At this time the present province of New Brunswick was for the most part comprised in a county known as Sunbury, with one representative in the assembly of Nova Scotia. The island of Cape Breton also formed a part of the province, and had the right to send two members to the assembly, but the only election held for that purpose was declared void on account of there not being any freeholders entitled by law to vote. The island of St. John, named Prince Edward in 1798, in honour of the Duke of Kent, who was commander-in-chief of the British forces for some years in North America, was also annexed to Nova Scotia in 1763, but it never sent representatives to its legislature. In the following year a survey was commenced of all the imperial dominions on the Atlantic. Various schemes for the cultivation and settlement of the island were proposed as soon as the surveys were in progress. The most notable suggestion was made by the Earl of Egmont, first lord of the admiralty; he proposed the division of the island into baronies, each with a castle or stronghold under a feudal lord, subject to himself as lord paramount, under the customs of the feudal system of Europe. The imperial authorities rejected this scheme, but at the same time they adopted one which was as unwise as that of the noble earl. The whole island, with the exception of certain small reservations and royalties, was given away by lottery in a single day to officers of the army and navy who had served in the preceding war, and to other persons who were ambitious to be great landowners, on the easy condition of paying certain quit-rents--a condition constantly broken. This ill-advised measure led to many troublesome complications for a hundred years, until at last they were removed by the terms of the arrangement which brought the island into the federal union of British North America in 1873. In 1769 the island was separated from Nova Scotia and granted a distinct government, although its total population at the time did not exceed one hundred and fifty families. An assembly of eighteen representatives was called so early as 1773, when the first governor, Captain Walter Paterson, still administered public affairs. The assembly was not allowed to meet with regularity during many years of the early history of the island. During one administration it was practically without parliamentary government for ten years. The land question always dominated public affairs in the island for a hundred years.