GRANTS OF LAND TO THE ARMY AND NAVY.

553

after war there is a necessity for a large disbandment: I would not confine grants of land to superior officers, I would extend them in proportionate quantities to warrant and non-commissioned officers, and premiums should be held out to commissioned officers to settle on the estates granted them a certain number of their disbanded soldiers: by this means a great portion of the dead weight of the army and navy would be prevented from accumulating, and a stimulus would be held out to good conduct, by the prospect before a non-commissioned or warrant officer, of obtaining a little land on the termination of an allotted servitude.*

It was thus the Romans colonised distant countries, and provided large armies, on emergencies, with little cost to the Empire.

The best settlers that I have seen in the colonies have been naval and military officers, strange to say the former being the better farmers; if the present regulation of the Colonial Office be acted on rigidly, a large class of useful and loyal subjects will be prevented settling in the colonies, and one of those links of connexion with the mother country (obedience and fealty which govern the conduct of military men) will be lost. I do not think it advisable that any plan of a government emigration should be attempted, such as was at one time proposed of shipping off one million of people at The duty of the government is-first, 'to regulate the stream of emigration, so that if a man be determined on leaving the United Kingdom he may be induced to settled in

once.

The manner in which the pensioners were sent out to Canada without their officers or leaders, &c. does not militate against this project; for soldiers and sailors, in an inferior grade, are like children, and if left to themselves, particularly the former, they are almost as helpless.

The King's proclamation of 1763 granted land free in the Colonies thus-to a field officer, 5,000 acres; captain, 3,000; subaltern or staff, 2,000; non-commissioned, 200; private, 50. This was subsequently thus altered to the same ranks, 1,200 acres; 1,000; 800; 500, 200 and 100 to a private, which rate continued down to 1828, and was a main cause of the peopling of the colonies.

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USEFUL DIRECTION OF EMIGRATION.

one of its colonies :-Second, if the man be poor and unable to purchase land, a small quantity, say 25 acres, should be, free of cost, allotted him :-Third, a strict surveillance should be exercised as to the sea worthiness and provisions of the vessels in which the emigrants embark:-And fourth, every facility should be given to the introduction into England of those articles whether it be timber, corn, oil, &c. which the emigrants may be enabled to send, so that if the mother country lose the benefit of their services in one way, it may reap another advantage instead, by the quantity of manufactures, &c. which they may be able to purchase in exchange for raw commodities: on these principles emigration may be directed to a useful purpose, instead of lessening the strength of the mother country, and our colonial lands serving as a reward to those military, naval, and civil servants who have done good service to the state at home and abroad, thus lessening the weight of pensions, and annuities may, at the same time, present extended fields for the growth of food, and the consumption of the manufactures of the parent land, while the renovated stock of the human race, caused by the intermarriage of our people with the Colonists in the transmarine possessions, and which for three centuries has maintained the parent in healthful vigour, will enable us yet more and more to uphold the puissance of Albion against the rivalry of the United States,—the jealousy of France or the ambition of Russia, and to extend her dominion over the habitable earth.

THE EASTERN TOWNSHIPS OF LOWER CANADA, AND THE BRITISH
AMERICAN LAND COMPANY.

The Eastern Townships, or English Lower Canada, situated on the south side of the St. Lawrence, between 45 and 464 N. latitude, and 71 and 73 west longitude, are divided into eight counties or parts of counties and these again are subdivided into about one hundred townships estimated to contain between five and six millions of acres.

The counties and townships are as follow:-County of Missiskoui. Stanbridge, Dunham, Sutton.-Stanstead.-Potton, Stanstead, Barnston, Barford, Bolton, Hatley.-Shefford.-Farnham, Brome, Granby, Shefford, Stukely, Milton, Roxton, Ely.-Drummond.-Upton, Grantham, Wickham, Durham, Acton, Wendover, Simpson, Kingsey, Aston, Bulstrode, Stanfold, Horton, Warwick, Arthabaska, Chester, Tingwick, Wolfston, Ham, Wotton.-Sherbrooke.-Melbourne, Brompton, Orford, Ascot, Eaton, Newport, Ditton, Chesham, Compton, Clifton, Auckland, Hereford, Shipton, Windsor, Stoke, Dudswell, Weedon, Garthby, Bury, Westbury, Lingwick, Stratford, Hampden, Adstock, Whitton, Marston, Clinton.-Megantic.-Nel