PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     Legislative Buildings. Charlottetown 
     
    
   
   
    
     that Cobbett took later, a great deal of trouble would have been saved, for 
     
     the settlement would have been made in due time, in a natural way. As it 
     
     was, he gave such a good account of the soil and climate that the paternal 
     
     government decided to colonize it with the least possible delay. The Earl 
     
     of Egmont had a proposition by which he was to be monarch of all he sur- 
     
     veyed. His happy thought was to establish a genuine feudal system, in 
     
     which he was to be Lord Paramount of the island. The land was to be divided 
     
     into baronies, held under him. Every baron was to have his castle with 
     
     men-at-arms, lords of manors, and all the paraphernalia of the middle ages, 
     
     adapted to the climate of America in eighteenth century. The government 
     
     did not accept this extraordinary proposition, but it did what was nearly as 
     
     bad, and which led to all sorts of wrangling and trouble for the next hundred 
     
     years. It divided the island into blocks, which it apportioned among some 
     
     of the gentlemen who had real or supposed claims on the favor of the Crown. 
     
     There were certain conditions annexed, as to placing a certain number of 
     
     settlers on each lot, but with an honorable exception, that was the end of 
     
     the matter so far as the absentee landlords were disposed to exert them— 
     
     selves. Thus it was that the land question was the plague of the country 
     
     until the island became a part of the Dominion, and laws were passed for the 
     
     appraisement and purchase of properties by tenants who were tired of the 
     
     old style of tenure.