It is also related that certain officers of the regiments were in the habit of putting each of their children, however young, upon the strength of the regiment, with the view of securing him land, and hence arose an expression the “Major won’t take his pap,” and “half pay officers never die,” as the officer placed on half pay when a year old, would long enjoy it. But it will be often found that this mode was adopted by those in authority, as the most convenient to confer favors upon the chief officers, although a very ridiculous one.
For many a year no strict rules for discrimination, were observed in the granting of lands in Canada, and the petitions which literally crowded upon the government, were, in the main, promptly complied with. The time came, however, when more care had to be observed, for not a few of those who had actually rebelled, or had sympathized with the rebels, finding less advantages from republicanism than had been promised, and with chagrin, learning that those, whose homesteads and lands they had assisted to confiscate, had wrought out new homes upon land, conferred by a government more liberal, and of a nobler mind than the parvenu government, which had erected a new flag upon American soil, looked now with longing, covetous eyes toward the northern country, which those they had persecuted, had converted from a wilderness to comfortable homes. The trials of the first settlement had been overcome. The occasional visit of a Canadian pioneer to his old home in the States, where he told the pleasing tale of success, notwithstanding their cruelty, caused some to envy their hard earned comforts, and even led some who had been the worst of rebels, to set out for Canada with a view of asserting their loyalty and, thereby of procuring lands. Not a few of such unworthy ones succeeded for a time in procuring lands. It therefore became necessary, on the part of the government, to exact the most searching examination of parties petitioning for land. No reference is here made to those who came into the province in response to the invitation proclaimed by Governor Simcoe; but to those who entered under false colors, prior to the time of Upper Canada being set apart from Lower Canada.
Extracts from the Rules and Regulations for the conduct of the Land Office Department, dated Council Chamber, 17th February, 1789, for the guidance of the Land Boards.
“4th. The safety and propriety of admitting the petitioner to become an inhabitant of this Province being well ascertained to the satisfaction of the Board, they shall administer to every such person the oaths of fidelity and allegiance directed by law; after which the Board shall give every such petitioner a certificate to the Surveyor General or any person authorized to act as an Agent or Deputy Surveyor for the district within the trust of that Board, expressing the ground of the petitioner’s admission, and such Agent or Deputy Surveyor shall, within two days after the presentment of the certificate, assign the petitioner a single lot of about two hundred acres, describing the same with due certainty and accuracy under his signature. But the said certificate shall, nevertheless, have no effect if the petitioner shall not enter upon the location, and begin the improvement and cultivation thereof within one year from the date of such assignment, or if the petitioner shall have had lands assigned to him before that time in any other part of the Province.
“7th. The respective Boards shall, on petition from the Loyalists already settled in the Upper Districts for the allotment of lands under the instructions to the Deputy Surveyor General of the 2nd of June, 1787, or under prior or other orders for assigning portions to their families, examine into the grounds of such requests and claims, and being well satisfied of the justice thereof, they shall grant certificates for such further qualities of lands as the said instructions and orders may warrant to the acting Surveyors of their Districts respectively, to be by them made effectual in the manner before mentioned, but to be void, nevertheless, if prior to the passing the grant in form, it shall appear to the Government that such additional locations have been obtained by fraud, and that of these the Boards transmit to the office of the Governor’s Secretary, and to each others, like reports and lists as hereinbefore, as to the other locations directed.
“8th. And to prevent individuals from monopolizing such spots as contain mines, minerals, fossils, and conveniences for mills, and other similar advantages of a common and public nature, to the prejudice of the general interest of the settler, the Surveyor-General and his Agents or Deputy Surveyors in the different districts, shall confine themselves in the location to be made by them upon certificates of the respective Boards, to such lands only as are fit for the common purpose of husbandry; and they shall reserve all other spots aforementioned, together with all such as may be fit and useful for ports and harbours, or works of defence, or such as contain valuable timber for ships, building or other purposes, conveniently situated for water carriage, in the hands of the Crown, and they shall, without delay, give all particular information to the Governor or Commander-in-Chief for the time being, of all such spots as are hereinbefore directed to be reserved to the Crown, that order may be taken respecting the same. And the more effectually to prevent abuses and to put individuals on their guard in this respect, any certificate of location given contrary to the true intent and meaning of this regulation is hereby declared to be null and void, and a special order of the Governor and Council made necessary to pledge the faith of Government for granting of any such spots as are directed to be reserved.
FAMILY LANDS AND ADDITIONAL BOUNTY.
“Certificate of the Board appointed by His Excellency the Governor, for the District of ——, in the Province of Quebec, under the rules and regulations for the conduct of the Land Office Department.
“Dated, Council Chamber, Quebec, 17th February, 1789.
“The bearer ——, having on the —— day of ——, preferred to the Board a Petition addressed to His Excellency the Governor in Council, for a grant of —— acres of land in the Township of —— in the District of ——. We have examined into his character and pretentions, and find that he has received —— acres of land in the Township of ——, in the District of ——, and that he settled on and has improved the same, and that he is entitled to a further assignment of —— acres, —— in conformity to the seventh articles of the rules and regulations aforementioned.