[RAYMOND] UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK 97 



"My dear, since the gentleman has been so polite as to drink the 

 King's health, let us by no means refuse to drink to his friend!" 



In 1785 Dr. Paine was elected a member of the first House of 

 Assembly, for the County of Charlotte, and was also appointed Clerk 

 of the House. The following year the Governor in Council set apart 

 a tract of 2,000 acres at Fredericton for the maintenance of the pro- 

 posed Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the session of 1793 the House 

 of Assembly voted that an annual sum of £200 be allowed towards 

 the erection of proper buildings for the Academy. A site was chosen 

 near that of the present Christ Church Cathedral. The academy was 

 at first little more than an old time Grammar school. In 1800, how- 

 ever, it was duly established by provincial charter as the "College of 

 New Brunswick." 



In 1811 the Rev. James Somerville, M.A., LL.D., a native of 

 Scotland, became the "principal preceptor" of the Academy, and on 

 the 25th March, 1820, the same gentleman became the first and only 

 President of the "College of New Brunswick." He was succeeded at 

 the Academy by the Rev. Geo. McCawley, B.A., of Windsor, N.S., and 

 these two eminent teachers were associated in academic and collegiate 

 work for the next sixteen years. The staff of the College proper 

 consisted of Dr. Somerville alone, as we learn from his address to 

 the first and only graduating class, delivered on the 21st February, 

 1828, in which he observes: — 



"To assert that one man, although his abilities and acquirements were greatly 

 superior to mine, when thrown upon his own solitary resources, could perform what 

 in similar institutions is the business of five or six, would savor more of the vain 

 boastings and empty pretence of an emperick than the modesty and diffidence of 

 a scholar, but I can confidently say I have done what I could." 



In addition to the revenue from the rental of its lands, the annual 

 grant from the legislature was by degrees increased though it was 

 always small. 



In 1823 the legislature passed an act to enable the governor and 

 trustees to make a conditional surrender of their charter in order to 

 obtain a Royal charter from the Crown. Soon after the arrival of Sir 

 Howard Douglas in August, 1824, the site for the new college building 

 was chosen and during the next few years the sound of the workman's 

 hammer was heard in the construction of the nobler and more enduring 

 building which still crowns the hill back of Fredericton. In 1828 the 

 work was so far advanced as to permit the surrender of the provincial 

 charter. The new College was constituted by Royal Charter, with 

 the privileges of an University, under the name and title of "The 

 Chancellor, President and Scholars of King's College at Fredericton 

 in the Province of New Brunswick." 



• Sec. I & II, Sig. 7 



