fsiEBERT] THE AMERICAN LOYALISTS 35 



and were doubtless associated with others from the same corps.* They 

 claimed to have purchased an old Indian title, but most of the land 

 under this title — according to Captain Sherwood— lay in Vermont and 

 was said to have been extended to the north of the Pike River by what 

 the same officer called ''a trick of the purchasers." The version of the 

 purchase given by Caleb Closson and Oliver Sweet, who belonged to 

 the party, was that the lands had been secured from a Mr. Robertson 

 of St. Johns, who in turn had ''bought them from the Indians, nine 

 miles south of the Mississquoi River and nine miles north, bounded [on 

 the west] by the lake." f According to this description, not more than 

 one sixth of the property lay within the borders of Canada; and the 

 authorities at Quebec, after careful investigation, denied that any of 

 it did. 



Nevertheless, towards the end of April, 1784, the settlers of this 

 district were still trying to obtain the sanction of the government, and 

 one of their number sent in the names of three hundred persons who 

 were ready to join them. 4: Of these, fifty-five names came from the 

 loyalist colony at Machiche, ten others probably from Sorel, and the 

 rest apparently from St. Johns and its vicinity.* Prospective colonizers 

 had been solicited at all of these places as well as at Montreal, and had 

 been promised gratuitous provisions as long as the loyalists settling 

 on government grants should receive them.^ Fourteen families had 

 already located at Mississquoi Bay and three more on Caldwell's Manor, 

 all of these being north of the province line.® Captain Azariah Pritchard, 

 however, finding that Haldimand's opposition to the settlement was 

 unalterable and that most of the land secured for it lay in Vermont, 

 decided to sever his connection with the enterprise and betake himself 

 to the Bay of Chaleurs. Moreover, Pritchard, who was a man of 

 energy and influence, dissuaded about two-thirds of the King's Rangers, 

 — according to his own estimate — from settling at Mississquoi Bay. 

 The others would not give up their purpose of doing so.'' In the fall of 

 1784 the colony made a considerable gain through the accession of a 

 "dozen or more families,^ and the disobedient settlers were promptly 

 struck from the government's provision list. Early in the following 

 February, some of them sent in a petition for the continuance of the 

 King's bounties, bearing marks of their indignation. They announced 



*Can. Arch., 1888, 711, 683. Vide ante, p. 16. ' 



tibid., 711. 



JHaldimand Papers, B. 167, pp. 384-387. 



* Can. Arch., 1888, 714; Ilaldimand Papers, B. 177, pp. 384, 387. 

 s Can. Arch., 1888, 714: Sherwood to Mathews. 



» Haldimand Papers, B. 162, pp. 210, 211. 

 » Ibid., pp. 392-397. 



* Thomas, Contributions to the History of the Eastern Townships, 1.5, 16. 



