Page:1898 NB Magazine.djvu/374
Armed with this letter, Mr. Hazen went to Halifax in June, 1784, exhibited it to Mr. Morris and applied for a grant of 2,000 acres eastward of the second grant. He obtained the grant, which was dated June 29th, 1784, and on his return received from Graves a conveyance of the land to himself and James White, for which the consideration was the sum of £150.
When James Simonds learned of this he, in turn, was very indignant. In his evidence in the chancery suit he goes so far as to assert that advantage was taken by William Hazen of the fact that the surveyor general was, at the time of his visit, very much engaged in the location of lands for the Loyalists and had not time to examine the records and plans, or examine the names of persons to whom lands had lately been promised; and that in the very great hurry of business Mr. Hazen contrived, by some means, to get the name of William Graves inserted as grantee in place of David Fletcher, to whom the land had been promised in the first instance. Mr. Hazen, on his part, denies that he acted unfairly towards Mr. Simonds—and there we must leave it. It was out of this transaction that the controversy arose which in the end proved so costly to all concerned. Mr. Morris, the surveyor general, apparently was greatly astonished when he first learned of the quarrel that had arisen, and in a letter to Mr. Simonds, written about the close of the year 1784, he says:—
"I have been honored with your favor complaining of a Person who till now I thought was your intimate particular Friend, indeed I looked upon your interests to be inseparable. . . Inclosed is a copy of your brother Peabody's survey of your land which I supposed was done by your order and approbation. At the time Graves' grant was made I had not time to look at the Record but took for granted all was as you could wish."
The bounds of the second grant (that made to James Simonds, May 1, 1770) are described as "Beginning at Red Head in a little Bay or Cove to the