825, but it was revived when that crisis in the commercial life of the
province had passed. The management of the Crown lands office had been
the subject of criticism at almost every session of the legislature for
twelve or fifteen years before Lemuel Wilmot entered public life, and
every year the complaints grew louder.

{AN ADDRESS TO THE KING}

At the session of 1831, an address was presented to the president, the
Hon. William Black, asking him to lay before the House a detailed
account showing the amount of the casual and territorial revenue from
the beginning of 1824 to the end of 1830, and the expenditures from that
fund for the same period. This was refused on the ground that it was
inconsistent with his instructions. The House then resolved to bring the
matter to the notice of the king in an address, the spirit of which may
be gathered from the following paragraphs:--

"By the operation of the system practised in this office, very large
sums are taken from the people of this province for licenses to cut
timber on Crown land, and, although the assembly do not question the
right Your Majesty undoubtedly has to the lands in question, they think
the tremendous powers with which the commissioner is vested, with regard
to impositions of tonnage money and the enormous exactions for fees, to
be incompatible with a free government, and to require redress.

"It is generally understood, as well as universally believed, that the
commissioner in question is under no control in this province, and to
this may be ascribed the mode in which licenses to cut timber are issued
in very many cases, in quantities less than one hundred tons, subject to
a duty of one shilling, three pence per ton, and the excessive fee on
each of forty-five shillings. By this mode, a large part of the receipts
is paid in the shape of fees, at once injuring the subject without
benefiting the revenue; and the assembly feel convinced, if the office
were under colonial management, that while the oppressions would be
removed, the revenue would be more productive; and besides, the assembly
cannot but view with just alarm that the day may possibly come when, by
a single mandate from the office, exactions of such magnitude may be
made as literally to stop the export trade of the country, a power which
no person should have even the shadow of authority to exercise.

"The assembly at an early day in the present session, by an address to
the administrator of t