38 PAST AND PRESENT OF

leave this winter, as it would ruin his family. He had answered all previous charges, and his fpse dixit could add no weight; if these were new charges, the evidence to disprove them was here. As Fanning was to act only in his (Patterson’s) absence, he would con- tinue to command. Fanning abstained from controversy, and awaited further orders. On 5th April, 1787, the secretary of state replied to Patterson’s letter, giving reasons for' not transferring the government to Farming, and informed him that His Majesty has now no longer need of his services, and ordered him to transfer to Fanning all public docu- ments in his possession. On the 10th April, in consequence of despatches received by way of Halifax, Fanning issued a proclamation publishing his commission. Patterson, who had not yet received the despatch of 5th April, held on to the government for a while longer. In June, he went to Quebec, to lay certain matters affecting the govern- ment before Lord Dorchester, and his long career as governor, and latterly as lieutenant governor, came to an end. He returned to the Island, after a few months’ absence, and remained here for a couple of years, during which time he threw every possible obstacle in Fanning’s way in carrying on the affairs of the province. He then went to England, with the hope of restoring his fortunes. but failed. He did not return to the Island. but died in England. It is evident that Patterson was a broken and ruined man, soured by mis— fortune and his long struggles to advance his own and the province’s interests. He had invested his fortune here, and lost it. After his death, his widow sought to recover some of the wreck of his property, but failed. That he acted most indiscreetly in his deal- ings with Fanning, is evident. It was the ’ conduct of a soured and disappointed man.

TH E LAND QUESTION.

Almost at once, on Patterson’s arrival, trouble began over the non-payment of the. quit rents, and over the non-observance by the proprietors of the other conditions of their grants. Some few of these gentlemen honorably endeavored to fulfill their obliga- tions, but the great majority quite ignored them. Bills drawn on the proprietors' agent by the oflicers of government, who depended upon the quit rents for their pay, were dishonored. Those who were without private resources were, for long periods, left without means of support. Year in and year out, there is the same story of these men's shameless breach of the conditions upon which they held their lands, and of the undertaking they had entered into when they procured the establishment of a sepa- rate government. Many of them held their lands simply for the purpose of speculation, without the slightest intention of perform- ing the conditions of their grants. Unfor- tunately, they possessed sufficient influence with the authorities in England to thwart the efforts of the local government and legis- lature to compel them to discharge their obligations, or to re—vest the lands in the crown. Patterson doubtless had his faults, and much obloquy has been heaped upon him. but this was largely due to his at- tempts to remedy the grievous wrongs un- der which the people of this Island labored. Mr. Stewart denounces Patterson, and lauds his successor. Lieutenant Governor Fanning: but, while the measures, and more particularly the methods of enforcing them, taken by the former may have been indis- creet, and brought him under the displeas- ure of the colonial office, the course he tried to pursue was quite as much in the inter-