The influence exerted on government by the proprietors resident in London seemed irresistible, and was such as no government of our time could tolerate. The key to their power seems to be found in the circumstances that they were, for the most part, men in intimate social relations with parties in office, and, moreover, mainly consisted of officers who were supposed to have rendered good service in time of war, and whose complaints or representations, therefore, commanded at all times the royal consideration and sympathy. The proprietors, besides, cultivated the good-will and friendship of the under-secretaries, and other secondary government officials, who kept them informed of what was going on, and contributed in many indirect ways to promote their views. Mr. Stuart, in his letters to Governor Patterson,—who was by no means distinguished for the _suaviter in modo_,—frequently urged him to write certain persons in the government offices in a conciliatory and friendly manner, as he was convinced that they could exert no small influence in behalf of his interests. The proprietors not only succeeded in preventing the resolutions commended by the Duke of Portland from leading to any practical result, but also in obtaining, in 1802, an important reduction in the quitrents which remained unpaid, and which now amounted to the large sum of fifty-nine thousand one hundred and sixty-two pounds sterling; the sum due on some of the townships being actually more than their estimated value. In order to discriminate between the proprietors who had exerted themselves to carry out the terms of their grants, and those who had not, the government divided the commutation into four classes, requiring from the proprietors who had on their property the necessary number of settlers only five years’ quitrents, instead of thirty-two years’,—namely, from 1769 to 1801,—and making a proportionate deduction in the case of the four other classes. But as evidence of the determination of many of the landowners not to conform to the law, and their confidence in their own power to set the regulations of government at defiance,—as they had hitherto systematically done,—it may be here stated, that even the reduced amount does not seem to have been paid; and it was mainly in consequence of such daring and long-continued violation of obligation that the people, from time to time, in paroxysms of just indignation, demanded the establishment of courts of escheat.