If the reduction of the quitrents failed as an inducement to the proprietors to pay what was now really due to government, it did not fail to lead to brisk business in the sale of property, for from the commutation to the year 1806, nearly a third of the entire land in the island had been transferred by purchase to persons, many of whom were really determined, by industry and strict regard to law, to make the venture permanently profitable. The year 1803 was remarkable in the history of the island for a large immigration of highlanders from Scotland. The Earl of Selkirk brought out to his property about eight hundred souls. They were located on land north and south of Point Prim, which had been previously occupied by French settlers, but a large portion of which was now again covered with wood, and thus rendered difficult of cultivation. Many of his lordship’s tenants became successful settlers. Lieutenant-General Fanning’s connection with the island, as governor, terminated in 1804. During his administration the island did not make any remarkable progress in its various interests; but Mr. John McGregor,—a native of the island, and of whom we shall have more to say by-and-bye,—in his work on British North America, has hardly done the general justice, in representing him as of very “obscure origin, and owing his future to circumstances, the advantages of which he had the finesse to seize.” General Edmund Fanning was a native of America, and was born in the Province of New York, on the twenty-fourth of April, 1739. He was the son of James Fanning, a captain in the British service, and of his second wife Mary Smith, daughter of Colonel William Smith, who for some time administered the government of New York, and was sole proprietor of Smith Town, on Long Island. The paternal grandfather of General Fanning came to America, from Ireland, with Earl Bellemont, in 1699.