I'RIXCE EDWARD ISLAND. 39 ests of the people as was that of the latter. Ceaseless remonstrances and complaints ap¬ pear in the correspondence of the gov¬ ernor and officials, of the non-payment by the proprietors of the amounts due from them. Some of the officers' pay was in ar¬ rears for years. The home government was, time and again, memorialized by the proprie¬ tors to be relieved from the payment of the accumulated arrears of the quit rents, and usually had sufficient influence to gain their ends. Even the pay of the establishment, which they had voluntarily undertaken' on the erection of the Island into a separate province, they managed to get saddled upon the much-enduring taxpayers of Great Britain . The inevitable results from the ill- advised formation of large proprietory estates, and of the impracticable quit rent system, were now being felt. The land question, as already stated, began to loom up almost immediately on Patterson's ar¬ rival, in 1770. Though the act for the better rec« >\ ery of the quit rents, passed in the only session of the first General Assembly , re* ceived the royal assent, it remained a dead letter for some years. The governor seemed unwilling or afraid to enforce its provisions, or possibly, the proprietary opposition was too strong for him. However that may have been, it remained in abeyance for some years, while the arrears of quit rents went on accumulating and the salaries of the public officials remained unpaid. In 1776 the proprietors petitioned that the burden of the establishment should be assumed by the home government, when a grant of three thousand pounds was made for the civil gov¬ ernment of the Island. By a minute of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, dated 7th August, 1776, the receiver general of the Island was directed "to take all proper means to enforce the payment of the arrears and of the accruing' quit rents; and recover the same," with di¬ rection as tb the application of the moneys recovered. There was then no receiver general, and nothing was done until Pat¬ terson's return in 1780, when he appointed Mr. Nesbit , clerk of the council, to the po¬ sition. In 1781, the governor directed him, in accordance with the minute of August, 1776, to take proceedings under the act of 1773 against the townships then in arrear. In November a number of townships and- half-townships were sold. The proprietary interests in London were too strong to permit of this very proper ac¬ tion being approved, and, complaint having l)een made, a bill to regulate future pre* ceedings was prepared in 1783 and sent out to the governor, with directions to have the same enacted by the Island Legislature. It contained a clause making the sales of 1781 voidable, upon repayment by the original proprietors of the purchase money, interest and charges incurred by the purchasers, together with a fair allowance for imprdve- ments. There were errors in the recital to this bill, of which the Governor availed himself, as a reason for not submitting it to the Assembly , and it was referred back tn the secretary of state, with a statement of the facts attending the sales in 1781, and so justifying disobedience to the order to lay it before the Assembly . The com¬ mittee of the Privy Council did not think the reason sufficient to justify the Gov ¬ ernor in withholding the bill, but at the time no order thereon was made. It is difficult, nowadays, to imagine a secretary for the colonies sending such a bill to a colonial parliament, with orders to have it enacted. It is much easier to " ..:■'*