PATTERSON REBUKED. 45 rnancl, and calling on all His Majesty's subjects on their allegiance to assert your right; and when I have been told that the sou of that gentleman, in the same open court, said £o the commanding officer that, if it had not been for his detachment, you should long ago have had the government, — meaning that he and his friends would by violence have wrested it from me. I have also been informed that .officers 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 -mail, 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, Mr. Stewart says, was "agreeable to the island in gen¬ eral." * 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 EDgland, cherishing the hope of enlisting the sympathy and support of the proprietors resident there,—a hope which was doomed to be disappointed. * The following is a copy of the despatch addressed to Fanning :— "Whitehall, 5th April, 1787. " Sir,—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 of your arrival in the Island of Saint John, and of certain proceedings which have taken place subsequent to that time. "His Majesty, from the very extraordinary conduct of Licutenant-Gov- ,ernor Patterson, has thought it advisable to dismiss him at oncelrom oftice, jand has been graciously pleased to fix you in the government ot that