STUART’S LETTER TO LORD SYDNEY. 39

of_Nova Scotia, is likely to be your successor. In the pres— ent temper and disposition of ottice, I fear that your brother’s succession. would be more dit'l'icult than to sustain you in the government. I am exceedingly anxious to learn the fate of 'the quitrent bill. I hope the assembly may have passed it in some shape, and that the sales have been revoked. This is intelligence which should have arrived erc this time. I fear that your long silence and delay on this head is con- strued into contumacy and resistance. Your ene1nies here are busy and fertile in their insinuations.”

Anxious to serve his friend the governor, Stuart, under pressure from that gentleman’s brother, addressed a letter on the twenty-sixth of February, 1786, to Lord Sydney, though doubtful of the propriety and policy of the act, in Which he states that he received a letter from the governor, intimating that he (the governor) was aware that reports had been circulated in England grossly misrepresenting his motives in having purchased some of the lots eseheated under

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tlie quitrent act of 1174,—the governor declaring that his sole motive in making these purchases was to secure to himself a part of the very old arrears due to him for salary, —an act which he conceived to be strictly legal,—-—and stating that he had bought the lands at their full value. The gov- ernor was prepared, as stated in his letter, to restore what he had bought on his being reimbursed the amount of the purchase-money, with interest, agreeably to their lordships’ resolution in 1783.

Stuart’s letter, from which we have quoted so largely, was received by the governor on the tenth of October, 1786, and it is extremely probable that it was by the same mail that he also received otiicial information of his having been superceded in the government ofthe island, and commanded . to submit to the assembly the act rendering the sales of 1781