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GEUERAL CENSUS. 147

In the very year when the commissioners were prosecut- ing their inquiries, Prince Edward Island responded to the call for a defensive force by organizing twenty companies of volunteers, mustering upwards of a thousand men, showing a degree of loyalty, zeal, and energy in that direction inferior to no other portion of the Queen’s dorninions.

A general census of the island was taken in 1861. The population was then—as certified in the most accurate re- turns—eighty thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, includ- ing three hundred and fifteen Indians. The churches numbered one hundred and titty-six; sehoolhouses, three hundred and two; and public teachers, two hundred and eighty. There were eighty-nine fishing establishments on the island, which produced twenty-two thousand barrels of herrings and gaspe‘aux, seven thousand barrels of mackerel, thirty-nine thousand quintals of codfish, and seventeen thou- sand gallons of fish-oils. There were one hundred and forty-one grist-mills, one hundred and seventy-six saw-mills, and forty-six carding—mills ; fifty-five tanneries, manufactur- ing one hundred and forty-three thousands pounds of leather.

The executive government having, in 1861, appointed commissioners to super-intend the collection of products and manufactures of the island for the London exhibition of 1862, the duty was judiciously performed, and the articles forwarded to the exhibition under the charge of Mr. Henry Haszard, the secretary to the commissioners.

A profound sensation was caused in the island by intelli- gence of the seizure of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, civil ser- vants of the Southern States, when under the protection of the English flag, on their passage from Havana to Eng- land on board the steamship Trent. A remonstrance was forwarded by the British government to that of the North- ern States; and the act of the commander of the San