“By instructions to the Local Executive immediately after the passing of the Constitutional Act, it was directed that “because great inconveniences had theretofore arisen in many of the colonies in America, from the granting excessive quantities of land to particular persons who have never cultivated or settled the same, and have thereby prevented others more industrious, from improving such lands; in order, therefore, to prevent the like inconveniences in future, no farm-lot should be granted to any person being master or mistress of a family in any township to be laid out which should contain more than 200 acres.” The instructions then invest the governor with a discretionary power to grant additional quantities in certain cases, not exceeding 1,000 acres. According to these instructions 200 acres should have been the general amount, 1,200 the maximum, in special cases to be granted to any individual. The greater part, however, of the land (1,457,200 acres) was granted, in fact, to individuals at the rate of from 10,000 to 50,000 to each person. The evasion of the regulations was managed as follows: A petition, signed by from 10 to 40 or 50 persons, was presented to the Executive Council, praying for a grant of 1,200 acres to each person, and promising to settle the land so applied for. Such petitions were, I am informed, always granted, the Council being perfectly aware that, under a previous agreement between the applicants (of which the form was prepared by the then Attorney General, and sold publicly by the law stationers of Quebec), five-sixths of the land was to be conveyed to one of them, termed leader, by whose means the grant was obtained. In most cases the leader obtained the most of the land which had been nominally applied for by fifty persons.”