Daniel and Catherine (Churchill) Cottier of England and Ontario
Petition of William Cottier, 1790
Upper Canada Land Petitions
RG 1, L 3, Vol. 127, "C" Bundle Misc. 1788-1794,
Petition 278
Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-1732, page 391
To His Excellency the Right Honourable Guy Lord Dorchester, Captain General Governor & Commander in chief of the Colonies of Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick & their Dependencies
The Memorial of William Cotter Mariner
Humbly Sheweth
That your Lordship's Memorialist Served in the Provincial Naval Service of Canada from the 15th March to the 25th Novr 1780 as a Second Mate under the Command of John Schank Senior Officer & Commissioner, Your Memorialist has received only two hundred acres as yet & being informed, that persons of his description were put upon a footing with Lieutenants in the land Service Humbly prays for the same indulgence & begs that thirteen hundred acres of land together with his Lordship's Bounty of two hundred acres to which he presumes he is entitled by purchasing a hundred acres of land of John Scout of Ernest Town on which there was due improvement made, being in all fifteen hundred acres, which he prays may be assigned him in the 11th Township.
And your Memorialist as in duty bound will ever pray.
Kingston
May the 5th, 1790
William Cotter
To His Excellency Lord Dorchester
Governor & Commander in Chief
in Council
Quebec
on reverse of this page:
Dist: No. 68 Mecklenburgh
William Cotter
examined
Report - Page 1
refused
5th May 1790
Upper Canada Land Board's response to petition of William
Cottier, 1790
Upper Canada Land Board
RG 1, L 4, Vol. 7, Pages 155, 217
Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-14027
Page 155:
William Cotter represents that he is entitled to 1500 acres from having served as 2nd Mate in the Provincial Naval Service from the 15th of March to 25th November 1780 & to the additional Bounty. By Certificate under Signature of Captn John Shank, he appears to have served as above mentioned. But we cannot consider him on that account as entitled to lands under the Instructions of 1783, more especially as he came to this Settlement only in 1787. At all events his claim to so large a quantity is not at all founded, nor can he in any case be entitled to the Bounty.
He has received a lot from the Deputy Surveyor General containing 200 acres to which the Board do not think it necessary to make an addition.
Page 217:
Upon the Petitions endorsed "referred," the Committee observe first on William Cotter's Claims as a Second Mate in the Provincial Naval Service, that he is not by any existing instruction entitled to Lands as a Naval Officer, but they recommend that he may have 500 Acres for the reasons assigned in the minutes.