64 HISTORY OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

unexpectedly made, many of the poor fellows loaded their carts with such produce as they could collect, and began a journey of from fifty to sixty miles to Charlottetown, in the depth of winter, in order to redeem the notes which they had given to the heartless myrmidons of the law. The sudden influx of grain into the market thus produced, caused a great decline in prices. This, with the suffering occasioned by the long journey, roused public indiirnation, and the peo- ple resolved to hold meetings in the respective counties, and take measures for their own protection against the tvranny to which theywere subjected. Atthistime John McGr,eg0r sub- scquently Secretary to the Board ofTr ade 111 London, and M. P. f01 Glasgow, was high sheriff of the island, and a. requis1t1on was immediately drawn 11p and presented to him. It began in the following terms: “ ‘Ve, His Majesty’s ‘ loyal subjects, freeholders and householders 1n dit’feient parts of this island, in the present alarming and distressing state tl1ereof,—— threatened at this time with proceedings on the part of the acting receiver general of quitrents, the immediate effect whereof cannot fail to involve a great part of the community in absolute ruin,—fecl ourselves irresistably impelled—when the island has been nearly three years deprived of that con- stitutional protection and support which might be expected from our colonial legislature—to call upon you, as high sheriff of the island, to appoint general meetings of the inhabitants to be held in the three counties into which this island is divided, that they may have an opportunity, accord- ing to the accustomed practice of the parent country, of consulting together for the general benefit, and joining in laying such a state of the colony at the foot of the Throne, for the information of our most gracious Sovereign, as the present circumstances thereof require.” The requisition was signed by forty individuals, and the sheriff appointed