were to be obtained which could not be got in other portions of the vast
continent of America. In four years from the date of the original grants
a third of the land was to be actually settled; within ten years there
was to be a settler to every hundred acres of land; as evidence that
there was to be no lack of protestant clergymen, one hundred acres were
allotted for a church and glebe; and as a guaranty that the schoolmaster
would be found at home, thirty acres were allotted to him in this
prospectively populous and happy island. The honor of the British
government was committed as a guaranty for the realization of these
brilliant promises. But during the first ten years the terms, as to
population, were complied with in ten townships only, nine being
partially settled, and forty-eight utterly neglected. The proprietors,
knowing that they could get the British government to do what they
pleased, petitioned, in the year after the grants were made, for a
separate government, and the expense was to be met by the quitrents,
which, however, they took good care not to pay; and as a reward for the
concession of a separate government, Britain had to pay for the
maintenance of the civil establishment of the island. Thirty years after
the grants were made, the assembly passed resolutions which set forth
clearly the extent to which the obligations under which the proprietors
had come were disregarded, and petitioned that they might be compelled
to fulfil the conditions on which they had obtained the land, or that it
should be escheated and granted in small tracts to actual settlers. In
shameful violation of the principles of national honor and justice, the
representations of the people, through their representatives, were
disregarded, in consequence of the influence brought to bear, by the
grantees, on a weak and incompetent government; and thus there was on
the part of Britain a flagrant breach of faith with the immigrants who
had been tempted to leave their native country, trusting to guarantees
the violation of which was never suspected. The people of the island
continued for ninety years to protest against the injury under which
they suffered, till at last a commission was appointed. Credit must be
given to the commissioners for the thoroughness of their investigation,
for the reliability of their facts, and for the impartiality and general
soundness of their awards. Yet the report seems to lack necessary
pungency and power in dealing with the iniquity of successive
governments in failing to make compensation to the island immigrants and
their successors for injuries persistently inflicted, and borne with a
degree of patience that excites our wonder. Instead, however, of such
injuries generating sympathy or admiration, leading to a rectification
of admitted evils, the only result was a flow of official twaddle about
the sacred rights of property, and the duty of obedience to imperial
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