2 OVER ON THE ISLAND

“And why are you sitting there saying nothing? Why don't you young people do things nowadays? Now when I was a boy, ” and the Earl’s face softened with the recollection, “I had wonderful ideas! Some of them worked out; others didn’t. Once I took the notion to assemble the Jews and make myself their king . . . But they weren’t anxious to have a king . . .” And the Earl rambled on.

So the house was built: as Egmont directed. There he lived happily with his tenants, enforcing the feudal customs on his people in preserving the beauty of the older days.

But John Perceval, the second Earl of Egmont, was not only a dreamer and an idealist, he was eager to translate his dreams into action. He was a prominent member of the House of Commons and later of the House of Lords. In 1755, he was sworn a member of the Privy Council. In 1763, he became the First Lord of the Admiralty. Despite these eminent positions, however, the Earl was unable to curb his romantic and fanciful ideas. He was so devoted to monarchical institutions and pompous displays that he wasted between four and five hundred thousand pounds on ostentatious additions to the Dockyards—of all places!

It is the year 1763. The war in America has just been concluded and large important possessions are added to the Crown. And the Treaty of Paris, while giving to England large and valuable territories hitherto possessed by the French, turns the eyes of British capitalists toward new possibilities in land speculation. From Labrador to Grenada grants of land are sought and obtained by adventurers seeking to extract a fortune out of the vast American continent. The two islands of Cape Breton and St. John (Prince