business connected with escheat, prepared a bill entitled “An act for effectually revesting in His Majesty, his heirs and successors, all such lands as are, or may be, liable to forfeiture within this island,” which was passed by the assembly and assented to by the governor on the second of April, 1803. It did seem a mockery of the assembly when that bill was, contrary to the expectations of the people, disallowed by the home government, without any reason assigned. A committee on the state of the colony accordingly drew up a strong and spirited remonstrance, in which they boldly said: “It appears to the committee, and they have the strongest reason to believe, that the royal _assent_ to the said act for reinvesting His Majesty with such lands as are or may be liable to forfeiture within this island, has been graciously approved by His Majesty.” They then expressed their conviction, which was well founded, that the formal royal allowance had been withheld by means of unfounded representations of interested individuals in England. The committee sent these resolutions to William and Thomas Knox, the agents for the island in London, with instructions to use their utmost efforts to give effect to the remonstrance; and the house of assembly also presented an address to the lieutenant-governor, complaining of the efforts that had been made to render His Majesty’s intentions abortive, requesting him to transmit their petition and resolutions to Lord Castlereagh, and duplicates to the Earl of Liverpool, president of the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations. The house also appointed a committee, consisting of Holland, Macgowan, Stewart, Palmer, and Macdonald, to draw up a new bill, substantially the same as the former, which was duly passed. Nothing was wanting on the part of the assembly to neutralize the influence brought to bear in London in order to frustrate their intentions; and if the British government had not on this occasion lost its usual character for consistency and adherence to principles, so explicitly enunciated, the royal intentions, as intimated by the lieutenant-governor, would have been honestly carried out. The period was one of great political excitement in London. Lord Hobart, through whom the governor had received a solemn promise that the evil complained of would be rectified, had given place in the colonial secretaryship to the exciteable Castlereagh, and the solemn obligations of office appear to have been forgotten in the political fermentation of the moment. It would be difficult to point out, in the history of the British colonial administration, another instance where the dictates of political consistency and honor were so flagrantly disregarded as in the case under review.