In 1794, Prince Edward—afterwards Duke of Kent, and father of Her Majesty the Queen—arrived in Halifax. In that year two provincial companies were raised for the protection of the island, and when His Royal Highness became commander-in-chief of the forces in British North America, he ordered new barracks to be erected at Charlottetown, and defensive works for the protection of the harbor to be constructed. The Duke never visited the island, but its inhabitants were duly sensible of the practical interest he took in its welfare; and having determined that its name should be changed, on account of the mistakes incident to other towns bearing the same designation, a local act was introduced in 1798, which changed the name to Prince Edward Island, which act received the royal allowance on the first of February, 1799. We find that in the year 1780, an act for altering the name of the island from Saint John to that of New Ireland was passed in the assembly with a suspending clause. In a letter addressed by Mr. Stuart to governor Patterson, dated the third of March, 1781, he says: “Your passing an act to change the name of the island is considered as a most unprecedented instance of irregularity. The reasons you give why it should be changed are admitted to be of some force, but they insist upon it that you ought, in common decency, to have set forth those reasons in a petition to the King, instead of passing a presumptuous act which is neither warranted by law nor usage.” This act was, of course, disallowed; but the governor did not lose sight of the hint as to petitioning, as appears from a passage in another letter from Stuart to Governor Patterson, dated, October, 1783, in which he says: “I am not unmindful of your petition for changing the name of the island, but I keep it back till we shall have carried points of more importance. When they are accomplished, I shall bring it forward.” Had the first application been made by petition to the King, it is extremely probable that the proposed change of name would have been adopted. Besides the two companies mentioned, a light infantry company and three troops of volunteer horse were formed in the island, who were handsomely clothed and mounted at their own expense, and armed at the expense of the government; at this time every man from sixteen to sixty years of age was subject to the militia laws. These wise precautions prevented any hostile descent on the island during the war, and tended to infuse a spirit of self-reliance and patriotic ardor into the community.