406 TRAVELS THROUGH LOWER CANADA: 
’granted by the crown, to any one individual, 
than a township of ten thousand acres; or 
should it be thought that grants of such an ex¬ 
tent even opened too wide a field for specu¬ 
lation, certain restrictions might be laid upon 
the grantee; he might be bound to improve 
his township by a clause in the patent, in¬ 
validating the sale of more than a fourth or 
fifth of it, unless to actual settlers, until a cer¬ 
tain number of people should be resident 
thereon *. Such a clause would effectually 
prevent the evil; for it is the granting of very 
extensive tracts of waste land# to individuals, 
without binding them in any way to improve 
them, which gives rise to speculation and land¬ 
jobbing. 
By others it is imagined, that the with¬ 
holding of clear titles to the lands, is a mea¬ 
sure adopted merely for the purpose of pre¬ 
venting a diminution of the inhabitants from 
taking place by emigration. 
Not only townships have been granted by 
certificates of occupation, but also numberless 
Small portions of land, from one hundred acres 
* The plan of binding every person that should take up 
a township to improve it, by providing a certain number of 
settlers, has not wholly escaped the notice of government 5 
for in the licences of occupation, by which each township is 
allotted, it is stipulated, that every person shall provide forty 
settlers for his township 3 but as no given time is mentioned 
for the procuring of these settlers, the stipulation becomes 
nugatory. 
Jt 
