lands, settling them in distinct allotments for protecting the purchases, settling the same and particularly for adjusting and liquidating the debts claimed within certain fixed periods agreeable to his Majesty's instructions.

That in consequence of these necessary measures a progress was made in the liquidation of the debts, and certificates of the sums allowed were given to the claimants, when the disturbances in America, and particularly in Georgia prevented any further proceedings being taken therein, and your memorialists are either on their own accounts or their correspondents interested in those claims either liquidated or to be liquidated to a very considerable amount and without any dependence for reimbursement, but on the produce of the lands so ceded.

Your memorialists further beg leave to represent to your Lordship, that prior to the unhappy disputes in America several allotments of the said ceded lands were sold, but as they were given to understand, the charge of surveying, the raising and maintaining a troop of Rangers and other expences, whether necessary or not your memorialists will not take upon themselves to determine, have amounted to more than the sums received, no part of the sums due to your memorialists or their correspondents upon such of their claims as have been settled, liquidated and certified as aforesaid have been paid.

Having thus fully stated to your Lordship the circumstances that attended the cession of the lands in question, the actual ground upon which that cession was made, the motives and conditions upon which his Majesty was graciously pleased to accept the same and upon which instructions were given to Sir James Wright, it remains

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for your memorialists humbly to submit to your Lordship's 'consideration.

That although the cession of those lands was expressly made to the Crown by the Cherokee and Creek nations, yet that it was for a particular and declared purpose, not only clearly acknowledged in the act of cession itself, but in his Majesty's instructions to his Governor; and that the Crown in this instance stands in fact in trust for the several creditors of those nations whose debts have been cor may be fairly liquidated and certified by them or their assigns. The lands therefore so ceded in trust, cannot be deemed the property of the Crown unless it is at the same time acknowledged that they must stand charged with and liable to the several uncertified claims of your memorialists and their correspondentstoot terstone o

"

That the present situation of affairs affords your memorialists reason to 'presume that some accommodation may soon take place with the revolted colonies; upon this supposition, theys have taken the liberty to trouble your Lordship with this full state of their situation, and they beg leave to assure your Lordship of their entire reliance upon your attention to it; and they are persuaded that in every event of negociation which may happen, the circumstances attending the cession made by the Cherokee and Creek Indians to his Majesty at the Congress of Augusta in May 1773, of the lands to the southward of the River Savannah, for the sole purpose of paying the debts due from their respective nations to the British traders, will be duly attended to, and that those lands will be deemed as charged with and made liable to the payment of those debts, or that some other mode of payment will be adopted VOL. JI. 2 A

to the satisfaction of your memorialists and correspondents.

London, May 3, 1782.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES JAMES FOX, One of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, &c. &c.

The MEMORIAL of the subscribing Merchants trading to South Carolina and Georgia in behalf of themselves and others.

That on the third day of May last your memorialists had the honor to present to the Earl of Shelburne, then one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of state, a memorial of which the annexed is a copy.

That your memorialists having as they humbly apprehend clearly demonstrated therein, that certain lands on the western frontiers of the province of Georgia, were vested in the Crown by cession from the Creek and Cherokee Indians in trust for the payment of their debts, which debts have been assigned to your memorialists and their correspondents, they had entertained the most sanguine hopes and expectations that those lands would have, by the preliminary articles lately concluded between the commissioners of his Majesty and those on the part of the United States of America, been deemed subject and bound to the payment of the several demands and claims of your memorialists, but to their great surprise they find no notice taken therein of the conditions upon which those lands were vested in the Crown.

Your memorialists, as the Crown at the time of the

cession, did not stand pledged either to the Indians or their creditors for the payment of the debts, upon which condition the cession was made, could not expect or claim any right of receiving payment from the Crown, while lands ceded to his Majesty for that purpose were liable to the said payment; they humbly presume to say, that the independency of the United States of America being now acknowledged and the boundaries of those states ascertained, all lands heretofore vested in the Crown within those boundaries, and which the different Indian nations do not claim as their property, must be deemed as vested in the respective states within whose limits they are situated : and as the Indians have formally ceded the lands in question to his Majesty, and thereby renounced all right thereto, and property therein, they are to all intents and purposes a part of the state of Georgia, without any condition or being bound to make good any payment, for the purpose of which alone they were ceded to and vested in his Majesty; and your memorialists are thereby effectually barred from any claim or expectation of being paid their several demands, to which payment those lands while vested in his Majesty were liable.

Your memorialists humbly conceive that his Majesty having conceded to the State of Georgia the lands in question, without any stipulation in favour of your memorialists, that they are fully warranted in their humble expectations that some mode of payment will be adopted or other expedient proposed for their relief. And they therefore earnestly request, that taking the merit of their case into consideration, you will be pleased to lay this their humble

representation before his Majesty for his gracious pleasure

therein.

GREENWOOD AND HIGGINSON.

JOHN BULT.

GRAHAM SIMPSON.

CLARK AND MILLIGAN.

JAMES JACKSON.

London, April 11, 1783.

COMMISSION OF D. HARTLEY, Esq. presented to the American Plenipotentiaries, May 19, 1783.

GEORGE R.

George the third, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg, Arch treasurer and Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, &c. To all to whom these Presents shall come greeting.

Whereas for the perfecting and establishing the peace and friendship and good understanding so happily commenced by the provisional articles signed at Paris the thirtieth day of November last, by the commissioners of us and our good friends the United States of America, viz. New Hampshire, Massachusets Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the three lower counties on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia in North America, and for opening, promoting and rendering perpetual the mutual intercourse of trade and commerce between our kingdoms and the dominions of the said United States, we have thought proper to invest some fit person with full powers on our part to meet and confer with the ministers