Memorial from the Proprietors (1837), contained in: Report of the Joint Committee of the Council and 
     
     Assembly, upon His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor’s Message of the 29’” January 7838. J. B. Cooper, 
     
     Printer to the House of Assembly, Charlottetown, 10 pp, [UPE|: PEI FC 2621.99 P75 1838]. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     The two extracts below come from documents submitted to the Colonial Secretary, Lord Glenelg, by a group of 
     
     proprietors living in England, as part of their protest against the Land Assessment Act passed by the island’s 
     
     legislature in 783 7. In order to encourage the proprietors to either sell their land or settle it, the Act aimed to impose 
     
     a penal tax of four shillings per one hundred acres on wilderness or unsettled lands (in comparison with a tax of two 
     
     shillings on cultivated or settled land). The submissions from the proprietors were forwarded by the Colonial 
     
     Secretary for comment to the island’s Legislature, which in turn appended them to their reply on the subject that was 
     
     printed in Charlottetown in 7838. In commenting on the act, the proprietors argued that it was unjust to penalize 
     
     them for the unsettled lands on their estates, 6 point in their argument being that there were large tracts of unusable 
     
     land on the island in the form of swamps and barrens. In any case, the act did not come into law, being disallowed 
     
     by the British government in 1839. 
     
    
   
   
    
     REFERENCE: Bolger, F. W. P., Canada ’3 Smallest Province: A History of Prince Edward island. John Deyell Company, 
     
     pp. 108—1 1 1. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     Appendix. Divers Documents addressed to Lord Glenelg, Her Majesty’s Principal 
     
     Secretary to the Colonial Department, relative to the Act of the Legislature of Prince 
     
    
   
   
    
     Edward Island passed in 183 7, levying an assessment on Land, and now awaiting the 
     
     Royal Al/o wance. 
     
    
   
   
    
     No. 7. Memorial to Lord Glenelg, from the Proprietors of land and others interested 
     
     in the prosperity of Prince Edward Island . 
     
    
   
   
    
     Black spruce there are large tracts in Prince Edward Island, known by the names of black-spruce, 
     
    
   
   
    
     swamps. and other swamps, white sands and barrens, the greatest proportion of which never 
     
     can be properly cultivated. 
     
    
   
   
    
     No. 2. Letter addressed to Lord Glene/g by Henry P. Hill, Esquire, containing a paper 
     
     of Observations on the above mentioned Act. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Swamps. There are in Prince Edward Island, as in every other country, Swamps and other tracts 
     
     of land, which can never be brought into cultivation . 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
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