36 HISTORY OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. presenting inducements to the loyalists, for they subscribed liberally to a fund raised for the purpose of conveying them to the island. Orders were issued, to the governor to appor¬ tion part of the land to the loyalists ; the attorney general was to make out the deeds of conveyance without any expense to the proprietors, who were to be exonerated from the quitrents of such shares of their land as were granted to the loyalists. In consequence of these arrangements, a con¬ siderable number of loyalists were induced to come to the island, to whom the governor paid due attention, and whose votes he had no difficulty in securing at the coming election. In order to complicate matters still more, and throw addi¬ tional obstacles in the way of the much dreaded act, he took care that not a few of the allotments made to the refugees should be on the lands sold in 1781. Being thus fortified for the coming battle, he determined to risk another election in March, 1785, when he secured the return of a house bound to his interests, which Mr. Stewart , of Mount Stewart —on whose testimony implicit reliance can be placed—assures us " was not accomplished without a se¬ vere struggle, much illegal conduct, and at an expense to the governor and his friends of nearly two thousand pounds sterling." The time of the assembly was, to a considerable extent, taken up during the session by proceedings which had a tendency to produce a favorable impression as to the governor's acts. Not a word was said in the house regard¬ ing the proceedings of 1781 ; but, when the house met in the following year, the governor determined that a measure should be adopted which would frustrate any attempt to render the sales of 1781 futile. To effect this object, he caused a measure to be introduced entitled " An act to ren¬ der good and valid in law all and every of the proceedings in the years one thousand seven hundred and eighty and oae