OUR ISLAND STORY 55

Grant, John M. Grant, James Millar, Iohn Mooney, James Mc- Quaid, and Alexander McNeill, Secretary.

The meeting of delegates, of which notice was thus given, resulted in the formation of The Tenant League and the resistance of the tenants in combination to the payment of rent. On St. Patrick’s Day, 1865, a large body of men residing in the section of the Island south of the Hillsborough River crossed the river on the ice and marched through the streets of Charlottetown, in procession, to the Colonial Building where the Legislature was in session. It was a demonstration against “Absentee Land- lordism,” and an evidence of the determination of tenants not to pay rent. As the procession passed by the Apothecaries Hall at the corner of Queen and Grafton Streets, the Deputy Sheriff of the County, Mr. James Curtis, attempted to arrest one of the men in the ranks. But the attempt was , vain. The Deputy Sheriff and his assistants were beaten off amidst much disorder. '

Lieutenant Governor Dundas thereupon issued a proclama- tion setting forth that “whereas it appears that divers persons in certain parts of this Island have associated or leagued together for the purpose of counselling, aiding and assisting one another in resisting the payment of certain rents, and an officer of the law has recently been violently obstructed and prevented from discharging his duty by persons who have so combined, all such persons are enjoined to abstain from such unlawful associations," and all magistrates, sheriffs and other ministers of the law were commanded to discourage by every means in their power “such unlawful combination,” and “to give their prompt assistance in arresting and bringing to justice any such persons offending, or having offended in the manner set forth.”

The Lieutenant Governor then issued an order for a “posse comitatus." About two hundred men, for the most part citizens of Charlottetown, were summoned to assist the High Sheriff in the arrest of the man whose arrest had been prevented. These men met the High Sheriff at Southport on the morning of the 7th of April, 1865, and accompanied him to Vernon River to assist in the capture of Samuel Fletcher, a tenant residing in