ved
to send a remonstrance to the British government, and
chose as their representative one of their number who
had known Lord Cornwallis during the war, hoping through
him to obtain redress. This agent was on the point of
leaving for England, when news of his intention reached
Colonel Fanning. The ensuing result was as prompt as it
was significant: within a week afterwards nearly all the
Loyalists in Township No. 50 had obtained their grants.

Others, however, did not have friends in high places,
and were unable to obtain redress. The minutes of council
which contained the records of many of the allotments
were not entered in the regular Council Book, but were
kept on loose sheets; and thus the unfortunate settlers
were not able to prove by the Council Book that their
lands had been allotted them. When the rough minutes were
discovered years later, they were found to bear evidence,
in erasures and the use of different inks, of having been
tampered with.

For seventy-five years the Loyalists continued to agitate
for justice. As early as 1790 the island legislature
passed an act empowering the governor to give grants to
those who had not yet received them from the proprietors.
But this measure did not entirely redress the grievances,
and after a lapse of fifty years a petition of the
descendants of the Loyalists led to further action in
the matter. In 1840 a bill was passed by the House of
Assembly granting relief to the Loyalists, but was thrown
out by the Legislative Council. As late as 1860 the
question was still troubling the island politics. In that
year a land commission was appointed, which reported that
there were Loyalists who still had claims on the local
government, and recommended that free grants should be
made to such as could prove that their fathers had been
attracted to the island under promises which had never
been fulfilled.

Such is the unlovely story of how the Loyalists were
persecuted in the Island of St John, under the British
flag.

CHAPTER IX

THE LOYALISTS IN QUEBEC

It was a tribute to the stability of British rule in the
newly-won province of Quebec that at the very beginning
of the Revolutionary War loyal refugees began to flock
across the border. As early as June 2, 1774, Colonel
Christie, stationed at St Johns on the Richelieu, wrote
to Sir Frederick Haldimand at Quebec notifying him of
the arrival of immigrants; and it is interesting to note
that at that early date