ries, inhabiting as far as the 45th degree of north latitude, as appendant to the government of New York. 4. That the neighboring colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, have also, from time to time, by their public acts, recognized and admitted the said Six Nations and their tributaries, to be appendant to the government of New York. "5. That by Congress accepting this cession, the jurisdiction of the whole western territory belonging to the Six Nations, and their tributaries, will be vested in the United States greatly to the advantage of the Union."1 2 At this distance it is difficult, notwithstanding the particularity of this report, to repel Mr. Hildreth's characterization of the New York claim as the "vaguest and most shadowy of all." Furthermore, there is reason to think the report part of a political scheme that will be duly noticed hereafter. But here it is pertinent to point out that this claim was virtually the claim to the Northwest which England made just before the French War, characterized by Mr. Parkman as including every mountain, forest, or prairie where an Iroquois had taken a scalp.3 The two New England States rested their claims on the charters with which the reader is already familiar. Connecticut's claim, at the beginning of the Revolution, was the zone lying between parallels 41° and 42° 2′ north latitude, and Massachusetts's, the zone north of this to the parallel of three miles beyond the inflow of Lake Winnipiseogee in New Hampshire; both claims extending from the Delaware and the line thereof to the Mississippi. Connecticut's claim was largely reduced by the Trenton decision of 1782; but this in no way affected her rights west of Pennsylvania. It was urged that these claims were barred west of the present west 1 Journals of Congress, IV., 21, 22. 2 History, III., 399. ern limits of these States: (1) By the words, "actually possessed and occupied by a Christian people or prince," found in the Plymouth charter of 1620, because they related to the lands west of the Dutch settlements; (2) by the presence of the Dutch on the Hudson in 1620, 1629, and 1662; (3) by the grant to the Duke of York; (4) by the boundary-settlement of 1733; (5) by the grant to Penn in 1681; and (6) by New York's Iroquois title. Stress was also laid on the old argument against the from sea-to-sea grants; viz., they were made in ignorance of geography, and included vast tracts of land that did not, at the time, belong to the English Crown. The most important of these points were sustained by Attorney-General Pratt in 1761, who also held that there were State reasons for deciding the Wyoming controversy in favor of Pennsylvania; but Thurlow, and the other Crown lawyers consulted by Connecticut, held that the reservation made in the charter of 1620 did "not extend to lands on the west side of the Dutch settlements;" that the Plymouth grant did not mean to except in favor of anyone anything to the westward of such plantations; that the agreement of 1733 between Connecticut and New York extended "no further than to settle the boundaries between the respective parties," and "had no effect upon other claims that either of them had in other parts;" and that as the charter to Connecticut was granted but eighteen years before that to Penn, there was "no ground to contend that the Crown could, at that period, make an effective grant to him of that country which had been so recently granted to others."1 The two New England claims rested on substantially the same foundation; but it is curious to note how differently they were treated east of the western limits of Pennsylvania and New York. A Federal court threw the one claim aside as invalid, while the State of New York virtually conceded 1 Hoyt gives the substance of the two opinions: Title in the Seventeen Townships in the County of Luzerne, 32, 33. the validity of the other in her compromise with Massachusetts in 1786. The report of the committee on the national limits made August 16, 1782, assigns the treaties of 1684, 1701, 1726, 1744, and 1754, with the Six Nations, as the sources of New York's title to the West.' The report of January 8th on the same subject speaks of the royal geographer, in a map describing and distinguishing the British, Spanish, and French dominions in America according to the treaty of 1763, as carrying the States of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia as far as the Mississippi. Some maps of that period, it may be added, do carry the east and west lines of these States as far as the great river; others carry them no farther than the mountains; but all maps making any pretentions to thoroughness lay down the lines of the royal proclamation. Such were the Northwestern land-claims that, for many years, were a foremost question of domestic polity. Practically they were not heard of until the time came for the American column to pass the Endless Mountains and take possession of the Great West. And, strange to say considering the vehemence with which they were afterward disputed, the first time they were brought before a Congress of the Colonies they met with a unanimous approval. NOTE. These are the resolutions in which the Albany Congress set its seal to the claims in 1754. "That His Majesty's title to the northern continent of America appears to be founded on the discovery thereof first made, and the possession thereof first taken in 1497, under a commission from Henry the Seventh of England to Sebastian Cabot That the French have possessed themselves of several parts of this continent, which by treaties have been ceded and confirmed to them. "That the right of the English to the whole sea-coast from Georgia on the south, to the river St. Lawrence on the north, 1 Secret Journals, III., 168. 2 Ibid., III., 154. V excepting the Island of Cape Breton, and the Islands in the bay of St. Lawrence remains indisputable : "That all the lands or countries westward from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea, between 48 and 34 degrees north latitude, was expressly included in the grant of King Charles the First to divers of his subjects, so long since as the year 1606, and afterwards confirmed in 1620, and under this grant the colony of Virginia claims extent as far west as the South Sea, and the ancient colonies of the Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut, were by their respective charters made to extend to the said South Sea; so that not only the right to the sea-coast, but all the inland countries from sea to sea, has at all times been asserted by the crown of England : "That the bounds of those colonies, which extend to the South Seas, be contracted and limited by the Alleghany or Appalachian mountains; and that measures be taken for settling from time to time, colonies of his Majesty's Protestant subjects west of said mountains, in convenient cantons to be assigned for that purpose; and finally, that there be a union of his Majesty's several governments on the continent, that so their councils, treasures, and strength, may be employed in due proportion against their common enemy.” XII. THE NORTHWESTERN CESSIONS.—(I.) THE United States and the States taken together might possibly have continued conterminous until the Louisiana annexation in 1803, provided all the States had been bounded on the west by the Mississippi River. But such was not the case. New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland were all confined to the Atlantic Plain, and Pennsylvania did not extend far beyond the Forks of the Ohio; while the seven remaining States claimed the whole West, from the Florida line to the Lakes, and some of it two and even three times over. The division of the States into the two classes, in connection with the nature of the war, made the Western lands an inevitable issue. The claimant States were more numerous, more populous, and more wealthy than the non-claimant States, not to speak of their territorial superiority; they also stood on the plain federal principle that the Confederation was the States confederated; but they could not prevent the issue being raised or prevent its going against them in the end. Before the boundaries of 1783 were agreed upon, Congress had adopted a policy that ultimately gave the jurisdiction of the West, and a large part of the lands, to the nation; and we are now to follow the development of this policy so far as it relates to our subject. On October 14, 1777, Congress adopted the following rule for supplying the treasury of the United States: "All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defence or general welfare, and al |