Anon. (1789?) Petition of the Proprietors of Lands in the Island of St. John, in the Gulf of the River St. Lawrence. 3 pp. [UPE|, Robertson Library: PEI FC 2621. P48 1789M]

This three page printed petition to ”the Committee of his Majesty's Privy Council for Plantation Affairs ” in London was drawn up (apparently in 1789/ by persons who state that they ”have been a Number of Years Proprietors of the Island of St. John”. They claim that from ”a variety of circumstances ” they have ”not hitherto been enabled to render the Island of that importance of which it is capable”. A factor hindering them, and about which they are seeking redress in the petition, are parts of ”the late Act of Navigation ” which had placed restrictions on the import of goods and materials from the newly formed ’American states’ to the remaining British colonies, including the island, even by people coming from those states to settle in the colonies. In the preliminaries of the petition they list the resources of the island — among them ”vast quantities of useful timber”. / do not know which particular proprietors are responsible for this petition - Bumsted I 798 7) makes no reference to it. The comment on the timber did not require any first hand knowledge of the island and could well be traceable all the way back to the report of Captain Samuel Holland in 7765.

REFERENCE: Bumsted, J. M. (1987) Land, Settlement, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Prince Edward Island. McGill-Oueen's University Press.

1. THAT your Petitioners have been for a Number of Years Proprietors of the Island of St. John.

2. THAT, from a Variety of Circumstances, they have not hitherto been enabled, though in an improving State, to render the said Island, either to themselves or the Mother Country, of that Importance of which it is capb/e.

4. IN the first Place, your Petitioners beg Leave to represent to your Lordships that the Island of Saint John occupies a most important Situation at the Entrance of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and is nearly centrical to his Majesty’s remaining Colonies.

. 5. THAT it has a Number of good and safe Harbours; that the soil is capable of the Useful timber- highest Degree of Cultivation, produces vast quantities of useful Timber, and that its Shores abound with all kinds of Fish.