The only way this assertion can be answ? is by. denying it flatly, and I am extremely sorry to be under the necessity of declaring to your Lordship that there is not a word of truth in it; When the first Petitioners for these public Shares could not obtain them for their own uses, as I have already mentioned they desired that the Society might be Charged with a Share of the Expenses which would be incurred for surveying &¢. But this was likewise absolutely refused,

and they were told that if they did not choose to take out their

grants on the Terms of paying the Costs of the four Public Shares amongst. them they should not have them. at all. The Reason which, oceasioned this Declaration was that as there appeared on the back of each Charter a long list of Names the greatest. part. of which are entirely unknown. The Council joined in Opinion with me that if these were the names of real Proprietors there could be no hardship in fixing the Expense on them as the Quota of each person interested in the Township would be so small as to amount at most to a mere trifle. By this means the Society's shares were so far from being burthened with expenses and charged greatly more than equal in point of value to the Lands themselves, that they are not charged with the expense of a single shilling. I am sorry to say that our suspicions of these names on the back of the Charters were but too well founded and it has since appeared that some of the Charters which have made their appearance in great Form and under: the claims of sixty or seventy proprietors have been found in reality to belong to no more than six or seven Persons, which will be a great Detriment to the settling of that part of the Province, and is entirely contradictory to His Majesty's Orders which are that no more than one thousand acres should be given to each Person.