PROCEEDINGS AS TO QUITRENTS. 63

being made. Several proprietors, during that period, had offered payment to the acting receiver general, by whom they were informed that he had no authority to receive it. The impression was therefore prevalent that no further quit— rent would be demanded, more especially as payment was not exacted in the neighboring provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. But on the twenty-sixth of June, 1822, the following notice was posted up in Cl’iarlottetown by John Edward Carmichael, the receiver general: “ This office will be kept open from the first to the fourteenth of July, ensuing, for the payment of all arrears of quitrent due and payable within this island. Office hours, from ten till two o’clock.” This demand not being peremptory in its terms, was disre- garded ‘by many who saw it, and the great body of propri—" etors in the country never heard of the notice.

In December, 1822, the acting receiver general posted up another notice, intimating that payments must be made by the fourteenth of January ; but no steps were taken to give due publicity to the notice throughout the island, neither was any warning given to the proprietors as to the consequences of non- payment. In January a distress was taken on the lands of two of the principal proprietors on townships thirty—six and thirty—seven. Immediately after doing this, the officers proceeded to the eastern district of King’s County, which was one of the most populous on the island, and astonished the people by demanding instant payment, or promissory notes payable in ten days, on pain of having their land and stock disposed of by public sale. This district was inhabited by highlanders, who spoke no other language than their native Gaelic. Men who would have faced an open fee in the field, with the courage characteristic of the Celtic race, had a profound respect for law, and dread and horror of the bailiff; and, in order to pay the demand so suddenly and