Page:The-new-brunswick-magazine-v3-n6-dec-1899.djvu/5

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AT PORTLAND POINT.
253

Scotia, to carry on the settlement of the said town-ships, and also to such of the proprietors or their attorneys, as were then at New York. Captain Spry's "remonstrance" and accompanying proposals, were considered by the proprietors and their attorneys the very next day at a meeting held at the house of George Burns, an inn holder in New York, and it was unanimously decided to cancel the former division of the lands[1] (in which the lots were only 65 rods in breadth and from four to six miles in length) on the ground that such long narrow "slips of land" were very inconvenient for settlement, and there being so many of them and located at such a variety of places, it was absolutely impossible for a proprietor to look after them with the care and attention the establishing of new settlements of necessity required. It was also decided in accordance with Captain Spry's recommendation:—

1st. That every Proprietor shall have his Proportion of all the Lands in the several Townships (except Conway) in one Township only, and that Township to be fixed by Ballot.

2nd. That when the Proprietors have drawn the Township their Lot is to be in, they shalt draw again for their particular Lot in that Township.

3rd. That the Lots in each Township be divided so as to be as nearly of equal value as possible, the expence, of which is to be defrayed by the Society in general in case the Division cannot be settled by the Survey already taken.

4th. That all the Islands be divided into sixty-eight Lots and drawn for, except Perkins Island, which is to remain in Common among all the Proprietors.

5th. That the Saw Mill also remain in Common among all the Proprietors for twenty years from the date of the Grant, and then to devolve to the Proprietors of the Township it is in.

Captain Spry mentions in his "remonstrance" that the townships of Gage and Sunbury had been surveyed by Charles Morris, Esq., the Surveyor General of Nova Scotia, and the places for the Town Plots fixed; that ten families had been sent to the River St. John in the Autumn of 1767, who could get no further than

  1. ↑ This was the divison which is referred to at page 266, Vol. 1. of the Magazine.
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