In the year 1838, the chief of the Micmac tribe presented a petition to the governor, praying for a grant of land to his tribe, which he represented as consisting of five hundred souls. This number seems to have been exaggerated; for the governor, in writing to Lord Glenelg, in reply to an application for information, states that the number of Indians on the island did not exceed two hundred. The governor recommended a grant of Lennox Island—the property of Mr. David Stewart—to the tribe. Two sessions of the assembly were held in 1839. Whilst the first was proceeding with the public business, a despatch arrived ordering the governor to form an executive, separate from a legislative council. He immediately prorogued the house, and made the necessary nominations to both the councils. The house again met in March, in order to complete the business which remained unfinished at the recent prorogation. During the short interval which had elapsed since the termination of the late session, intelligence had reached the governor that active measures had been taken by the State of Maine to enforce by arms their alleged claims to the territory in dispute between that state and the province of New Brunswick. The season of the year did not admit of any active assistance being rendered in the emergency; but the island authorities determined to respond to the feelings and sentiments expressed by the council and assembly of the neighboring province of Nova Scotia. W. Cooper was the speaker of the house of assembly in 1839, and was sent as a delegate to London on the land question. Three propositions were made on the subject, namely, the establishment of a court of escheat; the resumption by the Crown of the rights of the proprietors; and a heavy penal tax on wilderness land. The home government rejected the project of escheat, and did not feel at liberty to recommend the advance of two hundred thousand pounds from the treasury. With respect to the third proposal, Lord John Russell, the colonial secretary, expressed his unwillingness to adopt it at the moment, so soon after the imposition of a tax of the same description, and until it had been clearly proved that no remedy was to be expected from the imposition of that tax, and from the disposition of the proprietors to come to an equitable arrangement with the tenantry. The colonial secretary declined to discuss the question with Mr. Cooper, and made his decision known, through the governor of the island, in a despatch dated the seventeenth of September, 1839, in which he expressed his approval of the terms proposed by the proprietors, through their agent, Mr. Young, recommending them as the basis on which Her Majesty’s government desired that the question should be arranged. CHAPTER VII.