DAVID OWEN 25
Island. Again he entered a deposition requesting that they " may be delivered over to the Civil power to answer for their offence." But the American Lieutenant-Colonel discovered that the alleged delinquents " had taken only a few apples," for which they promised to pay one-half dollar to the poor of Moose Island, and that it was Campobellians who had been the (l great plunderers."
.Nevertheless it was Owen's own hired man, an Englishman, who, "being in liquor," had abused an American officer and was more abused himself by that same dignitary, who presumably was in his senses.
Difficult of adjustment as were these evils, a more complicated problem arose through the marriage on Moose Island by a Justice of Peace, under the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, of a Campobello couple. Was such marriage illegal 1 Should the Justice pay fee to the Crown 1 Would the offspring of such marriage be legitimate, or would the parish be forced to maintain the children? This matter, declared Owen with all the official circumstance, must be decided by established law of the Courts*
"for the law of a garrison is but the vibrating authority of a commission." Great also were the annoyances in removing a pauper from one place to that of his last legal settlement. " Surely there is much to be said," exclaims Owen, " about the liberty of the British Colonist."
With ardor did he remonstrate against the petty cannon directed at his Campobello, since some balls fell near a weir where men might have been fishing and others might have fallen on boats, and balls, sent by a ship's officer, did actually fall round the chapel he had erected at his own expense. When deserters crossed over the bay to him, and the American officer had come in search of them, had not Owen dined and reprimanded him, and given him " a copy of his Sunday-school prayers, with a few words on the title page! " What more could a grantee do, who was interested in religion 1 He had striven to defend his
