no means favourable to the development and stability of English
institutions of government. One of the first acts of the legislature was
the establishment of courts of law and equity, in accordance with the
practice and principles of English jurisprudence. Another very important
measure was one for the legalisation of marriages which had been
irregularly performed during early times in the absence of the clergy of
the Anglican Church by justices of the peace, and even the officers in
charge of military posts. Magistrates were still allowed to perform the
marriage ceremony according to the ritual of the Church of England, when
the services of a clergyman of that denomination were not available. Not
until 1830 were more liberal provisions passed and the clergy of any
recognised creed permitted to unite persons legally in wedlock.

It was in the second session of the first parliament of Upper Canada,
where the Loyalists were in so huge a majority, that an act was passed
"to prevent the further introduction of slaves and to limit the term of
contract for servitude within this province." A considerable number of
slave servants accompanied their Loyalist masters to the provinces at
the end of the war, and we find for many years after in the newspapers
advertisements relating to runaway servants of this class. The Loyalists
in the maritime provinces, like the same class in Upper Canada, never
gave their approval to the continuance of slavery. So early as 1800 some
prominent persons brought before the supreme court of New Brunswick the
case of one Nancy Morton, a slave, on a writ of _habeas corpus_; and her
right to freedom was argued by Ward Chipmim, one of the Loyalist makers
of New Brunswick. Although the argument in this case was not followed by
a judicial conclusion--the four judges being divided in opinion--slavery
thereafter practically ceased to exist, not only in New Brunswick, but
in the other maritime provinces, leaving behind it a memory so faint,
that the mere suggestion that there ever was a slave in either of these
provinces is very generally received with surprise, if not with
incredulity.

The early history of representative government in Prince Edward Island
is chiefly a dull narrative of political conflict between the governors
and the assemblies, and of difficulties and controversies arising out of
the extraordinary concessions of lands to a few proprietors, who
generally infringed the conditions of their g