: to be held to discuss the problem these taxes, which would become to be I known as the “quit-rent" problem. In 1829, the electoral status of the

' Island’s Scottish Catholic population changed, and with their large

: numbers, their vote became a substantial political force overnight. This

37 was especially evident in St. Peters regarding the quit—rent elections that took place in 1831.

,5 After a general election in 1830, it was decided that a program and , leadership was need in the question of land reform. The agent of Lord Townshend in lot 56, William Cooper, who was committed to land reform, ; ran in the by-election for King’s County in 1831. He ran against Angus MacDonald who had the support of many Scottish settlers and

, prominent people in the area such as Charles Worrell. (71)

The by-election began in Georgetown in July of 1831 and lasted for f two days. On the 20th of July it was moved to St. Peters. Cooper was not , that familiar in the St. Peters area, but by the second day he was leading 1 in the number of votes. This led to desperate measurers by some MacDonald supporters, and one individual was caught trying to vote again, under a false name. Cooper confronted the individual, tensions arose, and a riot broke out.

Cooper, pursued by an angry mob of MacDonald supporters with sticks and stones, hid in the hayloft of a local barn in St. Peters. Voting tried to be resumed a few times to no avail. The officer “proclaimed a riot,” which would come to be labeled as “notorious and outrageous.” (72)

The initial years of British settlement in St. Peters never developed to the extent it had while under French rule. Plagued by similar problems of land ownership, the settlers often had little help in carving out a new life for themselves. The fishing industry, which had made St. Peters the ‘Commercial Capital’ of the Island during the French regime, Was hindered by siltation at the mouth of the St. Peters harbour, a prOblem that would plague the harbor for many years to come. Although the fishing industry did not develop to the same extent as it had under the French, the British settlers still did not avoid the water. They simply Channeled the resources it presented to them. Shipbuilding would be the industry to again develop St. Peters into a thriving community.

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