PATTERSON IN ENGLAND. 47‘

influenced in dismissing him from a post which he had held for sixteen years. In one of Patterson’s private memoran- dum books, now before us, there are some curious entries, in, his own handwriting, with regard to that charge, in which he summarises various arguments which might be urged against the probability of its truthfulness, but which neither aflirm nor deny its validity. If these notes had not been made, by his own hand, and the pronoun I had not been once, inadvertently used, they might be supposed to have been the production of one on whom was devolved the legal defence of the governor.

“Then Patterson arrived in London, he found the friends, who had formerly used their influence in his favor extremely cool ; and thus all hope of his restoration to the governorship was blighted. The large sums he had expended in the election of a house favorable to his views, and the impos- sibility of saving any part of his annual income (five hundred pounds stalling), without sacrificing the becoming dignity of his post, added to the circumstance that his wife and family had to be maintained in England during the whole-v, period of his incumbency, rendered his means extremely limited. Being pressed by his creditors, his extensive and valuable property in the island was sold—under hard laws, which had been enacted under his own administration—at nominal prices. It need therefore excite no surprise that he. never returned to a scene invested with so many painful recollections.

But the question occurs: what became of the escheated lands which were ordered to be restored to the original proprietors? After the proceedings already recorded, no vdetcrniined effort to obtain the property was made by the, original holders, with regard to whose claims to restitution no doubt could now exist. The assembly did, indeed, pass.