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.

I hope by what I have here offered in answer to the Society's Petition, that it will sufficiently appear to your Ldp how they ~ have been imposed on in the accounts they have received of our Proceedings here, and to which they have so readily given credit. Had the true state of the case been laid before His

608 CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE

Majesty it would have appeared that in order to make up for a Loss sustained by 350 acres in one of the Townships which happened before my arrival, by a mere omission of the Council in their first entering on a new scene of Business, I had taken care to secure to the Church as soon as I had it in my power, a large District comprehending no less than 23,200 acres.

I have enquired of D* Auchmuty the Rector of Trinity Church here (who is I am informed the principal correspondent of the Society in this Province) from whence this extraordinary information could be sent, but he tells me that he is entirely ignorant of it, and as I have the greatest reason to imagine that the Society have not founded their petition on better authority than what they have received from Robinson and his associates, IT hope they well act with so much candour when they are informed of the particulars of my answer as to lay before your Lordship the authorities upon which they have been induced to present a Petition to His Majesty which tends so manifestly te Calumniate me.