tters patent were issued, constituting Edward Dumaresq,
chief, and Roderick O'Connor and Peter Murdoch, assistant commissioners,
for the survey and valuation of crown lands. They were instructed in
delineating counties, hundreds, and parishes, to observe the natural
boundaries and recognised nominal limits. The parishes were to contain
about twenty-five square miles. On this task they were ten years
employed; but their valuation became available so soon as one parish was
proclaimed. The names assigned to the various localities are commonly
welcome to the British ear;[169] though occasionally productive of
confusion.[170]

The colonial-office published, in 1824, the conditions on which land
would be granted: the notice contained eighteen clauses, and formed the
basis of subsequent regulations. The secretary of state, however,
reserved a discretion in special cases. The parishes were to be
surveyed, valued, and sold: for cash, at a discount of 10 per cent., or
credit, at four quarterly instalments. 9,600 acres was the maximum
allowed one purchaser.

Free grants were offered to emigrant capitalists: not more than 2,650
acres, nor less than 320; a quit rent of 5 per cent. on the value of the
land deferred seven years, and redeemable within twenty-five years, at
twenty years' purchase. One half the value was to be spent in
improvements, on pain of forfeiture. Additional grants were restricted
to such as possessed the means of cultivation, and subject to a quit
rent from the date of issue.

A more ample explanation of the views of the crown issued from
Downing-street, April 26, 1826. The conditions of sale were the same as
in the notice of 1824. Purchasers of land were now promised the return
of their purchase money, conditionally, that during ten years they could
relieve the crown from an expense ten times its amount, by the
employment of convicts, rated each L16 annually. One-half this amount
was offered, in the redemption of quit rents, on the same conditions;
or, when convicts were not attainable, by expending five times the value
of the grant, one-half the quit rent would be extinguished. Grants in
extension were promised, 2-1/2 per cent. value on improved value of an
original grant, on which five times its value should be expended; or
having so improved his first purchase, the settler was permitted to buy
a second at half price.

By an order published at the Horse-guards, 1826, officers willing to
emigrate, not und