ter the defeat of Gen. Braddock. The Govern ment of Pennsylvania seeing the necessity of negociating a peace with the Shawanese and Delaware Indians invited them to a treaty which was held at Easton in November, where a peace was concluded between those tribes and the English Colonies, an account of which is given in the preceding Chapter.

In the summer of 1757, the Delaware Company commenced a settlement at Coshutunk on the Delaware river which appears to have been the first settlement established within the limits of the Connecticut Charter West of the Province of New York; for although there appears to have been a small fort built at the Minisinks on the same river in 1670,* yet that fort was soon afterwards abandoned in consequence of some difficulties with the Indians, who refused to sell the lands.

A general peace having been effected with the Indians in 1758, the Susquehanna company resumed their intentions of forming a settlement at Wyoming, but the various events of the war between England and France which was at this time carried on with considerable vigor by their respective American Colonies, contributed to retard their measures for this purpose until the year 1762, when in the month of August about two hundred prisoners from the Colony of Connecticut arrived at Wyoming and commenced the first settlement there under the authority of the Company. On

*Trumbull

the left bank of the river a short distance above the mouth of a fine stream which came in from the East, a spot was selected for cultivation. It was sufficiently distant from either of the Indian towns to prevent any interference in their agricultural pursuits, and here the settlers began their first improvements. A small house was built of logs at the mouth of the creek,* surrounded by several small cabins which formed the residence of the whole Colony, and here they were visited during their hours of relaxation by the Indians with whom they lived on terms of the utmost friendship and hospitality. They found the Valley covered with woods, except a few acres in the immediate vicinity of the Shawanese and Wyoming towns which had been improved by the Indians in the cultivation of their corn, and which was still in part occupied by them. The summer was so far advanced when the new Colony arrived, that they could only prepare a few acres for wheat, and as provisions for their sustenance during the winter could not be procured from the Indians, they concealed their tools and implements of husbandry, and in November departed for their former habitations in New England.

While the Susquehanna company were projecting and pursuing these measures, the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, foreseeing that important difficulties would arise in the settlement of the controversy with the people of Connecticut, and

*Since called "Mill-creek."

F*

that the King of England was too much occupied by his war with France to undertake the settlement of Colonial disputes, submitted to the English Attorney General, for his opinion among others, the following question :

"Whether the people of Connecticut have any color or pretence under their Charter to set up this right to this tract of land westward of New Jersey through Pennsylvania as far as the South Sea; and what is most advisable for the Proprietaries to do in case the Government of Connecticut persist in their claim ?"

Mr. Pratt the Attorney General, afterwards Lord Camden, delivered his reply to Mr. Penn in March 1761, and as the station as well as the talents of this gentleman entitle his opinion to some respect, it may be well to give it at large on this question. He says:

"If all the Colonies in North America were to remain at this day bounded in point of right as they are described in the original grant of each I do not believe there is one settlement in that part of the globe that has not been encroached upon, or else usurped upon its neighbour, so that if the grants were of themselves the only rule between the contending plantations there never would be an end to the dispute without unsettling large tracts of land where the inhabitants have no better title to produce than either possession or posterior grants, which in point of law would be suspended by prior Charters. Hence I conceive that many other circumstances must be taken into consideration besides the parch

ment boundary, for that may at this day be exten ded or narrowed by possession, acquiescence or agreement, by the situation and condition of the territory at the time of the grant, as well as by various other matters with respect to the present dispute. The western boundary of Connecticut was barred at the time of the original grant by the Dutch settlements and the crown was deceived when they were prevailed upon to convey a territory which belonged to another State then in amity with the crown of England. Besides this objection the settlement of the new boundary under the King's commission in 1664, and what is still stronger, the new line marked out by agreement between this Province and New York, has now conclusively precluded Connecticut from advancing one foot beyond those limits. It was absolutely necessary for the crown, after the cession of the New Netherlands, to decide the clashing rights of the Duke of York and the adjoining Colonies; and therefore all that was done by virtue of the commission then awarded for that purpose must at this 'day be decreed valid as the nations have ever since that time submitted to those determinations, and the Colonies of New York and New Jersey submit ́only upon the authority of those acts. I am of opinion therefore that the Colony of Connecticut has no right to resume its ancient boundary by overleaping the Province of New York so as to encroach upon the Pennsylvania grant, which was not made until after the Connecticut boundary had been reduced by new confines, which restored the

land beyond those settlements westward to the crown and laid them open to a new grant. The state of the country in dispute is a material state reason why the crown ought to interfere in the present case and put a stop to this growing mischief. But I doubt this business cannot be adjusted very soon because Mr. Penn must apply to the crown for relief, which method of proceeding will necessarily take up time as the Province of Connecticut must have notice and be heard."

The position assumed by the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, being calculated to exclude the Colony of Connecticut from all her claims westward of New York, very naturally excited the interest of the inhabitants of that Colony, and the Government feeling an equal desire to have their claims fully examined, submitted the subject to the consideration of learned and eminent council in England, who gave their opinion in favor of the Connecticut claim, as follows:

"The agreement between the Colony of Connecticut and the Province of New York can extend no further than to settle the boundaries between the respective parties, and can have no effect upon any claims that either of them had in other parts, and as the Charter of Connecticut was granted but eighteen years before that to Sir William Penn, there is no good ground to contend that the crown could at that period make an effectual grant to him of that country which had so recently been granted to others but if the country had actually been settled under the latter grant, it would now be a