426 HISTORY 



ported Governor Maxwell, and did not respond favorably to the appeals of 

 the Loyalists, who had now become the stronger party in the Colony. There 

 was a general desire that the Assembly should be dissolved and a new one 

 called. Petitions asking for this came to the new Governor from New Provi- 

 dence, Exuma, Abaco and Cat Island. In 1785 a like petition from the 

 Loyalists was read in the House of Assembly. That body immediately or- 

 dered the document to be burned by the common hangman before the door 

 of the House, as the majority of the existing Assembly was favorable to the 

 policy of the Governor. The latter listened to the petitions of the Loyalists, 

 deliberately considered them and replied that he did not consider it expedient 

 to dissolve the Assembly. He persisted in his refusal and at the close of his 

 administration the Assembly called in 1785 had endured almost nine years. 

 After the departure of Dunmore from the government an act passed the 

 legislature limiting the duration of a legislature to seven years, in order to 

 obviate such a difficulty as that which the Earl of Dunmore had brought upon 

 the Colony. 



In 1787 the Lords Proprietors of the Bahamas surrendered their title to 

 the lands of the Bahamas to the Crown on the payment of £2000 to each of 

 them. The granting of lands and the collection of the quit rents became 

 rights of the Crown. The quit rents were poorly collected at this time, and 

 after the close of the eighteenth century they fell still further into arrears. 



Although the Colony was prosperous for a number of years owing to the 

 great stimulus given to it by the new immigrants, this prosperity was not 

 destined to be permanent. The soil, which at best was thin, was exhausted of 

 its strength by the middle of the first decade of the nineteenth century. Its 

 value decreased, and with it passed away a great part of the value of the 

 slaves that had been employed upon it. Some of the planters now emigrated 

 with their slaves before the prohibition was laid on the exportation of slaves 

 from British colonies. The restrictions on the holding and working of slaves 

 were gradually tightened. Attempts were made to secure the right to emi- 

 grate with them, but no relaxation in these restrictions occurred. The inter- 

 est of Bahama slaveholders had thus to suffer owing to the necessity of enforc- 

 ing a uniform system of regulations against the slave-trade. 



With this brief notice of the early history of the Colony we will now turn 

 our attention to a more minute study of the conditions which brought such 

 hardships to the slaveholders of the Bahamas. 



