It will be immediately admitted by every unprejudiced mind,
that the salaries of the deputy-commissaries should be increased,
when the circumstances under which they are placed are duly
considered. They have now only five shillings a day; a sum so
totally inadequate to the services they perform, as to excite
surprize in all who witness the extent of the trust reposed in
them. This daily pay is barely sufficient to purchase a dinner in
the colony, as they are obliged to appear in every respect as
gentlemen; and the necessary consequence is, they are compelled
to enter into other occupations, unless they have a better source
of income than their salaries, in order to meet their own
unavoidable expenditure, and to maintain (as is generally the
case there) a wife and large family. The impolicy of giving small
salaries must be obvious, when it is considered that individuals
who are thus sparingly rewarded for their labour, abstract from
their official duties some portion of that attention which ought
to be wholly devoted to them.

A different arrangement with respect to the grants and leases
of land would also be productive of beneficial consequences.
Whenever any of those deeds have been made, under the hand and
seal of the governor, or of the colonial seal, they ought to be
considered as secured to the grantee or lessee, their heirs,
etc. and, under no pretence whatever, except a failure in the
fulfilment of the conditions expressed therein, ought the
governor, or any succeeding governor, to retain the power of
taking that land away. The existence of such a power, indeed, is,
upon its surface, arbitrary; and, in its effect, totally
destructive of the spirit of improvement; for there scarcely