Light as birds fly in the air;
Strong is my heart, and round I go,
Seeking to die by the foe."
While this song was chaunting, several short speeches were made by the Indians. One of them said—"There is our father—here is the belt—there you are—the Great Spirit presides—now we are one, and none can flinch—if we stand by our father, he will stand by us. Our path is in the west—the war shall brighten there—the sky begins to clear—the light falls on our lands, and soon again shall our women and children be on them. You Saulks—you Chippeways, and all you of different nations, we are all one. We will fight them with our father, and never cease to fight while we have life, or until we have got back our lands."
The names of twelve Indian chiefs, inhabiting the coast of Acadia at the time the French peasants submitted to the British Government, will be found in the appendix to this work.
Lands in New-Brunswick are held in fee simple or free socage. The grants are immediately from the Crown. The subjoined table will shew the fees on single Grants, or where a number of Grantees are included in one patent, at present taken at the several offices.
Table of Fees on Grants.
|
Number of Acres |
Governor, including the warrant of survey |
Sec'y and Regtr. | Auditor |
Attorney Gen. |
Receiver- Gen. including purchase money |
Surveyor- Gen. |
Commissioner of Crown Land | Total |
| £ s d | £ s d | s d | £ s d | £ s d | £ s | s d | £ s d | |
| 100 | 4 1 8 | 3 7 6 | 13 4 | 1 10 10 | 0 13 4 | 2 0 | 5 0 | 12 11 8 |
| 200 | 4 1 8 | 3 7 6 | 13 4 | 1 10 10 | 0 13 4 | 2 0 | 5 0 | 12 11 8 |
| 300 | 4 1 8 | 3 7 6 | 13 4 | 1 10 10 | 1 4 6 | 2 0 | 7 6 | 13 5 4 |
| 400 | 4 1 8 | 3 7 6 | 13 4 | 1 10 10 | 1 15 8 | 2 5 | 10 0 | 14 4 0 |
| 500 | 4 1 8 | 3 7 6 | 13 4 | 1 10 10 | 2 6 10 | 2 10 | 10 0 | 15 0 2 |
On Grants where more than one person is concerned, His Excellency has seven shillings per hundred acres; and the public offices have half the above-mentioned fees for each additional name, with the exception of the Attorney-General, who has nineteen shillings and two-pence for each additional name. The purchase money (which is a sum of five shillings sterling for every fifty acres above two hundred, payable to His Majesty, and called the King's purchase money,) is included in the above scale of fees to the Receiver-General. According to the Royal Instructions, a single man is entitled to one hundred acres of land, with an additional quantity provided he can produce sufficient testimonials of his ability to cultivate more. A married man is entitled to two hundred acres, with an additional quantity on proof of his ability to cultivate more: but no more than five hundred acres is allowed to be granted to any person by the Colonial Government.
The method of laying out lots in this Province, of a narrow front and extending a great distance back, is very inconvenient to the settler. Being confined to a narrow front when he commences, clearing, supposing, (which is often the case,) the land adjoining to be unoccupied, he merely makes a lane through the wilderness, not half of which will produce a crop, on account of its being shaded by the adjoining woods: which not only exclude the sun, but impoverish the land by drawing the nourishment from the plants to the adjoining trees. To obviate this, and many other inconveniences, it would be far better to lay out settlements, where the face of the country would admit of it, in square blocks, or parallelograms; to contain two ranges of lots, with roads at proper distances. The fronts of the lots to be extended, and their length contracted. The lots to abut on the road; and extend back one-half the depth of the block:—The rear of the lots in one range, abutting on the rear of lots in the next range. Or else, the settlements might be divided into squares and sections, after the method adopted by the United States in laying out new settlements, of which the following is a short outline: