12 msronr or PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

order from castle to castle, and be the means, adds the noble memorialist, “of putting every inhabitant of the whole island under arms and in motion in the space of one quarter of an hour.”

As we have already stated, Lord Egmont’s memorial was presented in December, 1763, and in January, 1764, it was backed by three different communications, addressed to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, and signed by thirty influen— tial gentlemen, who were supposed—on account of military or other services—to have claims on the government.

0n the 13th February, 1764, a report was made on the memorial by the Board of Trade, to which it had been re- ferred by the King. The Board reported that the scheme was calculated to answer the purposes of defence and military discipline rather than to encourage those of commerce and agriculture, and seemed totally and fundamentally adverse in its principles to that system of settlement and tenure of property which had of late years been adopted in the colonies, with so much advantage to the interests of the kingdom; and they therefore could not see sufficient reason to justify them in advising His Liajesty to comply with Lord Egmont’s proposal.

In forming plans for the settlement of the American Colonies, the object the Commissioners had principally in view was to advance and extend the commerce and naviga- tion of the kingdom, to preserve a due dependence in the colonies on the mother country, and to secure to them the full enjoyment of every civil and religious right, so that the colonists might have just reason to value themselves on being British subjects. In order to attain these objects, the Board had recommended such a mode of granting lands as might encourage industry, which is the life and spirit of commerce; and in the form of government, they recom-