FAIR PROMISES AS TO ESCHEAT. 51

late humble and dutiful representations made on behalf of the inhabitants, respecting the many large, unsettled, and uncultivated tracts of land in the island. In order to give effect to the measures which had been adopted by His Majesty’s ministers, it would be necessary that the govern- ment of the island should be prepared to adopt, when circumstances should render it advisable, the requisite and legal steps for efi‘ectually revesting in His Majesty such lands as might be liable to be escheated. The house, in their reply to the address, requested a more explicit statement from his excellency as to the information which he had received on this important subject; to which his excellency replied, that he had already presented all the information which it was in his power to furnish. It does indeed seem strange that the governor should have been instructed to refer officially to measures which “ had been adopted” by the home government for the rectification of an admitted evil, and yet was apparently unable to explain the character of these measures for the guidance of the assembly in a branch of legislation which they were unequivocally invited to adopt. Such mysterious reticence was in direct opposi- tion to ordinary governmental procedure in similar cases. But the local government, never dilatory in business con— nected with escheat, prepared a bill entitled “An act for effectually revesting in His Majesty, his heirs and successors, all such lands as are, or may be, liable to forfeiture within this island,” which was passed by the assembly and assented to by the governor on the second of April, 1803. It did seem a mockery of the assembly when that bill was, con- trary to the expectations of the people, disallowed by the home government, without any reason assigned. A com- mittee on the state of the colony accordingly drew up a strong and spirited remonstrance, in which they boldly said: