160 ‘The French in Prince Edward Island 
     
    
   
   
    
     Canso, sweep the waters of the Gulf, protect the com- 
     
     munications between Bay Verte and Canada, and be- 
     
     tween the Island and Isle Royale. And yet as Franquet 
     
     turned over in his mind all these advantages, the beauti- 
     
     ful expanse of water was disturbed only by the wind, 
     
     the rush of the mackerel, or the splash of the wild fowl. 
     
     Not a boat save his own was visible. Not a human being 
     
     save the sailors on board his own craft was to be seen. 
     
     The water was a solitude, and the land on all sides a 
     
     wilderness, stretching farther than the eye could trace 
     
     it. Only from Brudenell Point had the forest disap- 
     
     peared. It lay cleared but houseless, for the hand of the 
     
     New England spoiler had in 1745 swept away every 
     
     vestige of the flourishing settlement that adorned the 
     
     headland, leaving only the arable lands to tell a story 
     
     of ruined hopes. 
     
    

    
     That a tract of country possessing in such rich abun- 
     
     dance all the qualities powerful to attract the settler, 
     
     should be without an inhabitant at a time when Acadian 
     
     families were pouring on to the Island in steady 
     
     streams, was due to the fact that the allodial rights 
     
     conferred on the company represented by De Roma 
     
     were still in full legal vigour. Two thousand and five 
     
     hundred acres of water frontage with forty acres inland 
     
     had been granted to this company by the Crown, and 
     
     although it was next to certain that the shareholders 
     
     had for ever abandoned their speculation, yet their 
     
     charter existed still, and the immigrant wisely preferred 
     
     the Crown to a Lord Superior. Franquet urged the 
     
     Government to put an end to this stagnant condition of 
     
     matters by effecting some compromise with the com- 
     
     pany, and so allow the matchless harbour and the rich 
     
     surrounding lands to be turned to some account. In view |