788, five new districts for the express object of
providing for the temporary government of the territory where the
Loyalists had settled. These districts were known as Luneburg,
Mecklenburg, Nassau and Hesse, in the western country, and Gaspe in the
extreme east of the province of Quebec, where a small number of the same
class of people had also found new homes. Townships, ranging from eighty
to forty thousand acres each, were also surveyed within these districts
and parcelled out with great liberality among the Loyalists. Magistrates
wore appointed to administer justice with the simplest possible
machinery at a time when men trained in the law were not available.

The grants of land made to the Loyalists and their children were large,
and in later years a considerable portion passed into the hands of
speculators who bought them up at nominal sums. It was in connection
with these grants that the name of "United Empire Loyalists" originated.
An order-in-council was passed on the 9th of November, 1780, in
accordance with the wish of Lord Dorchester "to put a mark of honour
upon the families who had adhered to the _unity of the empire_ and
joined the royal standard in America before the treaty of separation in
1783." Accordingly the names of all persons falling under this
designation were to be recorded as far as possible, in order that "their
posterity may be discriminated from future settlers in the parish lists
and rolls of militia of their respective districts, and other public
remembrances of the province."

The British cabinet, of which Mr. Pitt, the famous son of the Earl of
Chatham, was first minister, now decided to divide the province of
Quebec into two districts, with separate legislatures and governments.
Lord Grenville, while in charge of the department of colonial affairs,
wrote in 1789 to Lord Dorchester that the "general object of the plan is
to assimilate the constitution of the province to that of Great Britain
as nearly as the differences arising from the names of the people and
from the present situation of the province will admit." He also
emphatically expressed the opinion that "a considerable degree of
attention is due to the prejudices and habits of the French inhabitants,
and every degree of caution should be used to continue to them the
enjoyment of those civil and religious rights which were secured to them
by the capitulation of the province, or have since been granted by the
liberal and enlig