52 HISTORY or PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

“ It. appears to the committee, and they have the strongest reason to believe, that the royal assent to the said act for reinvesting His Majesty with such lands as are or may be liable to forfeiture within this island, has been graciously approved by His Majesty.” They then expressed their con- viction, which was well founded, that the formal royal allowance had been withheld by means of unfounded repre. sentations of interested individuals in England. The com- mittee sent these resolutions to W'illiam and Thomas Knox, the agents for the island in London, with instructions to use their utmost efforts to give effect to the remonstrance ; and the house of assembly also presented an address to the lien- tenant-governor, complaining of the efforts that had been made to render His Majesty’s intentions abortive, requesting him to transmit their petition and resolutions to Lord Castle- reagh, and duplicates to the Earl of Liverpool, president of the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Planta- tions. The house also appointed a committee, consisting of Holland, Macgowan, Stewart, Palmer, and Maedonald, to draw up a new bill, substantially the same as the former, which was duly passed. Nothing was wanting on the part of the assembly to neutralize the influence brought to bear in London in order to frustrate their intentions; and if the British government had not on this occasion lost its usual character for consistency and adherence to principles,- so explicitly enunciated, the royal intentions, as intimated by the lieutenant-governor, would have been honestly carried out. The period was one of great political excitement in London. Lord Hobart, through whom the governor had received a solemn promise that the evil complained of would be rectified, had given place in the colonial seeretaryship to the exeiteablc Castlereagh, and the solemn obligations of office appear to have been forgotten in the political fermen-