54 HISTORY or PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

and those who had not, the government divided the commu- tation into four classes, requiring from the proprietors who had on their property the necessary number of settlers only five years’ quitrents, instead of thirty-two years’,—namely, from 1769 to 1801, in the ease of' the four other classes. But as evidence of the determination of many of the landowners not to con— form to the law, and their confidence in their own power to

and making a proportionate deduction

set the regulations of government at defiance,—as they had hitherto systematically done,—it may be here stated, that even the reduced amount does not seem to have been paid; and it was mainly in consequence of such daring and long— continued violation of obligation that the people, from time to time, in paroxysms of just indignation, demanded the establishment of courts of escheat.

In 1794, Prince Edward—afterwards Duke of’ Kent, and father of Her Majesty the Queen—arrived in Halifax. In that year two provincial companies were raised for the pro- tection of the island, and when His Royal Highness became commander—in-chief of the forces in British North America, he ordered new barracks to be erected at Charlottetown, and defensive works for the protection of the harbor to be con- structed. The Duke never visited the island, but its inhabit- ants were duly sensible of the practical interest he took in its welfare; and having determined that its name should be changed, on account of the mistakes incident to other towns bearing the same designation, a local act was introduced in 1798, which changed the name to Prince Edward Island, which act received the royal allowance on the first of February, 1799. We find that in the year 1780, an act for altering the name of the island from Saint John to that of New Ireland was passed in the assembly with a suspend- ing clause. In a letter addressed by Mr. Stuart to governor