162 HISTORY OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. that, with hundreds of estates, and the interests of many thousands of persons dependent upon their adjudication, they have only been sustained by a very sincere desire to restore peace to a disturbed province." And what did all the legal gentlemen who, as counsel, represented before the commissioners the various intei'ests involved, think of the powers with which they—the commissioners—were in¬ vested ? Why, all their speeches assumed that they were addressing themselves to adjudicators who had ample authority to solve the questions in dispute. This was admitted by Sir Samuel Cunard , as representing his co- proprietors, after the award of the commissioners was given; for in writing the Duke of Newcastle, the law officers of the Crown represent him as saying " that the landlords were ready" to be bound by the decision of the three commissioners, but that they were not prepared to hand over their interests to the proposed arbitrators, and to embark in the expense and dispute consequent on a multi¬ tude of petty arbitrations,"—referring to the arbitrators pro¬ posed by the commissioners to determine the value of every individual property, with a view to purchase by the tenant. Yet, in the face of such overwhelming evidence, the colonial secretary had the coolness to parade the opinion of the law officers of the Crown before the government, legislature, and people of Prince Edward Island , that there was no reference or award, properly so called, very prudently abstaining from any expression of his own opinion on the point. The principle on which the Duke of Newcastle rejected the award was, that a man who. agrees to refer his case to one tribunal cannot, therefore, be forced to submit it to another. The equity of that principle cannot be denied. What are the facts? The commissioners, unable to con¬ duct an examination into all the cases, recommended that