MILITARY AND CIVIL. 43

shall bear arms, and be enrolled as militiamen.” Provision was also made for dividing off the various counties into military districts, the appointment of Commanding Oflicers, Majors, Captains and Subalterns, as well as an Adjutant to each Battalion, and a Clerk to each Company, whose duty it was to . assist his Captain to inscribe on a Muster Roll the names of all persons—within the limit of their district—who were eligible to serve as militiamen. For refusing to act, or neglect of duty, each and every subject was liable to a heavy penalty, or imprisonment. This Act—with some amendments—remained in force for ninety years, or until Confederation in 1873, when it was superseded by the militia laws of the Dominion.

The Independence of the United States, after a struggle of eight years, being recognized by Great Britain; a great number of the people there—known in political circles as loyalists— and who had sought to maintain the integrity of the British Empire, set out therefrom to seek new homes for themselves under the rules of the same flag elsewhere, while some had gone to settle in Upper and in Lower Canada, some to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, others came to the Island of St. John, where inducements and promises of free land to settle upon, were held out to them.

In November, 1784, a number of these political exiles—some with families—arrived at Charlottetown, which at that time had not been altogether cleared of its forest; upon their arrival they were sadly disappointed with the wild and uncultivated country to which they had come. Winter was fast approaching and dwellings were not to be had,—temporary buildings therefore had to be constructed to shelter and protect them from the rigor of the northern blast, snowstorms and nights of severe frost. Their supply of food being scanty, was consumed long before the spring opened, but fortunately the detachment of troops that garrisoned the town were allowed to dispose of their overstock of food to supply the wants of these destitute people.

As an inducement towards a further migration of loyalists to the Island, orders were issued to appropriate a portion of land to them; thus it was that others came and cast their lot with the older settlers, encountering hardships, difficulties and privations, in common one with the other.