the rest of our colonies and plantations in America.”  He was, “with the advice and consent” of the council and assembly, “to make, constitute and ordain laws” for the good government of the province.  During nine years the governor-in-council carried on the government without an assembly, and passed a number of ordinances, some of which imposed duties on trade for the purpose of raising revenue.  The legality of their acts was questioned by Chief Justice Belcher, and he was sustained by the opinion of the English law officers, who called attention to the governor’s commission, which limited the council’s powers.  The result of this decision was the establishment of a representative assembly, which met for the first time at Halifax on the 2nd October, 1758.

Governor Lawrence, whose name will be always unhappily associated with the merciless expatriation of the French Acadians, had the honour of opening the first legislative assembly of Nova Scotia in 1758.  One Robert Sanderson, of whom we know nothing else, was chosen as the first speaker, but he held his office for only one session, and was succeeded by William Nesbitt, who presided over the house for many years.  The first sittings of the legislature were held in the court house, and subsequently in the old grammar school at the corner of Barrington and Sackville Streets, for very many years one of the historic memorials of the Halifax of the eighteenth century.

At this time the present province of New Brunswick was for the most part comprised in a county known as Sunbury, with one representative in the assembly of Nova Scotia.  The island of Cape Breton also formed a part of the province, and had the right to send two members to the assembly, but the only election held for that purpose was declared void on account of there not being any freeholders entitled by law to vote.  The island of St. John, named Prince Edward in 1798, in honour of the Duke of Kent, who was commander-in-chief of the British forces for some years in North America, was also annexed to Nova Scotia in 1763, but it never sent representatives to its legislature.  In the following year a survey was commenced of all the imperial dominions on the Atlantic.  Various schemes for the cultivation and settlement of the island were proposed as soon as the surveys were in progress.  The most notable suggestion was made by the Earl of Egmont, first lord of the admiralty; he proposed the division of the island into baronies, each with a castle or stronghold under a feudal lord, subject to himself as lord paramount, under the customs of the feudal system of Europe.  The imperial authorities rejected this scheme, but at the same time they adopted one which was as unwise as that of the noble earl.  The whole island, with the exception of certain small reservations and royalties, was given away by lottery in a single day to officers of the army and navy who had served in the preceding war, and to other persons who were ambitious to be