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tion the old bugbear of “ an absentee proprietary,’ and lay them open to a charge of neglect ofthe duties, and shirking the responsibilities of their real estate—but when the original value of a township that in 1827 had not even connected the chief county. towns by more than a cattle track,is taken into consid‘ eration, it will be seen that unless the unfortunate pro- prietor possessed either considerable surplus means, or much surplus philanthropy, the idea. of making settlement improvements must have been the most re- mote of all his thoughts. But suppose the case that all the proprietors had endowed their grants with patronage, and had moved masses of population to settle and cover the land, what would have been the result, when even about the year 1812, an old resi- dent of Cherry Valley, distant from Charlottetown about 12 miles, and from Savage Harbor about 26, chose the latter place for ajourney on foot, guided only by a pocket compass,in search ofa few potatoes, and returned with one bushel of those roots upon his back. What would have been the result? Why, they would have had to cast lots for each other for food, or fallen by the hand of want. In the present day, with all the appliances of civilization at hand, with honest and competent advisers to assist, and with clearances and good farms procurable at any time, it is necessary to success, that experience be first gained,that a mostjudicious employment and economy ofcapital and labor be afterward employed, and when all the difliculties of a change of country are sur— mounted, a habit ofindustry, of frugality, and sound judgment, must be the lasting rule throughout life. It is appalling, therefore to think of the misery and crime which must have followed a wholesale settle- ment of Prince Edward Island,by herding emigration; and when in the absence of the comforts and neces- saries oflife, Rum, that arch fiend of demoralization and death, would by custom and by choice have ruled over the unfortunate victims of mass compliance with the terms of the original grants, and would have made his clearance with the rest. Shall the Selkirk