subject of the controversy is extensively embraced,

say:

66

"There is a clear distinction between a claim and a right, and however ill founded the claim of the Colony may by you be imagined to be, yet that it is an existing claim cannot be denied—and how the admission of such claim, so far as to negociate upon it, to attempt to settle it, or to join in an application to his majesty for an adjudication upon it, can in any respect prejudice the right, we cannot comprehend.

"We apprehend that your honor is much mistaken in imagining that the settlement of the line between the Colony of Connecticut and the grant to the duke of York in 1664, was in any degree occasioned by the uncertainty of the bounds and extent of the Charter to Connecticut and the other New England grants. That determination had another and a very different foundation, viz: the possession on the part of the Dutch of that territory which was afterwards granted to the duke of York; a possession which occasioned its being excepted out of the original grant to the Council of Plymouth, and in fact prevented its being ever vested in the crown until the conquest thereof by Col, Nichols in August 1664. As that territory therefore was not in 1662 in the crown to grant, no part of it could pass by the Patent to Connecticut, and it became absolutely necessary after the conquest and the grant to the duke of York, to ascertain what extent of territory had been so possessed by the Dutch and excepted out of the ancient grant

of the crown. The settlement by that Court was therefore "only to determine what part of the country the duke of York was entitled to in virtue of the Dutch possessions." In the same letter the Commissioners go on to propose that a temporary line of jurisdiction shall be agreed upon, which shall leave the settlers at Wyoming under the Gŏvernment of Connecticut, during the continuance of the war then subsisting with Great Britain; and the settlers on the West branch of the Susquehanna river, who were then under the Government of Pennsylvania, they proposed should remain so, until the termination of the war, when further measures might be adopted to effect a settlement of the controversy.

Gov. Penn, in his answer to this letter of the Commissioners dated Dec. 23, among other things, gays: “As I cannot for reasons assigned accede to your proposal of a temporary line of jurisdiction, so neither can I foresee any means that appear to me likely to effectuate peace and order, and to prevent for the future such violent outrages as have been lately perpetrated in that part of the country where the people of Connecticut are now settled, but their entirely evacuating the lands in their possession until a legal decision of our controversy can be obtained."

He then in the same letter proposes that the Colony of Connecticut shall apply to the King, and assures them that the Proprietaries will meet the subject in presence of his majesty, but that if they do not think proper to do so, the Proprietaries of

Pennsylvania will apply to him for a decision on
their claims. In their answer to this part of Gov.
Penn's letter, the Commissioners advert to their
proposal of applying jointly to the King; but ob-
ject to apply separately because that on so impor-
tant a subject they do not think that his majesty
would come to a decision without first directing a
board of Commissioners to examine the facts in
America which would produce much delay and
expense, and probably be postponed until after the
war, &c.
The Governor, in his letter, had allu-
ded to some former sales of the Susquehanna
lands to the Proprietaries by certain Indians, and
" It
in answer to this the Commissioners say,
were easy to observe that the purchases from the
Indians by the Proprietaries, and the sales by them
made, were they even more ancient than they are,
could add no strength to the Proprietary title, since
the right of pre-emption of the natives was by the
royal grant exclusively vested in the Colony of Con-
necticut, and consequently those purchases and
sales were equally without any legal foundation.
They could neither acquire any right by the one,
nor transfer any title by the other, but that both
the one and the other have been too recent to be
the ground of any argument, since we are advised
that the Proprietaries made no purchase of the na-
tives of any consequence to this dispute prior to
the treaty of Fort Stanwix," (A. D. 1768.) The
Governor had also suggested an objection to the
Connecticut claim, upon the ground of an imprac-
ticability in the Colony to exercise jurisdiction
J

over a country extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. To this objection the Commissioners reply that it is a question of policy, not a question of right, and should not be agitated at this time; but that the Connecticut grant even under that view appears no more objectionable than the grant of so large a territory as Pennsylvania to one person. They conclude by saying that both here and in Europe they had offered, and they now repeat the offer, to submit all matters in dispute to a competent tribunal and to be concluded by the decision. These offers however, proved unavailing and the Commissioners returned to Connecticut without having effected the object of their mission. The particulars of this Conference were laid before the General Assembly of Pennsylvania on the 29th. of Dec. 1773, and on the 18th, of January following, the Assembly passed an address to the Gov. ernor, in which, among other things, they say:→

"To prevent the mischievous effects of this unkind and unneighborly disposition in the Government of Connecticut, we beg leave earnestly to request that you will pursue every effectual measure to call the claimants before his majesty in Council and to bring their claim to an immediate decision.”

Measures were accordingly taken for that purpose, but his majesty had now claims of a different and more important nature to decide with his American subjects, all of which were eventually set, tled by his acknowledgement of their independence.

After the Connecticut Commissioners had made report of the failure of the negociation with the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, the Susquehanna

Company represented to the General Assembly of Connecticut that as all hope of being erected into a separate Colony at Wyoming by special Charter from the King was now lost, in consequence of the existing war with Great Britain, and, as the settlement at Wyoming was not sufficiently powerful to protect itself in a state of war against the Prov. ince of Pennsylvania on the one hand, and the combined British and savage enemies on the other, they requested that those settlements might be taken under the protection of the Colony of Connecticut-be considered as a part of that Colony-and be subject generally to its laws and jurisdiction.

The General Court having taken these representations into consideration, passed an Act in January, 1774, by which the country extending from the river Delaware westward fifteen miles beyond Wyoming, and in extent North and South the whole width of the Charter bounds, was erec ted into a separate Town to be called "Westmoreland," and annexed to the county of Litch: field. By this Act all persons were forbid from settling upon any lands within the limits of the Connecticut Colony westward of the Province of New York, except under the authority of that Colony; and Zebulon Butler, Esq. and Nathan Denison, Esq. were appointed Justices of the Peace, and directed to call a town meeting for the election of other officers. In pursuance of the provisions of this act, a general meeting of the inhabitants of Wyoming was held, and their civil officers were elected; and from this time Wyo