Rules
and Regulations for the conduct of the Land Office Department.
Double
column Broadside printed by Wm. Brown, in Mountain-street, Quebec, with English
on the left and French on the right. The
last paragraph suggests that it was distributed to the Land Boards, where it
was to be made public.
[Double
“S” or long “S” are transcribed to modern usage. Do
not get double or long “S” and “F” mixed up. The “F” has a cross stroke, even
if the stroke is hardly noticeable. The
context can make clear whether the letter is a long “S” or an “F”. Writers would often use both long and short “S”,
sometimes even in the same word.]
Transcriber: Edward Kipp
January 2011Source: Library and Archives Canada
RG1 L4
Vol. 2. Rules and
Regulations for the conduct of the Land Office Department. LAC mf C-14026. PP. 221A & B
Council-Chamber
Quebec, 17th February, 1789
RULES and REGULATIONS
For the conduct of the Land Office
Department
I. Every
Board appointed, or to be appointed by the Governor in any part of the
Province, for the more easy accommodation of persons desirous of forming
immediate settlements on the waste land of the Crown, shall consist of not less
than three Members, and if composed of more, any three of them shall be a
Quorum for the business intrusted to the whole Board.
II. Every
such Board shall be empowered to receive applications for grants of parcels of
the waste lands of the Crown, within the extent of their trust, until the first
day of May in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-one, when their
authority shall be determined, unless continued by a new appointment; every
such application shall be by petition to the Governor in Council, stating the
quantity, and the situation of the land prayed for, and the merits and
pretensions of the petitioners. And all his Majesty’s good and faithful subjects
and all worthy of being admitted as such, shall be considered as proper objects
for his bounty and grace, and within the sphere of this trust.
III. It
shall be the duty of every such Board to hold stated and periodical meeting,
made publicly known, to give free and easy access to petitioners, and to
examine into their loyalty, character and pretentions, and upon these and all
points requisite, to take sufficient and satisfactory proofs by affidavit,
deposition or otherwise, and, to avoid discontents, all petitions and
applications shall be taken up in order of their being preferred, where there
is no special cause for a different course of proceeding.
IV. The
safety and propriety of admitting the petitioner to become an inhabitant of
this Province being well ascertained to the satisfaction of the Board, they
shall administer to every such person the oaths of fidelity and allegiance
directed by Law. After which the Board shall give every such petitioner a
certificate to the Surveyor-General, or any person authorized to act as an
agent or Deputy Surveyor for the District within the trust of that Board,
expressing the ground of the petitioner’s admission. And such agent or Deputy
Surveyor shall within two days, after the presentment of the certificate,
assign the petitioner a single lot of about two hundred acres, describing the
same with due certainty and accuracy under his signature. But the said
certificate shall nevertheless have no effect, if the petitioner shall not
enter upon the location and begin the improvement and cultivation thereof
within one year from the date of such assignment, or if the petitioner shall
have had lands assigned to him before that time, in any other part of the
province.
V. Every
such Board shall at the end of every three months or as soon after as
opportunity offers, transmit to the Office of the Governor’s Secretary the
petitions of that period, and a copy of the certificates given thereon; and
when a petition contains a request for a greater quantity of land, than the
Surveyor-general and his Agents or Deputy Surveyors are authorized by the
fourth and seventh Articles of these Regulations to assign, upon certificates
given by the said Boards, they shall report the ground of such claim and
pretensions, the consideration of which is reserved to the Governor and
Council; the Board transmitting with the petitions of every period a list
expressing the names of the petitioners and the dates of their certificates,
and the quantum of the locations.
VI. The Boards shall from time to time forward like
lists to each other every three months, or as soon after as opportunity offers.
VII. The
respective Boards shall, on petitions from Loyalists already settled in the
upper Districts for further allotments of land under the instructions to the
Deputy Surveyor-general, of the 2d of June, 1787, or under prior or other
orders for assigning portions to their families, examine into the ground of
such requests and claims, and being well satisfied of the justice thereof, they
shall grant certificates for such further quantities of land, as the said
instructions and orders may warrant, to the acting Surveyors of their districts
respectively, to be by them made effectual in the manner before mentioned; but
to be void nevertheless, if, prior to the passing the grant in form, it shall
appear to the Government that such additional locations have been obtained by
fraud. – And that of theses, the Boards transmit to the Office of the
Governor’s Secretary, and to each other, like reports and lists as herein
before, as to other locations, directed.
VIII. And to prevent individuals from monopolizing
such spots as contain mines, minerals, fossils, and conveniences for mills and
other singular advantages of a common and public nature, to the prejudice of
the general interest of the settlers, the Surveyor-general and his Agents or
Deputy Surveyors in the different Districts, shall confine themselves in the
locations to be made by them upon certificates of the respective Boards, to
such lands only as are fit for the common purposes of husbandry, and they shall
reserve all other spots aforementioned, together with all such as may be fit
and useful for ports and harbours, or works of defence, or such as contain
valuable timber for ship-building or other purposes, conveniently situated for
water-carriage, in the hands of the Crown.
And
they shall without delay give full particular information to the Governor or
Commander in chief for the time being, of all such spots as are herein before
directed to be reserved for the Crown, that order may be taken respecting the
same.
And
the more effectually to prevent abuses, and to put individuals on their guard
in this respect, any certificate of location given contrary to the true intent
and meaning of this regulation is hereby declared to be null and void, and a
special order of the Governor and Council made necessary to pledge the faith of
Government for granting of any such spots as are directed to be reserved.
IX. The
Surveyor-general’s Office for the purpose of combining the strength of the
settlers and rendering them mutually assistant to each other, shall lay out the
tracts or Townships to be granted as nearly contiguous to each other as the
nature of the country will permit; exercising all due care to give them certainty
in the descriptions of their boundaries and locations, observing in each
Township to lay out Town plots, Glebes and other spaces for public uses, and
certain equal portions at the corners thereof, to remain unlocated by any
certificates to be given to individuals, by the authority of either of the
Boards above mentioned; the grant of such portions of every Township so to
remain to the Crown, being reserved to the future consideration of the Governor
and Council, or as his Majesty shall be pleased to command respecting the same.
X. The
dimensions of every inland Township shall be ten miles square, and such as are
situated upon a navigable river or water shall have a front of nine miles, and
be twelve miles in depth, and they shall be laid out and subdivided respectively
in the following manner, viz.
(See
The Note)
Note.
The detail for the subdivision of Townships, above alluded to, referring to the
Diagrams to be filed in the Council Office, is omitted.
And
the Surveyor-general’s Office shall prepare accurate plans according to the
above particulars, which shall be filed in the Council Office to be followed as
a general model, subject to such deviations respecting the scite of the Town
and direction of the roads, as local circumstances may render more elegible for
the general convenience of the settlers. But in every such case it shall be the
duty of the Surveyor-general and his Agents or Deputy Surveyors to report the
reason for such deviation to the Governor or Commander in Chief for the time
being with all convenient speed.
XI.
The
Surveyor-general’s Office shall prepare a plan of each District of the Province
exhibiting thereon every tract granted under certificate of location, and there
shall be added to it from time to time all tracts hereafter to be pledged or
promised or granted; and as often as a petition shall have the proper function
for the patent therein prayed for, the Surveyor-general shall without delay
file in the Council Office his returns of survey with such clear description of
the tract as shall enable the Attorney-general to prepare the draft of the
patent or grant intended to be engrossed for the Great Seal.
XII. The
Clerk of the Council shall out the same returns of survey into the hands of the
Attorney-general, who shall return them with his draft of the patent into the
Office of the Governor’s Secretary, to be there stayed, or thence issued, as
the Governor may see cause to direct.
XIII. The
Surveyor-general’s Office shall consult the best means and give correspondent
orders to its Deputies for presenting unnecessary expence in the surveys; the
Crown’s interest requiring that the patentee receive no more, nor any other
tract, than it shall appear from the patent to be the intention of the
government to grant him, and the patentee having cause to be contented if the
descriptive words in his grant shall enable him to locate and discover with due
certainty what tract he is to take; and it being manifest that after such
actual surveys as shall be requisite to ascertain an particular Township or
tract, the description of another contiguous thereto or depending thereon, will
not require any field work previous to the grant thereof; all subsequent grants
in contiguity and succession properly described in the returns of survey being
connected with or dependant upon the accurate description and ascertainment of
the first tract surveyed.
XIV. The
Committee of the Council for reporting upon petitions for lands shall lay aside
all such as contain no specific quantity or location of lands desired, and from
time to time cause a notification of such imperfect petitions to be published
in the Quebec Gazette.
XV. The
faith of the Government being to be considered as pledged to all such as have
acquired or shall in future acquire certificates of occupation in due course,
the Surveyor-general’s Office shall form a schedule of all lots under such
certificates in any part of the Province, specifying the petitioners names, the
quantum of the location, the place where, and the date, and a copy thereof
shall be lodged in the Office of the Governor’s Secretary, another in the
Office of the Clerk of the Council, and a copy shall be sent to each of the
Boards in the different parts of the Province, and the like practice shall be
continued as to all subsequent certificates, at the end of every three months.
XVI. And
to the intent that there may be as little trouble and as much expedition as
possible, with a saving of all unnecessary expence in obtaining grants and
patents, and more especially to favour the Loyalists and other settlers remote
from the capital of the province, the Secretary shall from time to time notify
in the Gazette, all such applications for lands as are so far advanced as to be
ready for the Great Seal.
Ordered, that
all Boards and officers of the Land-granting Department govern themselves
according to the foregoing Rules and Regulations; and that the Clerk of the
Council cause the same to be printed, and transmit copies thereof to the
different Boards, to be made public in their respective Districts, and to all
Officers concerned.
By His
Excellency’s Command,
J.
Williams.
QUEBEC: Printed by Wm. Brown, in Mountain-street.
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