PATTERSON REBUKED. 45

Jnand, and calling on all His Majesty’s subjects on their allegiance to assert your right; and when I have been told that the son of that gentleman, in the same open court, said ,to the commanding officer that, if it had not been for his detachment, you should long ago have had the government, —meani_ng that he and his friends would'by violence have Wrested it from me. I have also been informed that. .ofiicers of the government refuse paying any attention to my orders, and quote your commission and yourself as the :reason of such disobedience.”

Notwithstanding the intense fermentation occasioned by this unseemly dispute, the public peace was not disturbed. As was generally anticipated, on the arrival of the spring Jmail, the conduct of Patterson was rebuked by the home government, and he was peremptorily commanded to trans- fer the permanent command to Fanning—a change which, NIL Stewart says, \“as “agreeable to the island in gen- ,eral.” *9 Patterson soon left the island for Quebec; but returned in a few months, and exerted himself to the utmost in obstructing the operations of the government; but, after two years’ residence, and bitter opposition to the administra- tion of his successor, he left the island and returned to England, cherishing the hope of enlisting the sympathy and support of the proprietors resident there,—a hope which Auras doomed to be disappointed.

* The following is a copy of the despatch addressed to Fanning :— “ WHITEHALL, 5th April, 1787. “' Sim—Your despatch, number one, of the fourteenth of October last, in answer to my letter of the thirtieth of June last, was duly received, and I have since been favored with your letters, numbered two, three, and four, giving an account ot your arrival in the Island ofSaint John, and 01‘ certain proceedings which have taken place subsequent; to that time. “His Majesty, from the very extraordinary conduct of’Lienteuant-Gov- ,crnor Patterson, has thought it advisable to dismiss him at once trom oflice, 33nd has been graciously pleased to fix you in the government 0t that