LORD EGMONT’S SCHEME. 11'

There were also to be Courts Leet and Courts Baron, under-

the direction of the Lord Paramount. A foot-note referring to these Courts, attached by the framers of the memorial, indicates the ideas which were entertained at this time in the old country respecting protection to life and property in the North American Colonies. “These courts—es- tablished by Alfred and others of our Saxon Princes, to maintain order, and bring justice to every man’s door— are obviously essential for a small people, forming or formed into a small society in the vast, impervious, and dangerous forests of America, intersected with seas, bays, lakes, rivers, marshes, and mountains; without roads, without inns or accommodations, locked up for half the year by snow and intense frost, and where the settler can scarce Straggle from his habitation five hundred yards, even in times of peace, without risk of being intercepted, scalped, and murderec .”

To epitomise the proposal : there was to be a Lord Para-- mount of the whole island, forty Capital Lords of forty Hundreds, four hundred Lords of Manors, and eight hundred Freeholders. For assurance of the said tenures, eight hundred thousand acres were to be set apart for establish— ments for trade and commerce in the most suitable parts of' the island, including one county town, forty market towns, and four hundred villages ; each Hundred or Barony was to consist of somewhat less than eight square miles, and the Lord of each was bound to erect and maintain forever a castle or blockheuse as the capital seat of his property, and as a place of retreat and rendezvous for the settlers; and thus, on any alarm of sudden danger, every inhabitant might have a place of security within four miles of his habi— tation. A cannon fired at one of the castles would be heard at the next, and thus the firing would proceed in regular