244 PAST AND PRESENT OF St. Ann 's, Lot 22, having a large member¬ ship also. The members of this organiza¬ tion feel justly proud of its record, and there is no reason why it should not hold as envi¬ able a position for generations to come as it has occupied since it was founded. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. By Percy Pope . When by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed February 10, 1763, the Island of St. John was formally ceded to Great Britian the "Church of England and Ireland," as by law established, became ipse facto, its recognized form of religion. In reality, it did not for ten years at least possess a reli¬ gious establishment of any sort nor is there any reason to believe that during that pe¬ riod any Christian missionary ever set foot on its shores. Under the French regime the military commander and the priestly leader advanced side by side, save when the fervid zeal of the latter forced him to the front. Consequently the priest was ever a dominant, if not the predominant factor in an Acadian commu¬ nity. On the other hand, the English, fear¬ ful of clerical domination of any sort, jeal¬ ously excluded ecclesiastics from all partici¬ pation in civil affairs. To establish the An¬ glican church in was no part of the task they had set before them. Though they were gradually awakening to their re¬ sponsibilities in the matter of providing for the spiritual needs of their colonists, as wit¬ ness the noble work done by The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel ( S. P. G .), and the Society for the Promotion of Chris¬ tian Knowledge ( S. P. C. K .), yet at this time the early British settler—he who had laid the foundation of the Greater Britain of today—had too often to face the battle of life unsupported by the aid and com¬ fort of the ordinances of religion. With the deportation of the Acadians, the Island of St. John was practically with¬ out inhabitants. Captain Holland when he landed in 1764 found thereon only thirty Acadian families. The New England fish¬ ermen, appreciating the advantages it of¬ fered as a base for prosecuting the Gulf fisheries, began to frequent its harbours, and each year brought a small accession of set¬ tlers, principally refugees and disbanded sol¬ diers. Ships of war from the Newfound¬ land station, from time to time, visited its shores and the chaplains of these vessels may have occasionally ministered to the needs of its few inhabitants, marrying or baptizing such as sought their services, but otherwise the settlers were completely cut off from all the ministrations of the Chris¬ tian church. When the government was established under the order in Council of June 28, 1769, His Majesty, George III , was graciously pleased, "in his pious concern for the advancement of God 's glory," to or¬ der that one hundred pounds be ap¬ portioned for the stipend of a clergy¬ man and, in August of that year, appointed by his royal warrant the Rev. John Caul- field, clerk rector of the parish of Char¬ lotte, who, in common with other officers, was instructed to hold himself in readiness