony, and intended to prevent the true state of its Public affairs from reaching the knowledge of your Majesty's confidential Servants. Eleventh. That in addition to this Public Insult to the Colony, the Lieutenant-Governor sent a Message, on the 15th of December, to the Assembly, requiring both Houses to adjourn to the 5th 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, according to the purport of the said Mes sage, it was insulted by Mr. Carmichael, the Lieutenant- Governor's Son-in-law and Secretary, who, advancing withinside the Bar, addressed the Speaker loudly in these words: " Mr. Speaker, if you sit in that chair one 8 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 into the House 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, thereby exhi biting a degree of illegal violence and unconstitutional conduct, of which we believe there is no other instance to be met with in the behaviour of a Colonial Governor under your Majesty's authority; and this extraordinary conduct was soon after followed by a Prorogation of the Legislature, in consequence of the House having com mitted to Jail the Lieutenant-Governor's Son, Mr. Henry Smith, for breaking the windows of the apartment in which the House was then sitting. Twelfth. That at the same Session ofthe Legislature, the Lower House preferred Thirteen serious and impor tant charges against Thomas Tremlet, Esq. Chief-Justice of the Island, and addressed the Lieutenant-Governor, praying that he would suspend the Chief-Justice until your Majesty's pleasure therein should be known ; but instead of complying with the request of the House, though it was well known that the Lieutenant-Governor was in the constant habit of expressing the most decided disapprobation of the Chief-Justice's conduct and cha racter, he thought fit, on this occasion, to interpose his opinion in opposition to these Charges, whereby all. in quiry into their Validity has been hitherto evaded, and that change in the office which the Colony has long anxiously desired has been prevented t- Thirteenth. That the Accusation transmitted against the Conduct of our Representatives in that Session of the General Assembly, by the Lieutenant-Governor, to Earl Bathurst, your Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, were most unjust ; and the declaration on oath, of certain persons tous unknown, which was sent therewith, in support of the Lieutenant-Governor's Re presentations, on the faith of which it appears that his Lordship declined laying the Address of the Assembly before your Majesty, was unfounded in truth, and a gross misrepresentation, of which the Lieutenant-Governor * This gentleman has since been advanced to the important office of Colonial Secretary, Registrar, and Clerk of the Council. t See these charges in Note IV. ' was so conscious, that at the next Meeting of the Legis lature, when the House addressed him requesting a a copy of the said Declaration, he refused to communi cate the same, pretending that the House had no right to examine into what had passed at a former Session of the Assembly!! since which he has declined to meet the Legislature of the Island, knowing well that the Lower House have it in their power, and would most likely enter into such proceedings as would prove to your Majesty the unworthy means to which he has resorted for the pur pose of concealing his own conduct and the real state of the Colony from your Majesty. Fourteenth. That in 1821, your Majesty's subjects in this island being desirous to establish Fisheries on the coast thereof, for that purpose humbly addressed the Lieutenant-Governor, praying that he would hold a Session of the Assembly, and earnestly pressed upon his attention the necessity that existed for a Meeting of the Legislature, that such measures might be adopted as were required to give a beginning to that object, and which the community was most anxious about, but far from entering into our feelings, or the important inte rests in view, his Excellency declined Meeting the Legis lature, considering only the unhappy necessity he had brought upon himself of depriving the Colony of every opportunity of laying at your Majesty's feet, through the proceedings of its Representatives, his own improper conduct and the actual state of the Colony, the conse quence of which has been severely felt in the increasing difficulties of the island, and the nearly total want of all circulating medium therein, so as to deprive even per sons of extensive and valuable property, of the means of paying in money' the ordinary disbursements of their domestic expenditure, and at the same time placing persons of small property though otherwise of competent means to meet all their engagements, absolutely in the power of their Creditors, who may now sacrifice their whole property for claims only amounting to a few shillings. Fifteenth. That having contrived for three years past to deprive the Colony of all benefit or support from the Lower House of Assembly, the Lieutenant-Governor has also accomplished the total degradation of your Majesty's Colonial Council, which by the Royal Commission and Instructions should be selected from among the persons 10 of most property and consideration in the Colony, but as now modelled by Lieutenant-Governor Smith, consists only of Five Members, the Senior of whom being long disabled by age and infirmity, cannot attend at the Board ; to the seat of the second, if the others were pro perly occupied, little objection could be made ; the Third Member is the Chief Justice, who takes his seat at the Board ex-officio, but who certainly enjoys less of the consideration and respect of his fellow-subjects, than any other person who has yet held his important office in the Colony. The Fourth Member is Mr. Ambrose Lane, a Lieutenant on the half-pay of the late 98th Regiment, now Town Major of Charlotte Town, and without any other connexion with the Island when he was brought into the Council, than his having then recently married a daughter of the Lieutenant-Governors. The Fifth Mem ber is a Mr. William Pleace, who came to the Island a few years ago, as a Clerk and Contracted Servant to a Mercantile Establishment, from which trust he has since been dismissed, and now keeps a petty shop of his own, where he retails spirits, being the first instance we ever heard of, of a person in such circumstances being brought into a seat at a Colonial Council Board: such, may it please your Majesty, is the actual present composition of that body which should be looked up to as the Constitu tional Support of the Colonial Administration, and which also performs the functions of the Upper House in the Legislature of the Island, and likewise exercises with the Lieutenant-Governor an important Appellate Juris diction in Causes from the Supreme Court, in all cases where the value in dispute amounts to the sum of Three Hundred Pounds ; according to the original practice and constitution of the Board, such Appeals could only be proceeded upon in the presence of Five Members, but at the Hearing of a recent Appeal, when the Value of the Property liable to the effect of the decision was much above Ten Thousand Pounds, the Board consisted only of the Lieutenant-Governor, Mr. Lane, and Mr. Pleace, the discarded Servant of the Appellants. To this state of the present composition of your Majesty's Co lonial Council in this island, we have to add that in 1819, two of the most useful and intelligent members were dismissed from their seats when the Legislature was in Session, without any apparent reason, other than might arise from their superiority over the rest, one of 11 them being your Majesty's Attorney-General of the Island. Sixteenth. That the Lieutenant-Governor, as Chancel lor, has permitted a heavy and most vexatious addition to the fees attending the usual proceedings before himself in that Court, which has taken place since he appointed to the office of Register and Master thereof his Son-in- Law, Mr. Ambrose Lane, a military man, unacquainted with the duties of such an office, thereby at the same time uniting in his person duties and appointments of the most opposite and inconsistent nature, proving, in the strongest manner, that the Lieutenant-Governor considers the in terests of his own Family as paramount to every consi deration of decency and propriety in the distribution of the Public Patronage to office at his disposal*. Seventeenth. That when the Grand Jury of the Island, assembled at the Hilary Term of your Majesty's Supreme Court of Judicature found Bills of Indictment against the Acting Receiver's Deputies for Extortion, and when the Trial of the accused was on the point of commencing, the Attorney and Solicitor General were sent for by the Lieutenant-Governor, and on their return into Court, it appeared that no Trial was to take place, the Accused being withdrawn from the justice of the country by the interference of the Lieutenant-Governor ; thereby shewing in the clearest manner the total want of Protection which your Majesty's Subjects labour under from the Laws and Institutions of the Country, under the Administration of Lieutenant-Governor Smith. Eighteenth. That the Lieutenant-Governor has in an "•arbitrary and illegal manner, by Instrument under the Great Seal of the Island bearing date three days before its actual existence, taken upon himself to supersede John Mac Gregor, Esquire, High Sheriff of the Island, regularly appointed to that Office under the authority and directions of our Colonial Statute for the regulation thereof, without the existence of any charge Public or Private against him, appointing to the Office the person who had been Mr. Mac Gregor's Under Sheriff, but pre viously dismissed by him from the said Office, and who has not been obliged to give the usual Security required by Law, and whose first Act was to expunge from the Panel of the Grand Jury, after the same had been re- * See Note 4. C 2 12 turned into the Crown Office by the High Sheriff, the Names of two respectable Individuals, then in Court in obedience to the Summons, thereby creating a general alarm for the Public Security, and the highly important Rights and Duties vested in Jurors legally and regularly summoned. Nineteenth. That it is with much concern and indig nation that your Majesty's Petitioners have lately learned that the Lieutenant-Governor has, on various occasions, charged your loyal subjects, the Inhabitants of this Island with turbulence and disaffection to your Majesty's sacred Person and Government, and the Constitution of our beloved Parent Country, a charge for which we are confident there does not exist the smallest ground ; and we do for ourselves and fellow-subjects in this Island most solemnly deny the truth thereof, and aver that Loyalty and Affection to your Majesty's Sacred Person, and steady attachment to and admiration of the glorious Constitution of the United Kingdom, universally prevail in this your Majesty's Island, whose Inhabitants cherish the most ardent hope that it may long remain a Colony under the protection ofthe British Empire, whose Laws and Political Institutions, under the Government of your Majesty's Illustrious Family, we trust and believe will ever be found to promote the happiness and prosperity of all that owe Allegiance thereto ; and we humbly and earnestly pray that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to order a Special Inquiry into the same, that an opportunity may thereby be given of wiping away so foul a calumny against your Majesty's faithful subjects^ in this Island, when we are confident it will appear that so far from there being any foundation for the Lieutenant- Governor's charge against us, that the submission and forbearance with which the Colony has borne his griev ous and oppressive conduct, has brought upon its inha bitants the imputation of being either careless or ignorant of their Rights and Privileges as British subjects. Twentieth. That great loss and injury have resulted to the Colony, in various ways, by depriving it of that Constitutional Protection, and advantage of the usual Meetings of the Colonial Legislature, according to the practice in all the neighbouring British Colonies, and the Rights conferred upon the people of this Island when it was erected into a distinct and separate Provincial Government, whereby the benefit of such Legislative 13 Proceedings, as are required to keep pace with the na tural progress of the Settlement, and absolutely neces sary towards promoting and securing the prosperity of the Colony are suspended, and have been long withheld, by which means part of our Revenue Laws, High Road Laws, Militia Laws, and other most important Acts of the Colonial Legislature have been suffered to expire, to the great detriment of your Majesty's service, and the manifest injury of your loyal subjects in this Island. Twenty-first. That the unfortunate character of our Co lonial Administration under Lieutenant-Governor Smith, has for some time*past prevented all resort of Persons of Property to the Island, it being a notorious fact that for the last three years there have not Five Persons worth One .Hundred Pounds each settled on the Island, though many such have come, but on being made acquainted with the state of our Administration immediately de parted ; in the mean time the neighbouring Colonies, with far less natural advantages, have acquired a great accession of Population, Capital, and Industry, at the same time that many valuable Settlers have abandoned the Island with their Families, to seek for that protection and security in other countries, which the Laws and In stitutions of this Colony, under the Administration of Lieutenant-Governor Smith have long denied them, and many other persons are now preparing to follow them, whereby the value of Property is likely to be greatly de pressed, the Population of the Colony diminished, and all prospect of completing the population of the yet un settled Townships, according to the terms of the arrange ment in that respect approved of by your Majesty in the year 1816 * ; and we humbly trust that your Majesty will perceive that this state of things, and the present dis tressed and alarming situation of the Colony are suffi ciently accounted for in the detail herein submitted to your Majesty's consideration, to which it would be easy to make a great and distressing addition ; all tending to prove that the conduct and character of Lieutenant- Governor Smith, is such as to disqualify him, in every respect, from discharging the duties of his office with advantage to your Majesty's service, or the interest of your loyal subjects in this Island. * By the arrangement here alluded to, ten years, from Dec. 1816, were given to complete the population of the then unsettled townships, an object in which, owing to the unhappy state of the Island, no great progress has since been made. 14 That your Majesty's humble Petitioners regret much the necessity they are under of approaching your Ma jesty's sacred person in the language of complaint now submitted to your paternal consideration, and humbly trust that on a full review thereof, your Majesty will be satisfied that the farther continuance of Lieutenant- Governor Smith in the command of this your Majesty's Island, cannot be otherwise than greatly distressing to its Inhabitants, and by preventing the usual course of Legislative proceedings therein required to meet the natural progress of the Island greatly impede the settle ment and prosperity thereof. May it, therefore, please your Majesty to relieve us, and give the Island, by an adequate appointment to our government, the same advantages which your Majesty's subjects in the neighbouring colonies are now enjoying from the management of their Public Affairs being en trusted to able and upright Governors. And your Majesty's Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, #c. 15 QUEEN'S COUNTY PETITION. TO THE KING S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. May it please Your Majesty, We, your Majesty's faithful and affectionate Subjects, the Freeholders, Householders, and other Inhabitants of Queen's County, in Prince Edward Island, assembled* by Public notice from the High Sheriff of the Island, to take into consideration the present alarming and dis tressed state of the Colony, beg leave to approach your Majesty with sentiments of the most loyal and devoted Attachment to your Majesty's Person, Family, and Government, and to lay at your Majesty's feet this our humble Representation and Petition, stating the con duct of Charles Douglass Smith, Lieutenant-Governor of this Island, in the ardent and anxious hope that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to command such an investigation into the state of this Colony, under his Administration, as to your Majesty in your royal wisdom may seem proper and adequate to produce a full and satis factory exposition thereof. , That your Majesty's subjects assembled on this occa* sion, entered into a number of Resolutions, stating the following specific Charges against the said Lieutenant- Governor Charles Duglass Smith, which they are ready to make good at any Inquiry which your Majesty may be graciously pleased to order on the subject thereof ; under which charges your Majesty's Petitioners state, that ever since the Lieutenant-Governor entered upon the Administration of this Government, he has conducted himself towards your Majesty's subjects therein, with Harshness, Injustice, and Contumely, of which we beg leave to adduce the following instances : — First. That soon after his arrival he took upon him self, without investigation or legal inquiry of any kind, to disturb and challenge the Titles and Rights of Persons who had obtained Grants of Lands under the Great Seal of the Island, in the usual form, as stated in the Resolu tions herewith transmitted. Secondly. That he took upon himself to challenge and disturb Persons holding Town Lots in the Capital of the Island, long since built upon, and improved from an * March 6th, 1823. 16 early period of the Settlement, whose original Grants in the lapse of Forty or Fifty Years, have been lost and the Record thereof mislaid or mutilated by the carelessness with which the Register Office had been kept, compelling these persons to take out new Grants for such Property from himself, and in some instances granting Lots, so circumstanced to other persons, without any inquiry into the rights of those who were thus divested of their Property. Thirdly. That he also compelled the Proprietors of Building Lots in Charlotte Town, held by Titles, founded on Judgments of the Supreme Court, upon Public Pro secutions carried on by the Colonial Treasurer, to take out new Grants of such Property from himself, notwith standing these Persons held the same under Deeds from the High Sheriff or Coroner of the Island, which Deeds are declared by an Act of the 26th of the late King, to vest in the Purchasers, their Heirs and Assigns for ever a good and valid Title to such Lands*. Fourthly. That in January 1818, he caused proceedings to be instituted for enforcing Payment of your Majesty's Quit Rents, when the promised New Scale thereof, at a reduced Rate, announced in his own public Proclamation, had not been received by him, or then decided on by your Majesty. Fifthly. That at the same time he constituted a Court of Escheats, without legal Authority, and therein prose cuted to Condemnation the valuable Tract of Land or Township, No. 55, in an illegal and oppressive manner, and in violation of his own public Proclamation of the 8th of October, 1816, announcing to the Colony your Majesty's gracious intention of extending immunity to the Proprietors of Land in this Island, from the For feitures to which they were liable, under their original Grants. Sixthly. That in his conduct to our Colonial Legisla ture, he has proceeded to insult, vilify, and calumniate the House of Representatives, to reduce and dishonour your Majesty's Colonial Council, and for nearly three years past to deprive the Island of all benefit or protec tion from its Colonial Legislature, in proof of which we humbly state the following extraordinary facts. * The Resolutions of Queen's County Meeting conclude these, their first charges, by stating that the sole object in these unjust and oppres sive proceedings was to extort money from the persons who were so unfortunate as to have property involved in those difficulties. 17 Seventhly. That in November, 1818, he did most un constitutionally refuse to receive an Address from the Lower House of Assembly, in Answer to his Speech at the opening of the Session, and persisted in refusing the same, after he had appointed an hour to receive the House with the said Address ; such refusal being a breach of the privileges of the House, injurious to the Colony, and intended to prevent the true state of its Public Affairs from reaching the knowledge of your Majesty's confiden tial servants. Eighthly. That in addition to this public insult to the Colony, in refusing to receive the Address of the House of Representatives legally assembled, the Lieutenant- Governor sent a Message on the 15th of December, to the Assembly, requiring both Houses to adjourn to the 5th of January following, and before the business in which they were then occupied, was finished, and when they were on the point of adjourning according to the purport of the said Message, the House was broke in upon by Mr. Carmichael, the Lieutenant-Governor's son- in-law and secretary, who advancing withinside the Bar, addressed the Speaker loudly in these words, " Mr. " Speaker, if you sit in that chair one minute longer as " Speaker, 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 in person, sent into the House for the Speaker, and hold ing up his watch to him, said, " he would allow the " House three minutes, before the expiration of which, " if they did not adjourn it should be dissolved;" there by exhibiting a degree of illegal violence and unconstitu tional conduct of which we believe there is no other example to be met with in the behaviour of a Colonial Governor under your Majesty's authority. And this ex traordinary conduct of the Lieutenant-Governor was soon after followed up by another insult on the House by his son Mr. Henry Smith, who was detected and acknowledged breaking the windows of the apartment in which the House was then sitting, and being committed to jail for such an outrage under the Speaker's Warrant, the Legis lature was thereupon prorogued, and Mr. Smith imme diately released without satisfaction or apology being made to the Colony for such an insult. Ninthly. That at the same Session of the Legislature, 18 the Lower House preferred Thirteen serious and important Charges against Thomas Tremlett, Esquire, Chief Justice Of the Island, and addressed the Lieutenant-Governor praying that he would suspend theChief Justice until your Majesty's pleasure therein should be known : but instead of complying with the request of the House, though it was well-known lhat the Lieutenant-Governor was in the constant habit of expressing the most decided disap probation of the Chief Justice's conduct and character, he thought fit, on this occasion, to interpose his opinion in opposition to these charges, whereby all inquiry into their validity has been hitherto evaded, and that change in the office which the Colony has long anxiously desired, has been thereby prevented. Tenthly. That the accusations transntitted against the conduct of our Representatives in that Session of the General Assembly by the Lieutenant-Governor to Earl Bathurst, your Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, were most unjust, and the declaration of certain persons, to us unknown, which was sent there with, in support of the Lieutenant-Governor's represen tation, on the faith of which it appears that his Lord ship declined laying the Address of the Assembly before your Majesty, was unfounded in truth, and a gross mis representation ; of which it is evident that the Lieutenant- Governor was so conscious, that at the next Meeting of the Legislature, which sat from the 25th of July to the 10th of August, 1820, when the House of Representa tives addressed him, requesting a Copy of the Declara tion, he refused to lay the same before them, on the ground that the House had no right to examine into what had passed at a former Session of the Assembly !! since which he has declined to convene the Legislature of the Colony, knowing well, that the Lower House had it in their power, and would most likely enter into such proceedings as would prove to your Majesty the unworthy means to which he had resorted for the purpose of con cealing his own conduct and the real state of the Colony from your Majesty. Eleventhly. That having contrived to deprive the Colony for many years past of all benefit or support from the Lower House, the Lieutenant-Governor has also ac complished the total degradation of the Colonial Council, which by the original Royal Commission and Instruc tions to our first Governor, should be selected from 19 among the persons of most property and consideration in the Colony, but as now modelled by Lieutenant-Gover nor Smith, consists only of Five Members, the senior of whom being long disabled by age and' infirmity cannot attend ; to the seat of the second, if the others were pro perly occupied, little objection would be made ; the third member is the Chief Justice, who by the Royal Instruc tions takes his seat at the Board ex-officio, but who certainly enjoys less of the consideration and respect of his fellow-subjects than any other person that ever yet held his important office in the Colony; the fourth member is Mr. Ambrose Lane, a Lieutenant on the Half-Pay of the late 98th Regiment, now Town Major of Charlotte Town, and without any other connexion with this Island when he was brought into the Council than his having then recently married a daughter of the Lieutenant- Governor's ; the fifth member is a Mr. William Pleace, who came to the Island a few years ago as a clerk and contracted servant to a Mercantile Establishment, from which trust he has since been dismissed, and now keeps a petty shop of his own, where he retails spirits, being the first instance we ever heard of, of a person in such circumstances being brought into a seat at a Colonial Council Board. Such may it please your Majesty, is the actual present composition of that body, which should be looked up to as the constitutional support of the Colo nial Administration, and which also performs the func tions of the Upper House in the Legislature of the Island, and likewise exercises, with the Governor, an important appellate jurisdiction in civil causes from the Supreme Court, in all cases where the value in dispute amounts to the sum of Three Hundred Pounds. According to the original constitution and practice of the Board, such Appeals could only be proceeded upon in the pre sence of Five Members ; but. at the hearing of a recent Appeal, when the value of the property liable to the effect of the decision was much above Ten Thousand Pounds, the Board consisted only of the Lieutenant- Governor, Mr. Lane, and Mr. Pleace, the discarded servant of the Appellants. To this state of the present composition of your Majesty's Colonial Council in this Island, we have to add, that in 1819, two of the most useful and intelligent members thereof were dismissed from their seats without any apparent reason than might arise from their superiority over the rest, one D 2 20 of them being your Majesty's Attorney-General of the Island *. Twelfthly. That the Lieutenant-Governor, as Chancel lor, has permitted a heavy and most vexatious addition to the fees and expenses attending the usual proceedings before himself in that Court, which has taken place since he appointed to the office of Register and Master there of his Son-in-Law, Mr. Ambrose Lane, a military man, unacquainted with the duties of such an office, thereby at the same time uniting in his person duties and appoint ments of the most opposite and inconsistent nature; proving, in the strongest manner, that the Lieutenant- Governor considers the interest of his own family as paramount to every consideration of decency and pro priety in the distribution of the Public Patronage to office at his disposal. Thirteenthly . That in 1820, during the absence of the Attorney-General in England, seventeen informations were filed in the Court of Chancery by the Lieutenant- Governor's orders against supposed trespassers on un granted lands in the Royalty of Prince Town, without one conviction having taken place, though at an expense of £200. drawn from our small Colonial Revenue, a great part of which was paid to the Lieutenant-Governor and his Son-in-law the Register in Chancery, while the utmost value of the land said to be trespassed on, if sold at public auction, would not have paid one fourth part of the expense incurred in the prosecution, and while at the same time there exists on our Statute Book, a Colonial Law, in the Act of the 16th of the late king, providing for the prosecution of such offences in the Su preme Court, at one tenth part of the expense incurred in this proceeding in which the unfortunate Defendants suffered great loss, and were much distressed thereby. Fourteenthly. That your Majesty's Subjects, the in habitants of Charlotte Town and its vicinity, have been greatly harassed and injured by the Lieutenant-Gover nor's conduct in forcing them, under the authority of an Act for regulating the Militia, to furnish Guards at their own expense in a time of profound peace, and to perform the duty of watching and warding at the same time, with out the existence of any disturbance in the Island, or the smallest risque or appearance of such : that in like man- * See Note at page 10. 21 ner, fines are levied on your Majesty's Subjects under the Militia and High Road laws, for supposed neglects, when the persons so fined are engaged in the perform ance of other public duties legally required of them, and cannot possibly be employed in two places at once. Fifteenthly. That in 1821, when in consequence ofthe alteration in the Timber duties our trade in that article had nearly ceased and the greatest difficulty was expe rienced in making remittances to Great Britain to support the commercial credit of the Colony, and enable us to ob tain the usual supply of British manufactures required for the consumptionof the Inhabitants, and the absolute ne cessity of resorting without delay to some adequate means of securing that object, became evident to all among us ; Public Meetings were held in the capital, at which it was resolved that an attempt should be immediately made to establish Fisheries, and thereby to lay the foundation of securing to the Colony a participation in the advantages of that extensive and highly beneficial business carried on upon our coasts, and at present chiefly occupied by Americans of the United States, and a Committee of respectable persons were appointed to communicate on the subject with the Lieutenant-Governor, and ear nestly to press upon his attention the distressed state of the Colony, and the necessity that existed for meeting the Legislature, that such measures might be proposed to that body as were required to give a beginning to the business, by securing the capital therein to be embarked with such regulations as experience has shewn to be ne cessary for the protection and safety of the object, and on which the community was most anxious : but far from entering into our feelings, or the important interests in view, his Excellency declined meeting the Legislature, considering only the unhappy necessity he had brought upon himself of depriving the Colony of every opportu nity of laying at your Majesty's feet, through the pro ceedings of its Representatives, his own improperconduct and the actual state of the Colony under his administra tion ; the consequence of which has been severely felt in the increasing difficulties of the Island, and the nearly total extinction of all circulating medium therein, so as to deprive even persons of extensive and valuable property of the means of paying in money the most trifling sums, and at the same time placing persons of small property, though otherwise of competent means to meet all their engagements, absolutely in the power of their creditors, 22 who may now sacrifice their whole property for claims only amounting to a few shillings. Sixteenthly. That we humbly crave your Majesty's at tention to the recent proceedings instituted for enforcing the payment of your Majesty's Quit Rent, as stated in the said Resolutions, whereby many of your Majesty's Sub jects have suffered great injuries and oppression, such proceedings being carried on without any real necessity, as we are confident that there is not an individual in the Island but would have paid up their Quit Rents without compulsion, had the same been regularly and legally de manded according to the terms of the arrangement approved of by your Majesty in the year 1818 ; instead of which they have been suffered to run in arrears for four years and a half, during which, the Acting Receiver- General frequently refused to receive payment from various individuals, circumstances which greatly aggra vate the hardship of coming suddenly upon the land-/ holders, without notice, with a demand for payment in fourteen days, which time had expired before it was heard of by one tenth of the inhabitants, who were first informed thereof by seeing persons coming among them to distrain for the arrears, with an addition of costs on proceedings which had never actually taken place, and which to persons holding one hundred acres amounted to a sum equal to twenty years' arrears of their Quit Rent, and at the same time insisting on the immediate payment in money, when the circulating medium of the Island has almost totally disappeared. Seventeenthly . That the Lieutenant-Governor has in an arbitrary and illegal manner, by instrument under the Great Seal of the Island, bearing date three days be fore its actual existence, taken upon himself to super sede John Mac Gregor, Esquire, High Sheriff of the Island, regularly appointed to that office under the authority and directions of our Colonial Statute, for the regulation thereof, without the existence of any charge public or private against him, appointing to the office the person who had been Mr. Mac Gregor's Under She riff, but previously dismissed by him from the said office, and who has not been obliged to give the usual security required by law, and whose first act was to expunge from the panel of the Grand Jury, after the same had been returned into the Crown Office by the High Sheriff, the names of two respectable Individuals then in court in "obedience to their summons, thereby creating a general 23 alarm for the public security and the highly important rights vested in jurors legally and regularly summoned. Eighteenthly. That when the Grand Jury of the Island, assembled at the Hilary Term of your Majesty's Supreme Court of Judicature, found bills of indictment against the Acting Receiver's Deputies, for extortion, and when the trial of the accused was on the point of commencing, the Attorney and Solicitor General were sent for by the Lieutenant-Governor, and on their return into Court, it appeared that no trial was to take place, the accused being withdrawn from the justice of the country by the interference of the Lieutenant-Governor ; thereby shew ing, in the clearest manner, the total want of protection which your Majesty's Subjects labour under from the laws and institutions of the country, under the admini stration of Lieutenant-Governor Smith. Nineteenthly. That great loss and injury has resulted to this Colony in various ways by depriving it of that constitutional protection, and advantage of the usual Meetings of the Colonial Legislature, according to the practice in all the neighbouring British Colonies, and the rights conferred upon the People of this Island when it was erected into a distinct and separate provincial government, whereby, the benefit of such legislative pro ceedings as are required to keep pace with the natural progress of the settlement, and absolutely necessary to wards promoting and securing the prosperity of the Colony, are suspended, and have been long withheld, by which means part of our Revenue Laws, High Road Laws, the Militia Laws, and other most important acts of the Colonial Legislature have been suffered to expire, to the great detriment of your Majesty's service, and the manifest injury of your Loyal Subjects in this Island. Twentieth. And your Majesty's Petitioners, in addition to these charges, all of which stand on the face of the Resolutions of the General Meeting of the county, state that it is with much concern and indignation they have learned that the Lieutenant-Governor has on various occasions, charged your Majesty's Subjects in this Island with disloyalty, turbulence, and disaffection to your Ma jesty and the constitution of our beloved parent country. Proud of the allegiance under which we were born, we do most solemnly, for ourselves and fellow subjects, deny the truth ofthe said charge, which we boldly state is to tally without foundation, and aver that loyalty and affec- 24. tion to your Majesty's sacred person and government, and steady attachment to, and admiration ofthe glorious con stitution of the United Kingdom, universally prevail in this your Majesty's Island, whose inhabitants cherish the most ardent hope that it may for many ages remain a Colony under the protection of the British Empire, whose laws and political institutions, under the govern ment of your Majesty's illustrious family, we trust, and believe, will ever be found to promote the prosperity and happiness of all that owe allegiance thereto : and if this accusation has made any impression against us, we hum bly and earnestly pray that your Majesty will be gra ciously pleased to order a Special Inquiry into the same, that so foul a calumny may be fully refuted, and that your faithful Subjects in this Island, may- be restored to your Majesty's favourable opinion ; and your Majesty's Petitioners are confident it will then appear that so far from there being any foundation for the Lieutenant- Governor's charges against us, it will be seen that the forbearance and submission with which the Colony has hitherto borne his grievous and oppressive conduct has brought upon its inhabitants the imputation of being either careless, or ignorant, of their rights and privileges as British Subjects. That your Majesty's Petitioners, sincerely lamenting the occasion of being compelled to approach your Ma jesty with these complaints, humbly pray for your Majes ty's paternal interference and protection: confident that an inquiry into the merits thereof will satisfy your Ma- j esty that the further continuance of Lieutenant-Governor Smith in the command of this your Majesty's Island, cannot be otherwise than greatly distressing to its inhabi tants, and totally prevent the usual course of legislative proceedings therein, which your Majesty's service, and the present state of the Colony require to be immediately attended to in various instances. May it therefore please your Majesty to recall Lieu tenant Governor Smith from the administration of the government of this Island, and to take such further mea sures in the premises as your Majesty may be graciously pleased to see fit. 25 PRINCE COUNTY PETITION. TO THE KING S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. May it please your Majesty, We, your Majesty's loyal and dutiful Subjects, the Magistrates, Landholders, Merchants, and other Inha bitants of Prince County, Prince Edward Island, legally assembled this day in a general meeting of the County to take into consideration the present distressed State of the Colony, beg leave to approach your Majesty with this our humble Complaint and Petition, confident that the paternal solicitude with which your Majesty watches over the interests and happiness of all your people, even in the most remote parts of your Majesty's extensive empire, will ensure to us your gracious and favourable consideration and redress of the Grievances which we are now compelled to lay at your Majesty's feet, shewing that the present alarming and distressed State of the Island is occasioned by the mal-administration of the local government, under the authority and influence of Charles Douglass Smith, Lieutenant Governor thereof in conjunction with Thomas Tremlett, Esquire, Chief Justice of the Island; the Suspension of our Colonial Legislature and the Perseverance of the Lieutenant Go vernor in depriving the Island of its exertions and pro tection in the various interests and objects to which its authority is applicable in promoting and extending the improvement and progress of the Colony ; instead of which the Lieutenant Governor, after misrepresenting the proceedings of the Lower House of Assembly, and slandering them and their constituents with a charge of Disloyalty and Disaffection to your Majesty's sacred Person and Government, is now apparently determined to continue that System of intolerable Oppression which his conduct has uniformly evinced since he entered upon the Administration of our public Affairs, whereby the Colony is now suffering most severely, and from which E 26 your Majesty's gracious and paternal interference can alone relieve us. And your Majesty's humble Petitioners, in proof of their just complaints, state, for your Majesty's consi deration, the substance of Thirteen Resolutions pro posed and unanimously agreed to at the said County Meeting. First. That, at the Opening of the Session of the General Assembly, convened by the Lieutenant Governor on the 3d day of November, 1818, the Lower House of the General Assembly framed a dutiful and respectful Address to the Lieutenant Governor, your Majesty's Representative, in answer to his Speech at the com mencement of the Session, but which his Excellency, in a contemptuous manner refused to receive^ under pretext that it was unconstitutionally framed ; but notwith standing such conduct of the Lieutenant Governor, the Lower House proceeded with the business of the Session and passed a Bill of Supply, as well as several other salutary laws for the benefit and regulation of the Colony, and also preferred thirteen serious charges against Thomas Tremlett, Esquire, Chief Justice of the Island, and addressed his Excellency to suspend him from that high office until your Majesty's pleasure therein should be known ; we therefore humbly submit that such conduct on the part of the Lower House of Assembly was highly creditable to them, and a striking contrast to the intemperate and unconstitutional conduct of the Lieutenant Governor. Second. That the Lieutenant Governor forwarded certain false and unfounded representations and affi davits of persons to us unknown to the Right Honourable Earl Bathurst, your Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, stating that a certain Address to your Majesty from the Lower House of the General Assembly, agreed to in the same Session, was voted and passed by its members in a disorderly and tumultuous manner, after the regular adjournment of the House ; in consequence of which representations and affidavits, the Grievances complained of in the said Address never reached your Majesty's notice, and your Petitioners most humbly submit that such conduct of the Lieutenant Governor was unconstitutional, illegal, and highly de rogatory to his character as the Representative of your Majesty. 27 Third. That the Lower House of Assembly, by their Journal of the 15th of December, 1818, shew their anxious desire to comply with the wishes of the Lieu tenant Governor for adjourning the House to the 5th of January following, and had his message to that effect under consideration when they were interrupted by his Secretary, Son-in-law, and the Clerk of the Council, John Edward Carmicfrael, Esquire, who entered the body of the House, and rushing up to the Speaker's Chair in a most contemptuous and threatening manner, shaking his fist at him, said, " Mr. Speaker, if you sit in that chair as Speaker one minute longer, this House will be dissolved," and immediately withdrew ; and very soon after this gross insult offered to the House, when it was in deliberation thereon, the Lieutenant Governor sent for the Speaker to attend him in the Council Chamber, who, upon his return to the House, stated that the Lieutenant Governor took out his watch and told him that the Lower House had five minutes to live, and if they were not adjourned at that time, the Assembly should be dissolved ; such conduct in the Lieutenant Governor, we conceive, being subversive of the Rights of the Colony, and a high breach of the Privileges of the Lower House. Fourth. That the Trade, Commerce, and Shipping Interest of this Island, and particularly in the Outports, have been considerably injured and impeded. First — in consequence of the great expense and inconvenience of attending the Custom-House from the Outports, distant from forty to sixty miles, to enter and clear vessels. Secondly — in consequence of the heavy charges made by that office for fees, particularly grievous to those con cerned in small Schooners from 15 to 60 tons, which are engaged in conveying the Farming Produce of the Island to Nova Scotia, Miramichi, and the neighbouring Co lonies, the inconvenience of going so far to a Custom- House, and the charges there made generally consuming the Profits of the Voyage. Thirdly — the arbitrary and illegal conduct of Lieutenant Governor Charles Douglass Smith, under which many suffered by his refusing to sign Vessels' Registers unless the same were printed on Parchment, although Registers were legally presented to his Excellency by the proper officers for signature, and these officers were known to have no printed Re gisters, nor could any be procured until a supply arrived Eo 28 from the Custom-House in London, whereby many vessels were detained for a very considerable time in the harbours of the Island, to the loss, detriment, and injury of trade and commerce. Fifth. That by the frequent and long interruption to the Meetings of the Legislature, the Laws for regulating and governing the Militia have been permitted to expire, and the sole Act on that subject now standing on our Statute Books was passed so long since as the year 1780, during the prevalence of a General War, and the Ame rican Rebellion, soon after the commencement of our Colonial Establishment, when our population was com paratively small, and has been long considered as obsolete and inapplicable to the altered situation and circum stances of the Island ; and previous to Lieutenant Go vernor Smith's Administration and the expiry of the - Laws hereinbefore referred to, was not for many years acted upon or enforced ; nevertheless, since the loss of these Statutes, the Lieutenant Governor has thought fit to enforce the observance of the obsolete Statute of 1 780, to the great injury and oppression of your Ma jesty's Subjects, by compelling them to comply with the the several provisions of that Act in time of profound Peace with all the World, and without any ground for apprehending tumult or danger within the Island, and has in several instances during the last year commanded Militia Musters at a time when, pursuant to the Laws for making and repairing the High Ways and Bridges, your Majesty's Subjects being engaged in that duty, could not attend at such Musters, in consequence of which many of them were summoned from a distance of forty miles to Charlotte Town, and fined without power of appeal under the provisions of this obsolete Law, with heavy Costs and Charges, to their manifest injury and oppression. Sixth. That there are many Plots of Land adjacent to the intended site of the Town of Prince Town, in this County, consisting of eight acres each, commonly called the Royalty Prince Town, ungranted and vested in your Majesty, no person having applied for grants thereof; and although there are no persons as yet residing upon the intended site of the Town, there is a very consi derable population resident on and adjacent to the said Royalty ; and notwithstanding repeated applications have been made to Lieutenant Governor Smith, praying that 29 he would order the Surveyor-General to lay out and mark the several Division Lines of those Allotments, a very small proportion thereof has yet been surveyed, otherwise than by unauthorized persons, to the great loss and injury of individuals, and the confusion of pro perty and boundaries. Seventh. That in the Winter of 1820, when your Ma jesty's Attorney-General was absent on leave from the Island, the then Solicitor-General, by order of the Lieu tenant-Governor ..instituted Seventeen Suits in the Court of Chancery against so many persons, inhabitants of the Prince Town Royalty, for intrusion into nine of those ungranted Lots, by cutting wood growing thereon ; and for the purpose of supporting the said Prosecutions, Lieutenant-Governor Smith prevailed on your Majesty's Colonial Council, to agree to his advancing .upwards of 140in April, of what was going on here, the orders of Government thereon were received here three days before tbe motion for judgment was made in Court on the 7th July, and it might have been expected after the general alarm that had been excited in the Colony relative to these proceedings, that some attention would have been paid to the public feelings, and a communication of the views and in tentions of Government relative to the payment of the Quit Rents made as on former occasions by public Proclamation, instead of which a dead silence was observed by the local ad ministration, and it coidd only be known by inference grounded on the following notice, that any order had been received on the subject. "Quit Rent Office, Charlotte-Town, " July 5th, 1823. " Whereas Proceedings under the Statute for the receiving of " His Majesty's Quit Rent due and payable within this Island, " have been taken against certain parts and parcels of land " within the same, " PUBLIC NOTICE " is hereby given to the proprietors of the lands, that upon ap- " plication at this Office, any day previous to the Sale of the "said land, and paying one year's Quit Rent upon the same, " together with the Costs incurred, all further proceedings for " the remaining arrears will be for the present stayed. " J. E. Carmichael, " Act«- Recr. General." APPENDIX. 51 This notice though dated on the 5th July, the day after the ar rival of the May mail, was only published on the 7th, and on the same day the Acting Receiver General, went into Court, and obtained judgment for four and a half years' arrears against various shares of Township Lands, and a considerable number of Town and Pasture Lots ih Charlotte-Town*. Quit Rent Sales, 27th August, 1823. Conditions of Sale. " 1st. Money to be paid on delivery of the Deeds of Convey - " ance, and the deeds to be delivered to the purchasers at the " Sheriff's Office in Charlotte-Town, on the 3d day of September " next. " 2d. In case of any dispute who is the highest purchaser, the " lot or land shall be exposed again. " 3d. In case any purchaser shall fail in the payment, the lot " or land shall be again sold at the risk and cost of the purchaser " so failing to pay. " 4fh. A deposit of 20 per cent, to be paid on all purchases " not exceeding 4i50, and 10 per cent, on all above. " 5th. Purchasers of parts of Townships to make their choices " and bring descriptions to the Sheriff's Office on or before the " 12th day of Sept. next. 20achains front to each 100 acres will "be allowed on any water or road front — other lands to be " taken in a square block t." It being asked how the purchasers were to know or find out the property which they might purchase, or how the same could be described in the Sheriff's Deed, Mr. Sims, the Deputy Sheriff, answered that the purchasers would be permitted to choose their respective quantities on any part of the Township in which they might purchase, then in arrear, and bring their descriptions to the Sheriff by a certain day, when they would * Three days after the receipt of orders from the Colonial Department, to suspend all proceedings except for the Quit Rents of the current year ; but obedience to this order would have incurred the loss of the costs ; and on the 27th August, the sale of parcels of these Township Lands took place at the Court-House, when the above terms and conditions of sale were read to the audience. t Thirty chains front per hundred acres is double the allow ance of frontage generally given on the Island, as the Town ships are generally very long in proportion to their breadth, the front of a thousand acres, at this rate, will in many cases take up the front of a Township of twenty thousand acres. 62 APPENDIX. receive his deeds for the same ; on the first parcel being sold though it brought more than was required [to satisfy the judg ment against the Township, the Acting Receiver General in sisted that the whole of the lands included in the judgment should be set up and sold, but this the Deputy Sheriff ab solutely refused to comply with, and the sale of the remainder was conducted in the same way, parcels such as appeared to be sufficient to satisfy the different judgments being set up and sold, with the exception of the Township, No. 47, 850 acres of which were set up to satisfy a debt of seventeen shillings, with costs of suit on the same, amounting, to the sum of 24,1. 7 s. Sd* Here we have to state as was publicly done at the sale; that on all these lands ample means might have been found to sa tisfy the arrears of Quit Rent by distress as directed by the Colonial Quit Rent Statute, under the authority of which these proceedings were pretended to he carried on, but the directions thereof were entirely dispensed with, no distress having been taken in any instance though in most cases the occupiers of these lands were in arrears to their respective proprietors much more than would satisfy the arrears of Quit Rent. The sale of the town and pasture lots of Charlotte-Town, produced apparently a considerable sum, there being a struggle between the proprietors and the connexions of the local Go vernment on the occasion, chiefiy' the' Lieutenant-Governor, sons, and sons-in-law, the latter being evidently desirous to make them sell high, that it might appear as if there was abun dance of money in the country, and that^no difficulty existed in obtaining payment of the Quit Rents. In such proceedings it may be seen that something very dif ferent to securing payment of the Quit Rents, with as little injury as possible to the landholders was the real object, to wit, the costs and the hope of creating confusion of titles, dis sensions, and contending interests among our fellow-sub jects, and thereby providing abundance of employment for the Court of Chancery. We shall not at present carry this detail farther, than to inform the public that a letter has been recently received from a respectable proprietor, dated London, July 12th, by which it appears that instructions have been transmitted to the local ad ministration here, to suspend all proceedings except for the Quit Rent of the current year, and that " as no regular Receiver has * Mrs. Clark, a widow with a large family, left in difficult cir cumstances, had six town and pasture lots sold for an arrear of about six pounds, the costs on which amounted to one hundred and five pounds. Appendix. S3 " been appointed by the Treasury, the Lieutenant Governor is " authorized to nominate an Acting Receiver, aud to him it will "be proper to pay the Quit Rents for the year ; the arrears for " 1819, 1820, 1821, and 1822, are not, I believe, to be claimed " at present ; it will, however, be very important to pay the Quit " Rent for 1823. It was certainly understood when the arrears, " previous to 1818, were given up, that a punctual payment of " the Quit Rents, on the reduced scale then decided ou, would be " expected and enforced, had the demand been unaccompanied by " law proceedings to swell the amount. I therefore do not think " we could reasonably have complained ; these law charges are " now, I believe, to be abandoned, as well as the arrears before " the present year, or at least the payment of these last are to be " suspended." Whether the information herein communicated will turn out to be in every respect accurate, will soon be known; however, in the mean time, it will be gratifying to the public at large to know, that the proceedings here have at tracted the attention of Government in England, from whieh we may confidently expect the redress of all our grievances, and that the administration of our Government will no longer be left in the hands of a person who has taken upon himself to suspend the Legislature of the Colony for more than three years, and conducted himself towards his Majesty's subjects in the manner stated in the Resolutions of the County Meetings*. NOTE VII. reservation for church and school land. In the Grants from the Crown of the different Lots or Town ships ofthe Island, there is a Reservation of one hundred acres for the site of a Church, and as a glebe for a Minister of the * The above address to the public of Prince Edward Island, was signed by Ten ofthe Members of the County Committees, on the 10th September last ; the language of it has by some been called inflammatory, and tending to occasion disorder and opposition to legal authority in the Colony; that such was neither the intention nor the effect of its publication, may be fairly inferred from the result, -as not one instance of disorderly conduct or disobedience to lawful authority, has appeared since its publication, notwithstanding the extraordinary proceedings adopted by the Lieutenant-Governor on the subject. 54 APPENDIX. Gospel, and thirty acres for a Schoolmaster, without saying when or where these reservations were to be taken. The reservation has always been understood to be intended for the Church of Englaud exclusively ; but there having been until lately only one Minister of the Church of England in the Island, who was settled at Charlotte Town, these lands have not been claimed, and no attempt was ever made to locate them until the year 1815, when Lieutenant-Governor Smith directed the Surveyor-General Mr. Wright to lay them out ; to this there could be no farther objection provided the location was honestly made, than that it was incurring a considerable expense upon an object not likely to be wanted during the existence of any person now living. The following summary of the mode in which this business was conducted will shew the spirit and feeling towards indimdual proprietors which prevailed on the occasion. In the Township, No. 48, consisting of 23,600 acres, originally granted in two equal halves, the whole of the Reservation has been taken out of the property of Mr. John Stewart, consisting of 3,700 acres parcel of the western moiety of the Township ; in the Township, No. 38, consisting of 20,000 acres, the whole of the Reserva tion has been taken out of a tract of 1 100 acres, the property of the same person. On the Township, No. 45, originally granted in severalty, the whole Reservation has been taken out of one half of the Township, which is also the property of Mr. Stewart, and the site of a Protestant Church, wdth the Ministers glebe, placed in the midst of a Roman Catholic population. In Lot 46, the whole Reservation has been thrown upon one half of the Township, and not one acre taken out of the other half. In the Township, No. 39, the property of Charles andEdward Worrell, the Reservation has been taken partly out of farms, long under lease and cultivation, without the smallest allowance for the loss and inconvenience to which the Proprietors are thereby subjected, and persisted in notwithstanding they pointed out other lands, equally well situated, which they were desirous should be taken. • In the Township, No. 42, held in halves, the whole of the Reservation was laid out on the eastern half, and located on a Farm long occupied and improved, and proceedings in Chancery commenced against Lieutenant-Colonel Yonge, the tenant in possession, as for a trespass on crown lands, and there is no doubt but he would have been turned out and saddled with heavy costs, had not Lord Bathurst, on the case being stated to the Colonial Department, directed the proceedings to be dis continued, and that without subjecting Colonel Yonge to any costs, in consequence of which the expense of this most oppressive proceeding has been thrown on the Colonial Treasury of the APPENDIX. 55 Island*. In the Township, No. 36, the Reservation has been taken out of the domain of the principal proprietor, so as to pre vent the extension of his cultivation, and to deprive him of tim ber and fire-wood for his domestic use, coming close to his back fences j and though the hardship of the case was clearly stated, and Mr. Macdonald offered land in every respect equal in value for the object of the Reservation, no redress could be obtained; the Lieutenant-Governor, in answer to his applica tion, stating that it was done and should not be undone, although there is not the smallest appearance that the Reservation will be wanted for a century to come. Sufficient is here stated to shew the spirit inj which this business has been conducted ; many other cases of equal hardship might be mentioned ; and it is only necessary to state farther, that in no case has the smallest at tention been paid to the object of locating these Reservations so as to provide for placing the future Church and School in a central situation, that the same may be at an equal distance from all the Inhabitants of a Township. * In like manner the costs of escheating the Townships 15 and 55, amounting to upwards of one hundred pounds, have been thrown on the Colonial Treasury, by a Warrant of the Lieutenant-Governor in favour of his son-in-law, Mr. Carmi chael, the Acting Receiver General of Quit Rents. LONDON: PRINTED BY W.CLOWES, Norlhumberland-conrt. £*¦ "-it"'*"' • LH&&&L. m •' w } m-^vm \ - ¦ y, . ¦ -.0