drick then with some warmth disapproved of them as well as the weakness of those of his brethren who were seduced by Lidias, and promised to do all he could to make them revoke or retract what they had so shamefully done."

The Susquehanna Company at this time consisted of six hundred and seventy-three persons, ten of whom were inhabitants of Pennsylvania, and having completed their purchase, concluded to divide the land into shares which were to be distributed among the several claimants. A general meeting of the company was therefore called to be holden at Hartford on the 20th of November, and a messenger was sent to Pennsylvania to notify the members resident in that Province. The messenger having arrived in Northampton County, was arrested upon a warrant issued by Daniel Brodhead, Esq. a magistrate of Lower Smithfield, who having ascertained many particulars concerning the company, immediately communicated them by letter to Richard Peters, Esq. a member of the Council of Pennsylvania. Upon receiving this information, Gov. Morris sent Mr. John Armstrong to Connecticut for the purpose of collecting whatever information could be obtained in relation to the Company and the measures which they intended to adopt. He was also the bearer of a letter from Governor Morris to the Governor of Connecticut. In which the former again refers to the Deed from the Six Nations to William Penn dated Oct. 11, 1736, and to the engagement then made by the Indians to sell all the lands in Pennsylvania to

William Penn and to no one else; after which he proceeds to say:

"You will give me leave further to observe to you that the Six Nations at the late Congress at Albany, in open council mentioned on application then made to them by agents from Connecticut for the purchase of some of the Susquehanna lands and that they had absolutely refused to give any ear to such proposal, telling the several Governments then present by their Commissioners that they were determined the lands at a place called Wyomink or the Susquehanna should not be settled, but reserved for a place of retreat." He further observes: "Notwithstanding which I am informed that Mr. John Lidias who is known to be a Roman Catholick, and in the French interest, has been since employed by some people of your Province to purchase from the Indians some lands within this Government: that he has in a clandestine manner, by very unfair means, prevailed on some few Indians to whom he secretly applied to sign a Deed for a considerable part of the lands of this Province, including those at Wyomink. And as we stand engaged to the Six Nations by treaty neither to settle the lands at Wyomink, or suffer them to be settled, this Government thought it proper (among other things) to inform the Indians that those people were not authorised or even countenanced by this Government, and their attempts were disavowed by the Government of Connecticut and were to be looked upon as å lawless set of people for whose conduct no Government is accountable."

It r may be proper here to give some account of the Deed of 1736, and the Province spoken of.It was "For all the said river Susquehanna with

the lands lying on both sides thereof, to extend Eastward as far as the heads of the branches or *springs which run into the said Susquehanna, "and all the lands on the West side of the said "river to the setting of the sun and to extend "from the mouth of said river up to the mountains "called in the language of the Six Nations, Tay"amentasatchta, and by the Delaware Indians, "the Kakatchlanamin hills." These hills are what are now called the Blue Mountains, and they formed the northern boundary of this purchase. The Deed is signed by twenty-three chiefs of the Onon dago, Seneca, Oneida and Tuscarora Nations.

A promise is annexed that they will never sell any lands within the "Government of Pennsylvania," to any persons but the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania. It appears however by the speeches of various Indian chiefs at subsequent treaties, that the Government of Pennsylvania was supposed to extend no further North than those mountains, and the Indians, as Gov. Morris observed, had absolutely refused to sell the Wyoming lands; they were to be reserved as Hendrick remarked " for the Western Indians to live upon.

The Commissioners of Pennsylvania were aware that such was understood by the Indians to be the limits of the Government of Pennsylvania; and at the treaty at Albany on the 9th day of July, after the meeting of council that day, they drew a Deed F

of promise which was endorsed on the Deed of Jan. 13, 1696, from Col. Dungan formerly Governor of New York to William Penn, and made part of a supplement to that Deed, by which instrument the Indians who signed it promised never to sell any lands in Pennsylvania, as the same is bounded by New York, except to the Proprietaries. To this promise they procured the signatures of nine of the Indians then present at the treaty.

Mr. Armstrong made a report to Gov. Morris on the 11th, of December, 1754, containing a particular statement of the information which he had collected during his tour to Connecticut, by which it appears that the Susquehanna company must have increased in numbers after the purchase. He says: "There were formerly five hundred subscribers at seven dollars each, to which are now added three hundred at nine dollars each."

After having concluded the negociation with the Six Nations, and become organised in a regular manner, the Susquehanna company made application to the Legislature of Connecticut requesting the concurrence of that body in an application to the King of Great Britain for a new Charter giving them authority to establish a new Colonial Government within the limits of their purchase. The Legislature received their petition very favorably and on the second Thursday in May 1755 passed a resolution approving of the measures of the company and recommended them to his Majesty's favor.*

These proceedings at large in Secretary's office.

In the summer of 1755 the company having procured the consent of the Colony of Connecticut for the establishment of a settlement, and if his majesty should consent, of a separate Government within the limits of their purchase, sent out a number of persons to Wyoming, accompanied by their surveyors and agents, to commence a settlement.On their arrival, they found the Indians in a state of war with the English Colonies; and the news of the defeat of Gen. Braddock having been received at Wyoming, produced such an animating effect upon the Nanticoke tribe of Indians, that the members of the new Colony would probably have been retained as prisoners had it not been for the interference of some of the principal chieftains of the Delaware Indians, and particularly of Tedeuscund, who retained their attachment to their christian brethren of the Moravian Church, and their friendship in some degree for the English. The members of the Colony consequently returned to Connecticut, and the attempt to form a settlement at Wyoming was abandoned until a more favorable opportunity. The Nanticokes, having during the summer removed from Wyoming, united with their more powerful neighbors in persuading the Delaware Indians who alone remained in the Valley, to unite in the war against the English Colonies. To this measure the Delawares were already much inclined and the capture of Fort Oswego, which took place in August 1756, induced them to declare" more openly their hostility against the English which had in some degree made its appearance af

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