Although the government had resolutely opposed the scheme of settlement proposed by Lord Egmont, yet it was disposed to divide the island among persons who had claims on the ground of military or other public services; and it was accordingly determined, in order to prevent disputes, to make the various allotments by ballot. [C] The Board of Trade and Plantations accordingly prepared certain conditions, under which the various grants were to be made. On twenty-six specified lots or townships a quitrent of six shillings on every hundred acres was reserved, on twenty-nine lots four shillings, and on eleven lots two shillings, payable annually on one half of the grant at the expiration of five years, and on the whole at the expiration of ten years after the date of the grants. A reservation of such parts of each lot as might afterwards be found necessary for fortifications or public purposes, and of a hundred acres for a church and glebe, and of fifty acres for a schoolmaster, was made, five hundred feet from high-water mark being reserved for the purpose of a free fishery. Deposits of gold, silver, and coal were reserved for the Crown. It was stipulated that the grantee of each township should settle the same within ten years from the date of the grant, in the proportion of one person for every two hundred acres; that such settlers should be European foreign protestants, or such persons as had resided in British North America for two years previous to the date of the grant; and, finally, that if one-third of the land was not so settled within four years from the date of the grant, the whole should be forfeited. Thus the whole island was, in 1767, disposed of in one day, with the exception of lot sixty-six, reserved for the King, and lots forty and fifty-nine,—which had been promised to Messrs. Spence, Muir, and Cathcart, and Messrs. Mill, Cathcart, and Higgens, by the government, in 1764, in consideration of their having established fisheries, and made improvements on the island, [D]—and three small reservations, intended for three county towns. A mandamus addressed to the Governor of Nova Scotia, the island being now annexed to that province, was handed to each of the proprietors, instructing the governor to issue the respective grants, on the conditions specified. In the following year, 1768, a large majority of the proprietors presented a petition to the King, praying that the island should be erected into a separate government; that the quitrents which would become payable, according to stipulation, in 1772, should become payable from the first of May, 1769, and that the payment of the remaining half should be deferred for the period of twenty years. This proposition was accepted by the government, and accordingly Captain Walter Patterson, one of the island proprietors, was appointed governor. He, accompanied by other officers, arrived on the island in 1770, at which period, notwithstanding the conditions of settlement attached to