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 Cliarlottetown, 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 indignation, and the peo¬ ple resolved to hold meetings in the respective counties, and take measures for their own protection against the tyranny to which they were subjected. At this time, John McGregor , sub¬ sequently Secretary to the Board of Trade in London, and M. P . for Glasgow, was high sheriff of the island, and a. requisition was immediately drawn up and presented to him. It began in the following terms : " We, His Majesty's loyal subjects, freeholders and householders in different parts of this island, in the present alarming and distressing state thereof,— 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,—feel 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, aud the sheriff appointed