and costing them nothing. As to those who have no pecuniary means, or scarcely any, they will never be reconciled to taking on lease, or bail emphythéotique, a tract of wood land, remote from the place of their nativity, nor will they more readily take such land on rente constituée, from apprehension of ultimate inability to pay that rent, and thereby becoming liable to ejection from lands which they have in part cleared; unless they can settle in some other way, they will prefer remaining labourers all their lives. I think I know the inhabitants of the country parts sufficiently to feel assured that, in this opinion, I am under no error.

To this cause, which is inherent in the system itself, which has been invariably pursued in granting the Crown lands since 1795, others may be added: as the want of ready means of intercourse between the settlements in the townships and the Canadian settlements; ignorance of the language of those among whom the young farmers of our parts would be placed; and, above all, the remoteness of religious aid. This alone, I am persuaded, would have prevented the sounder portion of our Canadian youth from availing themselves of the advantages which new settlements might offer in all other respects; nor would the substantial farmers of our country, sincerely attached as they are to their religious principles, ever consent to the departure of their children, to settle in places where they might suspect their faith or salvation to be in danger.

It is easy, with a little attention, to see that these various causes would cease almost instantaneously, if our young farmers had the same facility of settling on the Crown lands as on the unconceded lands in the old seigniories; because they might, by agreement among themselves, depart in sufficient numbers, and take lands at the same place, indulging a most reasonable hope that other young farmers would not fail shortly to join them, &c. &c.

J. T. Tachereau, esq., a Member of the House of Assembly, appeared before your Committee :

Q. What causes do you think have prevented the settling of lands in your part of the country?

A. The causes which have prevented the settling of lands beyond the seigniories of La Nouvelle Beauce, are a want of roads; a want of grants by the Crown in the ungranted townships, and in those which are conceded a want of roads; the lots for the Crown and those for the clergy, and also the very considerable expenses which the grantees are obliged to incur for opening roads, expenses of survey and other expenses, with respect to which they are unable to obtain reimbursement of a portion of the interest, whereby they are put under the necessity of selling their lands at a very high price, and the interest of the consideration for the sale is equivalent to a rente which the farmer could not pay; which would not be the case, if, in conceding those lands at a moderate annual rent, the grantees of the Crown could hope hereafter to be indemnified in some other way.

Mr. Dumont, one of the Members of the House of Assembly, appeared before your Committee, and stated as follows:

It is impossible that lands, as they are now granted, can suit the native

$

French Canadians, for they cannot ever succeed in opening and cultivating their lands. For instance, a Canadian who is a proprietor of a lot in a given township settles there; he makes a clearing; he wants a cleared interval du découvert; he wants fences of separation; he wants water-courses across several lots belonging to Government, the Protestant clergy, or rich proprietors is there a moral possibility of his procuring what is required of neighbourhood? This is one of the chief obstacles to the settling of the townships.

Mr. Philemon Wright, of the township of Hull, in the province of Lower Canada, appeared before your Committee, and gave the following information:

I have resided in this country twenty-three years; previous to residing in this country, I resided in the province of Massachussets; I was induced to come to this country by the proclamation of General Clarke, which held forth the prospect of obtaining lands, to persons desirous of investing capital in land, and under their form of government.

Q. Did you obtain a grant of any, and what waste lands of the Crown, and at what time?

A. I was leader for a quarter of a township; ten of us obtained a patent for twelve hundred acres each. I surveyed the whole of the township of Hull, wherein the lands were situated, being a township of 82,429 acres. I got the Order in Council, on the 22nd of March, 1800; the patent was issued in 1806.

Q. At what expense was the survey made?

A. I cannot speak to the exact amount of the expense; it could not be less than £.700.

Q. What portion of the land given to your associates remained in their hands?

A. The agreement between me and my associates was, that I should pay out of my own pocket all the expenses of survey, of patent fees, and travelling expenses, in consideration whereof they were to assign to me 1,000 acres each out of the 1,200 assigned to them, which was accordingly done.

Q. In what state have been, and are now, the roads and highways in the township of Hull; how and in what manner have they been made, kept up, and repaired?

A. When I first settled in the township of Hull, there was not a single tree cut down; I have opened all the roads, with some assistance, to make it possible for my people to pass and repass. One stone causeway, in particular, cost me above £. 1,000. The total of the amount of money spent by me and some of my neighbours upon these roads, for the twenty years past, amounts to £. 2,211 17s. 6d., besides £.955 expended by the commissioners of the county of York, making a total of £. 3,166 17s. Ed., and the roads in the front of the township are now very good.

Q. What is the extent of the roads made in the said township with this money?

4. About thirty miles.

Q. Are there any, and what obstacles, to making roads in the new townships?

A. The crown and clergy reserves constitute one great obstacle to the improvement of the internal communications of the townships. The large tracts of land, in the possession of proprietors absent from the province, constitute another great obstacle.

Q. Are the lands through which the road from Hull to Long Sault passes, in the hands of small or large proprietors?

A. Generally in the hands of large proprietors, absentees from the province. Q. What is the expense of clearing and fencing an acre of wild land; and what is the usual produce of an acre of wild land; and in what consists the process of clearing?

A. The expense of clearing an acre of land is £. 3; the produce is from two hundred to four hundred bushels of potatoes per acre, or twenty-five bushels of oats, or twenty-five bushels of wheat, or thirty bushels of Indian corn, or two hundred bushels of turnips. The process of clearing consists of three things; first, cutting down the under-brush, which is worth 7s. 6d. ; second, chopping down the wood in rows, two rods wide, worth £.1 5s.; third, firing, burning, and branding, fit for the harrow, worth £.1 7s. 6d. Then the work is done.

Q. What would be the expense of putting in the crop, per acre?
A. The common price is 10s.

Q. Do not the poorer sort of settlers find themselves occasionally constrained to adopt a more imperfect mode of clearing, and what is that mode? A. Yes; they first cut the brush and small trees, leaving the large trees standing, which shade the land, so that they do not get more than half

a crop.

Lieutenant-Colonel Bouchette, Surveyor-General of this province, appeared before your Committee, and answered as follows:

Q. How long have you been Surveyor-General?

A. I am a commissioned surveyor of lands in this province since 1790. I have been upwards of seventeen years at the head of the Surveyor-General's department.

Q. When did the Provincial Government commence to grant lands in free and common soccage?

A. In 1796.

Q. What was the description of persons who were called the leaders of townships?

A. I refer to the statement thereof in my geographical works*.

Q. What was the number of signatures usually subscribed to the petition for the grant of a township?

A. About thirty-six in a township of ten miles square, of about 44,000 acres, admitting each individual had 1,200 acres.

* See Bouchette's Topography, p. 244.

Q. Has there been any grants in this province in free and common soccage to any one individual exceeding 1,200 acres, and what were they?

A. As far as I recollect, to Sir Robert Shore Milnes, and the members of the Executive Council*, under a special mandamus from home, as an indemnification for their services and great trouble in the land-granting business.

Q. By what denomination was generally known that individual, amongst the petitioners, who charged himself with the preparing of the petition, and obtaining signatures thereto, with presenting the same to the Provincial Government, and carrying it through the Council, with the expenses of survey, and ultimately with obtaining the patent, and paying the fees thereof?

A. They were called leaders of townships.

Q. Upon the face of the patent did they, or any other patentees, receive any more than 1,200 acres?

A. As far as my knowledge goes, not more.

Q. What was the average value of lands in those townships, as they were purchased up by speculators, from the year 1796 to 1803 and 1804 ?

A. The lands were then considered of little value, as they were sold, as far as my knowledge extends, from 6d. to 1s. 3d. per acre.

Q. How was the leader of a township indemnified for the expense of survey, patent, &c.

A. It was generally understood that they were indemnified by receiving from the other patentees a portion of the lands granted to these patentees. Q. Did you ever understand or hear what that portion was?

A. I have generally understood that some conveyed 1,000 acres, and others less.

Q. Have there been any new seigniories erected in this country since its conquest by the British?

A. None that I know of but Murray Bay and Mount Murray, and Shoolbred, in the district of Gaspé.

Q. What is the number of seigniories in the districts of Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers?

A. As far as I can recollect, 218 in the whole province.

Q. Is the surplus agricultural population of the province of Lower Canada at all considerable?

A. I think it is.

Q. Is the distribution of lands in the cultivated parts of the seigniories of Lower Canada, amongst their settlers, tolerably equal?

A. I think it is.

Q. What is the usual size of the farms in Lower Canada, in the seigniories? A. They are generally of three arpents in front by thirty in depth, or of

* The reader will see by this, that the Executive Council had some private interest in recommending the change of tenure; for, by Mr. Bouchette's topographical work we see, as leaders of townships, six members of the Executive Council and five of the Legislative, aid we know that six members, and even less usually, constitute a majority of the Executive Council.

three arpents in front by forty-two in depth, except in a few singular instances, in some of the first original grants, which have not a greater front but a far greater depth.

Q. Are they not now, in many instances, subdivided to a degree which renders them insufficient to afford convenience to the farmer and his family?

A. Yes; I believe it to be the case in many parts of this province.

Q. What were the rents and services with which the farmers were charged anterior to the conquest?

A. They vary; some at forty sols, others one écu tournois; but I believe never exceeding.

Q. Are these charges deemed onerous by the people of the country?
A. I never understood they were.

Q. Would they prefer to settle in the seigniories with these charges, in preference to settling on lands in free and common soccage?

A. I presume they would.

Q. Have any number of Canadian settlers established themselves on the lands granted in free and common soccage?

A. I believe very few.

Q. To what cause do you attribute this?

A. The reasons are obvious: they do not like the tenure, as they do not know it; they do not like to leave their relations and friends; and they like to be within reach of their churches.

Q. What are the fees taken in the land-granting business?

A. My patent fees are 15s. per 1,000 acres; and, as far as I recollect, those. of the secretary of the province 10s.; and the clerk of the council, I believe, 10s.; governor, 15s.; auditor, 6s. 8d.; registrar, 5s.; attorney-general, 10s. Lands at present granted under military condition produce the following fees in my office: 7s. 8d. per location ticket; certificates of vacancy, 2s. 6d.

No. XIII.

Extract from the Resolves of the Council respecting the Introduction of Tenure in Free and Common Soccage, in lieu of the ancient Tenure of the Country.

That the progress of population and settlement in this province, under the government of France, whatever the cause or causes of it, was slow; the cultivated parts, even in the central districts of Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, being, to this day, confined to the banks of the St. Lawrence, and the mouths of navigable streams that fall into it.

That the royal patents, grants on concession of the lands, were either in