314 BRITISH AMERICAN LAND COMPANY. 



to render in payment of the lands they held ; but it, 

 nevertheless, indicates that the existence of seignorial 

 rights is considered a grievance by the people, and that, 

 like our former tithe-payments, though strictly just, they 

 will stand in the way of the agricultural improvement of 

 the country. Every encouragement, therefore, should 

 be given to the buying up of the annual rent-charges, 

 and enfranchisement should be made compulsory as 

 regards the fines on transfers, the right of pre-emption, 

 of milling the corn, and other minor claims of the 

 seigneur. 



Sherbrooke, on the River St Francis, and on the pro- 

 posed continuation beyond St Hyacinth of the St Law- 

 rence and Atlantic railway, is near the centre of the 

 grant made to the British American Land Company, 

 which T have already incidentally noticed. This com- 

 pany prefers to sell their lands at from 10s. to 15s. an 

 acre, to give credit to the purchaser for ten years, on 

 payment of 6 per cent interest on the purchase-money, 

 and, at the close of this period, to receive the price in 

 four yearly instalments, bearing interest also while un- 

 paid, at the rate of 6 per cent per annum. This tedious 

 and compHcated mode of payment does not appear to 

 have found much favour with purchasers or settlers, and, 

 with the inland situation of the district, and the neigh- 

 bourhood of a French population, has probably con- 

 tributed to the very slow rate at which land has been 

 disposed of in these eastern counties, and at which its 

 market-value has increased. 



In the Report published by the Board of Registration 

 and Statistics at Montreal, in 1849, it is stated of the 

 county of Sherbrooke, that " the registrar does not know 

 of a single new settler having located himself in any of 

 the new townships of the county ; nor does he think 

 there has been any increase in the value of lands for ten 

 vears." This is a very unpromising account of the 



