When the French took possession of the country, all the land belonged to the king, and could be held by others only under feudal tenure, i.e., as a gift under obligation of counter service. The whole country was placed as a fief under the rule of the Hundred Associates, a company which also exercised a trading and colonizing monopoly, but made no success, and was dissolved in 1663. It was then that Richelieu introduced the system of seigniorial tenure, the land being divided into portions of from 100 to 500 square miles, usually with a certain amount of river front, and given outright to younger noblemen, favorites of the court, and clerics, who were, however, obligated to subgrant to colonists, thereby becoming so many immigration agents. These not only treated their colonists as tenants, exacting rent and service, but exercised nearly absolute jurisdiction within their domains, the colonists becoming virtually serfs or retainers of the seigneurs. This condition continued until 1854, when an adjustment of rights was formulated by the Seigneurial Tenures Act, and the government aided the “habitans” to secure their freedom by indemnifying the seigneurs, or else by paying rent, which was done mostly. Under English rule, the granting of lands, without, however, the seignorial rights, was continued. In 1784, such grants were made along the St. Lawrence and the Bay of Quinte to veterans of the loyalist army, some 20,000, in lots of 200 acres for privates up to 5,000 acres for field officers. In 1791, every seventh section was ordered to be set aside as Clergy Reserves for the support of the Protestant Church, a measure which created much friction, and formed, especially in the Roman Catholic province of Quebec, a chief grievance in starting the Papineau rebellion of 1837. Some 3,300,000 acres were gradually withdrawn for this purpose, and as far as possible leased to secure an income. Some of these lands were sold after 1827, and finally, in 1853, a statute was passed to sell the remainder and turn over the proceeds to municipalities for educational purposes and local improvement. Extensive grants and sales were made to lumbermen and speculators. In this manner, by the granting of 13,000 acres to an American, Philemon Wright, in 1800, the great lumber industry of Ottawa was started, and, in 1836, another American syndicate secured about a million acres of grants. Out of the 50 million acres granted in aid of railroad construction, some portion must also have been in timber. By all these methods as well as by small grants and sales to settlers a large area of uncertain extent has become private property.