only waiting the return of the Deputies from the Southward; I have also received notice that another general meeting is appointed to be held at Sioto, which the Indians in that Quarter declare to be intended to communicate the sentiments of the six Nations to those who were not present at the last Conference & to take measures in consequence of their engagements, however I have already taken care that those who go from the Northward in consequence of their summons are men to be depended on, & I shall have a strict eye over their proceedings. I ought to remark that, as amongst other fallacious pretences, the Shawanese have spoke of the sale to the Crown extending to Ohio, that it is not of that part which for the several reasons I formerly gave 1 ventured to continue from Kanhawa to the Cherokee River, but this pretended objection is to the part above Kanhawa, to which I was directed to purchase by his Majesty's orders, & indeed no other part could effect them, but even this is a weak pretence, for the North side of the River which they still occupy, is more than they have any title to, having been often moved from place to place by the six Nations, & never having any right of soil there, so that the admitting of any part of their title as just, would introduce a variety of other claims as weakly founded, which would create a general confusion in the Colonies. I considered the defection of ye Kicapous & Poutawatamies &c under the general denomination of their Confederacy, of whose fidelity I have but a very slender opinion. Their murders & robberies are however much owing to ye jealousy of French traders, and to that lawless colony of that Nation on the Waubache who are daily increasing in numbers, and whilst they particularly hate us as English are realy enemies to all Government; These men should if possible be removed, but possessing ye Esteem of the neighbouring Indians, and acquiring a confidence from their connections, & remote situation, I beleive it will be a verry hard task to effect it compleatly, or in a proper manner, I understand that General Gage has this in view, and your Lordship may be assured that I shall most chearfully obey his Majesty's orders by co-operating with General Gage in this or any other measure which the King's service may require. The Complaints made daily by the Indians of the abuses & irregularities of trade are many & grievous, and will doubtless be made use of by them in case of a defection in any quarter. The injuries which our own traders sustain to the South West-ward thro' the superior influence and artifices of the French, who engross the commerce of that Country, is likewise worthy serious attention, for all which there appears no prospect of remedy, as the Commissioners did not meet last September as was expected, neither according to the best accounts that I have, is there any likelyhood that they will do so, or if met that any thing effectual will be agreed to from the different interests and systems of policy prevailing in each Colony which must ever prove an obstruction to establishments that depend on a perfect union of sentiments, & on proportional quotas of Expense. I am persuaded that such negligence, in a matter of General concern, could not have been foreseen by Government, and I am happy to find that my sentiments correspond with those of Your Lordship on the necessity there is for a redress of such grievances as must endanger the public tranquility. I never coveted neither shall I ever wish for Authority but, where the public service requires it. to reach abuses that may not otherwise be easily removed. The attention wh the present duties of my Office require would rather incline me to wish that these important points could be effected in any other Channel, of which I express my doubts with real concern. The event of the public negotiations in which the Indians propose to be occupied the ensuing season are for many reasons as yet extremely doubtful, they require to be strictly enquired into, and I shall give them my whole attention, highly encouraged by the favourable sentiments with which Your Lordship has honored my proceedings. I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude upon that occasion but by a perseverance in my attention to His Majestys Interest, & to those duties which have procured me so flattering a distinction. I am also much oblidged to Your Lordship for the confirmation of the most agreable news of the recovery of His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester; An event which so nearly regards his Majesty's domestic felicity, and which is so interesting to everry faithfull subject, affords me the most sensible satisfaction. I have the honor to be with the utmost respect imaginable My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient, Agreable to your directions communicated in your letter N° 6. I have the honour herewith to transmit to your Lordp a full state of the present proceedings on applications for Land in this Government. The grand objection your Lord points out in persons applying for land under borrowed names, in trust for them, seems extremely difficult eventually to obviate; for, were each Patent to contain but one Thousand acres, and that only to one person, no restriction I presume could guard against his alienating his Land as soon as he had obtained the Patent for it; consequently those, who had the command of money, might acquire an unlimited landed property. I am very credibly informed, that in this Provcc many hundred thousand acres of patented land may, at this very time, be purchased from half a crown to eighteen pence sterling per acre, and some at less value. I conceive it My Lord, good policy to lodge large Tracts of Land in the hands of Gentlemen of weight and consideration. They will naturally farm out their lands to Tenants; a method which will ever create subordination and counterpoise, in some measure, the general levelling spirit, that so much prevails in some of His Majty' Governts. The objections that occurr to me on the present mode of granting lands, are, that on the Govr's preferring the Petitions, he receives for Land to a Committee of the Council, there are no fixed periods for taking the same into consideration, and when the Report of the Committee is made to the Govr, and the advice of Council obtained thereon, he receives such Report and advice as conclusive to him. The latter objection may perhaps have no weight, but the necessity of having fixed periods to transact the Land office business, twice or thrice a year, is important. I must observe that upon the Gov" receiving the advice of Council as aforesaid, the Warrant he signs to the Surveyor General to survey the Land, & the executing the Patent when the survey is returned, are both done out of Council. I conceive it would be much more formal and regular to execute these instruments in Council, I would therefore submit the real expediency of having certain periods or Terms for holding the Land Office as in North Carolina; at which time all petitions lodged with the Governor in the intermediate space between the holding of the Courts, to be laid before and considered by the Gov' in Council (or referred to a Committee as in the present usage), that the warrants for all Petitions that are advised to be granted, be then signed, and patents executed, for such Tracts as have been surveyed, and the warr' of Survey returned by the Surveyor General. It will be essentially necessary, that the Surveyor Gen1 & his Deputies, should attend at the holding of these Terms to give such information and satisfaction as may be required of them by the Court; the want of this information is a subject of complaint in the present mode. At these Courts likewise, all Caveats might be heard and determined. The next consideration will be the Officers Fees. The return of their services, and the Fees they take by usage, has been already transmitted, and I have now the honor to inclose the Report of the Council upon them. I should submit the reasonableness of allowing some Fee on every Patent to the Gov's private Secretary, as he puts the seal to both warrants and patents; the Fee for this service was two shillings and eight pence in North Carolina for every hundred acres. I am not Master of much method in arranging my reflections on any subject; I can, however, My Lord, with confidence declare, I have here delivered them with all the integrity my Sovereign has a right to expect from me. When His Majesty, shall have fixed the great outlines and such other directions as shall be thought proper for my future conduct in granting of Lands, I should wish liberty might be given me to direct such lesser considerations in the Land Office, either by myself or with the advice of Council, as in the nature and variety of that business may be found requisite. It is extremely important I should be instructed what regard is to be paid, upon the reform of the present mode of granting lands, to such Petitions as have obtained the advice of Council, and on which, considerable expenses may have been incurred in making the Survey, tho' the Surveys may not then be returned; as well as those which are actually returned, yet not patented. All which is humbly submitted to His Majesty's wisdom and pleasure. I have received your several Dispatches from N° 15 to 24, and have laid them before the King. The light in which you appear to have considered the petition of the Corporation of Albany was certainly the proper one and His Majesty approves of your prudence in suspending any determination thereupon until the Judges have made their Report. The representations you have made and the papers you have transmitted with regard to Coll: Bradstreet's application and the State of the Lands upon Lake Champlain, and in that Country which has been annexed to New York by the determination of the boundary line, together with the measures which you have thought fit to pursue for confirming to the possessors the grants made of those Lands by the Gov' of New Hampshire, are of such a nature as to require the consideration of the Privy Council, and therefore I have received His Maj' Commands for laying them before that Board where I hope they will receive a speedy decision. In the mean time it is His Majesty's pleasure, that you do pay a strict obedience to the Instructions that have been already given to you with regard to both the districts in question, and that you do not consider yourself as at liberty from any circumstances whatever to deviate from the letter of those Instructions. The proceedings of the Assembly in the case of Mr Livingston, are of a very extraordinary and serious nature, but I shall certainly avoid bringing that matter into discussion, until I receive the Journals of the Assembly, at the same time, it would have been a great satisfaction to me, to have known upon what ground it was, that a negative was put upon the very sensible, and I think truly Constitutional Questions moved by Coll: Woodall.1 1 1 Brigadier-General Nathaniel Woodhull, of the Revolutionary army, was born at Mastic, L. I., December 30, 1722. In 1758, he was appointed a major in the Provincial forces of New-York, and served in the expedition under General Abercrombie against Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and was engaged in the fruitless attempt to storm the former post. He afterwards accompanied the expedition against Fort Frontenac, under Lieutenant-Colonel Bradstreet, and was present at the capitulation of that place. He is supposed to have accompanied the army under Prideaux in 1759, against Niagara. In 1760, he served as Colonel of the 3d New-York Provincials, and accompanied the army under Amherst from Oswego to Montreal, after which he returned home. On the dissolution of the Assembly in 1769, Colonel Woodhull was elected one of the Representatives for the county of Suffolk, aud constantly supported the rights of the country by his votes. In April, 1775, he attended the Convention, held in New York, to choose delegates for the Continental Congress, and in the following May was a member of the Provincial Congress, which organized the militia and appointed Col. Woodhull Brigadier-General. He was elected President of the Provincial Congress in August, 1775, and had the honor to preside over that body again in 1776, when it accepted the Declaration of Independence. On the landing of the British army, in August, on Long Is and, Brigadier Woodhull was ordered to march a force to the western parts of Queens county and drive off the stock; he marched accordingly to Jamaica, whence he proceeded to execute his orders with the very small force under his command. Some disaffected parties, however, sent intelligence of his exposed condition to the enemy, and on the 28th August, he fell back to the vicinity of Jamaica, two miles east of which place he was overtaken by a detachment of the 17th Light Dragoons and 71st Highlanders. The General immediately, on being discovered, gave up his sword in token of surrender. The ruffian who first approached him, as reported, ordered him to say, God save the King; the General replied "God save us all;" on which he most cowardly and cruelly assailed the defenceless General with his broad sword, and would have killed him upon the spot, had he not been prevented by the interference of an officer of more honor and humanity, (said to be Major Delancey of the dragoons,) who arrested his savage violence. The General was badly wounded in the head, and one of his arms was mangled from the shoulder to the wrist. He was taken to Jamaica, where his wounds were dressed, and, with other prisoners, was detained there till the next day. He was then conveyed to Gravesend, and, with about eighty other prisoners, ( of whom Colonel Troup of New-York was one,) was confined on board a vessel which had been employed to transport live stock for the use of the army, and was without accommodations for health or comfort. The General was released from the vessel on the remonstrance of an officer, who had more humanity than his superiors, and removed to a house near the church in New Utrecht, where he was permitted to receive some attendance and medical assistance. A cut in the joint of the elbow rendered an amputation of the arm necessary. As soon as this was resolved on, the General sent for his wife, with a request that she should bring with her all the money she had in her possession, and all she could procure; which being complied with, he had it distributed among the American prisoners, to alleviate their sufferings thus furnishing a lesson of humanity to his enemies, and closing a useful life by an act of charity. He then suffered the amputation, which soon issued in a mortification, that terminated his life September 20th, 1776, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. The cruel treatment of this gallant officer and eminent citizen aroused in every patriotic bosom feelings of indignation. Nor can the circumstances ever be recollected without admiring the lofty spirit which no extremity could bend to dishonor, nor without disdain and abhorrence of a coward brutality, which vainly seeks for extenuation in the bitter animosities of the times. Thompson't Hittory of Long Island, II., 402, et seq. A ballad on the death of Woodhull, with introductory remarks, may be found in the London With regard to the application from the consistory of the Reformed Dutch Church, it does not appear, from the manner in which they state it in their memorial to you, to be unreasonable, but no determination can be had upon it, until the Petition which they intend to present to the King upon that subject has been received. The recommendation of persons to supply vacancies in the Councils in the Plantations, is within the Departm' of the Board of Trade, and I shall not fail to lay before them your letter N° 23. stating Mr Henry Cruger's request to resign his seat at the Council Board in order to make way for his son to succeed him.-I am ettc. Hillsborough. Representation of the Lords of Trade on an Application from the College in New-York. [Now-York Entries, LXVIII., 469.] To the Right Honble the Lords of the Committee of His Majestys most Honhle Privy Council for Plantation Affairs. My Lords, Pursuant to your Lordships order of the 6 of last month we have taken into Our Consideration the Address of the College of the Province of New York "humbly beseeching "his Majesty to constitute that Seminary an University with such privileges, and with such an "Establishment of Professors, as his Majesty shall approve; and also praying the remission of "Quit Rents reserved on a Tract of Land lately granted in that Province for the benefit of the "said Institution." Whereupon we beg leave to report to your Lordships. That the protection and Encouragement of Seminaries and Institutions for the Propagation of true Religion and Learning in His Majestys American Colonies are objects well deserving your Lordships recommendation; and His Majestys Gracious attention; and the Revd Dr Cooper, president of the above College who has attended us in Support of this Address, having reported to us such a state of the Foundation under his care as gives us reason to believe it's further extension will be attended with beneficial effects, we do on this occasion adopt the same Policy as in Our late Report to your Lordships upon the Address of the Rector and Inhabitants of New York; and are of opinion that it will be adviseable to comply with so much of the prayer of the above recited Address as respects the Remission of the Quit Mirror for 1823, and in Thompson's Long Island, II., 423, but it is here omitted for its want of historic truth. His body was taken by his wife to Mastic and interred on his farm. The following is the inscription on his tombstone: In Memory of Gen'l NATHANIEL WOODHULL, Who, wounded and a prisoner, Died on the 20th of September, 1776, In the 54th year of his age, Regretted by all who knew how to value his many private virtues, and that pure zeal for the rights of his country, to which he per ished a victim. Onderdonk's Revol. Incidents of Queens Co., 106. |