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But

being earnestly opposed by Mr. Duane, was unsuccessful. early in October a resolution, aimed principally at Tryon, was adopted, recommending to the several provincial assemblies and committies of safety, "to arrest and secure any person in their respective colonies, whose going at large might, in their opinion, endanger the safety of the colony, or the liberties of America." The movers

of the resolution, says Gordon, "had little or no expectation that the New York convention would secure Tryon, but they hoped the sons of liberty at large would effect the business." But, continues Gordon, "Mr. Duane's footman went off to Gov. Tryon in season to give him information of what was resolved," which enabled him to escape on board a vessel in the harbor and eventually to continue his intrigues and outrages against the people he was sent to govern.

No further proceedings in relation to the New Hampshire grants took place under the administration of Gov. Tryon, except that in accordance with his chronic habit of violating the king's prohibitory orders against granting lands in that territory, he issued a patent the 28th of October, 1775, to Samuel Avery and others for forty thousand acres of land, and in June 1776, another to Samuel Holland, and associates, for twenty-three thousand acres more; the former tract lying on the west side of the Green mountain, and the other on the east side. Both of these patents bear date after the governor had taken refuge from his indignant people on board the king's man of war.1

1

Sparks's Washington, vol. 3, p. 8. Irving's Washington, vol. 1, p. 493. Gordon's American Revolution, vol. 2, p. 94, 119, 120. Jour. Cong., Oct. 6, 1775. Bancroft, vol. 8, p. 32. Albany Records, Patents, vol. 16 and 17.

CHAPTER XI.

COLLISIONS BETWEEN THE NEW YORK AND NEW HAMPSHIRE CLAIMANTS.

1766-1771.

Brief summary of the preceding chapters - The settlers but little annoyed during the administration of Governor Moore - much troubled when Colden comes again into power in 1769, and also under Dunmore — The patent of Walloomsack, and disturbances in regard to it-Trials of ejectment suits at Albany in June 1770-John Munro Esq., a New York justice and agent of Messrs Kempe and Duane - He assists the sheriff in his attempts to arrest rioters and to execute writs of possession- Silas Robinson arrested and carried off to Albany - The militia of Albany county marched to Bennington to aid the sheriff in taking possession of the farms of James Breakenridge and Josiah Fuller - Their discomfiture and its effects.

In the preceding chapters, we have given an account of the origin and character of the respective claims of the governments of New York and New Hampshire, to the soil and jurisdiction of the territory now constituting the state of Vermont. We have seen that the continent of America, from Labrador to Florida, was originally claimed by the English by right of prior discovery; that the Dutch were the first to explore the Hudson river, and to occupy the lands in its vicinity; that they claimed that their territory, under the name of New Netherland, extended from Delaware bay on the south to Cape Cod on the north; that their right to any part of the territory they claimed was disputed and denied by the English, that the settlements of the Dutch in New Netherland and the English in New England commenced about the same time, that their settlements gradually approached and they began to encroach upon each other; that in consequence of such encroachments a treaty was entered into in 1650, between the Dutch governor and the commissioners of the New England colonies, by which a temporary boundary line was agreed upon, extending from a point on Long Island sound indefinitely to the north, so that it should not come nearer than ten miles to the Hudson river; that such line was ratified by the States General of Holland as the permanent eastern boundary of the Dutch territory; that the English government did not so recognize it and could not without abandoning the ground it had always maintained that the Dutch were intruders and had no rightful territory what

ever; that in 1664 King Charles the second granted the territory claimed by the Dutch to his brother, James Duke of York, and sent across the Atlantic, a naval and military force, to which New Netherland was surrendered in the autumn of that year; that New Netherland at that time contained less than ten thousand inhabitants, fifteen hundred of whom were upon Manhattan, now New York island; that the population of Connecticut was then fully equal to that of New Netherland, more than three quarters of which was west of Connecticut river, the settlements extending on Long Island sound more than seventy miles west of that river and reaching within less than twenty miles of the Hudson; that two years previously the same king Charles had granted the charter of Connecticut extending from Narragansett bay on the east to the South sea or Pacific ocean on the west, disregarding any claim of the Dutch to New Netherland; that the charter of Massachusetts had been granted thirty years earlier, also reaching westward to the Pacific ocean; that the descriptive language of the charter to the Duke of York was necessarily vague; that it could not consistently with the long cherished pretensions of the English government be otherwise; that the territory could not be described in the grant to the duke in general terms as New Netherland without impliedly admitting the right of the Dutch who had settled it, and given to it its name; that a description bounding it by the temporary line which had been acknowledged by the States General of Holland as its eastern extent toward New England, was equally inadmissible, for the same reason; that there being no river or range of mountains or other natural object for a boundary between the settlements of the English and the Hudson river, that could be fixed upon, a description was necessarily adopted which, treating the grant as covering only English territory used language sufficiently comprehensive to include the Dutch possessions; leaving any apparent interference with previous grants to be adjusted when the territory should be reduced to possession by conquest; that accordingly the grant to the duke was nominally of Hudson's river and all the land from the west side of Connecticut river to the east side of Delaware bay;" that in accordance with this intention of the crown to embrace only the Dutch possessions in the duke's grant, the boundary on the east, was within six weeks after the conquest of New Netherland, curtailed to within twenty miles of the Hudson by the king's commissioners who accompanied the expedition, of whom the duke's governor of the province, then named New York, was one; that this twenty mile line reaching northerly to Lake Champlain is designated as the eastern boundary

of New York on all the English and American maps up to the period of the revolution, including that of the celebrated geographer Dr. Mitchell, published in 1755, under the authority of the English board of trade; that such line was recognized by New York as such boundary for more than three quarters of a century, the first public claim set up by the government of that province, either against Massachusetts or New Hampshire, that its territory reached east to Connecticut river was made by Gov. Clinton in 1750, after the grant by Wentworth of the charter of Bennington; that even Cadwallader Colden, who eventually under the temptation of a rich harvest of patent fees, became a zealous advocate of the ancient right of New York to reach eastward as far as the Connecticut, had as late as 1738, while surveyor general of the province, in an elaborate official report for the information of the crown, given the boundaries of the province on all sides of it, in great detail, without making any mention whatever of that river; and that although the Dutch at the time of the conquest of New Netherland, made no claim to reach eastward beyond the before mentioned treaty line of 1650, yet that they did claim by reason of their trade with the Mohawks and other tribes of the six nations of Indians and of their protecting care over them, to extend westerly to lakes Ontario and Erie, in virtue of which claim continued by their English successors western New York became a part of that province and state, though by no construction whatever could the language of the duke's charter be made to include it.

We have further seen, that by the accession of the Duke of York to the throne, in 1685, his charter title merged in the crown making New York a royal province; that its eastern boundary, being a twenty mile line, from the Hudson extended northerly to lake Champlain, the king, in 1741, commissioned Benning Wentworth, governor of New Hampshire, describing his province as reaching westward until it met his other governments, thus bounding it westerly on New York; that the country thus included in New Hampshire, lying to the westward of Connecticut river, was then an uncultivated wilderness; that Gov. Wentworth, with authority from the king to grant his lands, issued charters of over one hundred townships each of six miles square, within such territory; that while settlements of the country under these charters were rapidly making, the government of New York procured an order of the king in council, bearing date July 20, 1764, fixing upon Connecticut river as the boundary between the two provinces; that up to that time the territory, thus severed from New Hampshire, had been repeatedly and uniformly recognized

by the king's government as belonging to that province, and never to that of New York; that the reasons for this change of jurisdiction were those of state policy, a preference of the crown for the aristocratic institutions of New York, to the more democratic institutions of New England, and a desire to extend the area of the former by curtailing that of the latter; that upon the receipt of the king's order in council annexing the territory west of Connecticut river to New York, lieutenant governor Colden proceeded at once to grant the lands to others than the New Hampshire claimants, and when the latter applied to the New York governors for a confirmation of those not thus granted, such enormous patent fees were demanded as to make it impossible for them to comply; that the New Hampshire claimants then appealed directly to the crown for relief; that the conduct of the New York governors in regard to their lands was severely censured by the colonial secretary, and an order of the king in council made, bearing date July 24, 1767, forbidding in the most positive terms, under the penalty of his majesty's highest displeasure, the granting of any more lands whatever within that territory "until his majesty's further pleasure should be known concerning the same;" that the New York governors, notwithstanding this peremptory order of the king, proceeded to grant the lands within the disputed territory, and continued making such grants up to the period of the revolution, having granted more than a million and a half of acres in direct and palpable violation of such order.

We are now to treat of the controversies which arose between the settlers and the New York claimants in regard to the possession of the lands thus covered by conflicting grants.

It has already been seen that Lieutenant Governor Colden's operations in the issuing of patents were suddenly brought to a close, the 1st of November, 1765, in consequence of his inability to procure stamps to authenticate them, as required by the English stamp act. The same difficulty also put a stop to further surveys, warrants for that purpose also requiring stamps. Mr. Colden had patented nearly all the lands for which surveys had been ordered, and when in the summer of 1766 the obstacle occasioned by the stamp act was removed by its repeal, Sir Henry Moore found that it would require considerable time to make the necessary preparations for future grants; and before his patent granting machinery could be put in active operation, the letter of the Earl of Shelburne, of the 11th of April, 1767, came forbidding him in the most peremptory manner, from making any further grants in the disputed territory. This was soon followed by the king's prohibitory

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