History of Prince Edward island Author:Duncan Campbell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Proprietors indifferent to their engagements—Extent to which settlement was effected—Complaints of the People of nonfulfllment of engagements— Ch... more »aracter of the Reply—The influence of the Proprietors with the Home Government—The Duke of Ken t—Proposal in 1780 to name the Island New Ireland—The name adopted—Formation of Light Infantry, and Volunteer Horse—Immigration of Highlanders—Memoir of General Fanning. proof that the great body of the proprietors were utterly indifferent to the engagements they contracted when they obtained their lands, it is only necessary to state that in only ten of the sixty-seven townships into which the island was divided were the terms of settlement complied with, during the first ten years which had elapsed since possession was granted. In nine townships settlement was partially effected, and in forty-eight no attempt whatever at settlement seems to have been made. In 1797, or thirty years after the grants were issued, the house of assembly, sensible of the necessity of taking action for the more effectual settlement of the island, passed a series of resolutions, — founded on a deliberate and painstaking investigation of all the townships,—-which were embodied in a petition to the home government, praying that measures should be taken to compel proprietors to fulfil the conditions on which the land had been granted. The assembly drew attention to the following facts : That, on twenty-three specified townships, consisting of four hundred and fifty-eight thousand five hundred and eighty acres, not one settler was resident; that on twelve" townships the population consisted only of thirty-six families, which, on an average of six persons to ea;h family, E numbered in the aggregate two hundred and sixteen souls, who thus constituted t...« less