After years of clearing the land and cultivating it, the settlers in PEI were still paying rents to absentee landlords in Britain. The Tenant League was formed to support farmers who began to refuse to pay their rents. When the sheriffs came to arrest those farmers, neighbours would blow tin trumpets to alert supporters across the countryside. Sometimes dozens of people would answer the trumpet calls and arrive to surround the farmer in question, preventing his arrest. Finally, British troops were called in, but most of them were Irish, and when they arrived many found themselves siding with the tenant farmers. Though the rebellion was ultimately crushed, and the history of the Tenant League remains largely unknown in Canada, it had a profound influence on the Island. To this day in PEI, the acquisition of land by non-residents is highly regulated.