On Saturday the prince departed from the island, where he had produced a
most favorable impression,—leaving one hundred and fifty pounds to be
disposed of in charity, according to directions communicated to the
lieutenant-governor and his lady.
On the sixteenth of June, 1860, the Duke of Newcastle addressed a
despatch to the lieutenant-governor, expressing his sense of the
promptitude and completeness with which the house of assembly had given
its support to the plan devised in the hope of terminating the
differences on the question of land, by which the island had been so
long agitated, and intimating that a commission would be forwarded,
under the royal sign manual, containing the appointment of the Honorable
Joseph Howe, Mr. John Hamilton Gray, and Mr. John William Ritchie, as
commissioners,—Mr. Howe being the representative of the tenants, Mr.
Gray of the Crown, and Mr. Ritchie of the proprietors. The commissioners
accordingly opened their court at the Colonial Building, on the fifth of
September, 1860,—Mr. Gray presiding. There appeared at the court, as
counsel for the government of the colony, on behalf of the tenantry, Mr.
Samuel Thomson, of Saint John, N. B., and Mr. Joseph Hensley; and for
the proprietors, Mr. R. G. Haliburton and Mr. Charles Palmer. Mr.
Benjamin DesBrisay was appointed clerk to the commissioners. On the
first day, the court was addressed by counsel representing the various
interests, and on the succeeding days, a very large number of witnesses
were examined, for the purpose of eliciting information for the guidance
of the court in coming to a decision. After the evidence had been heard,
the court was addressed by counsel.
The report of the commissioners was dated the eighteenth of July, 1861;
and, as any history of the island would be incomplete without an outline
of its contents, the writer will now proceed to give such outline,
which, whilst it presents leading facts and arguments adduced, will not,
it is hoped, be open to the charge of undue prolixity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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