A Patent was granted to Ferdinando Gorges for Maine, which was allotted to him in the division of property. New Hampshire was granted to John Mason. Before the surrender by the Dutch of their colony, now New York, in 1664, the King of England had granted to the Duke of York, the country of New England, and as far as the Delaware Bay. The Duke subsequently transferred New Jersey to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. And yet, during these events, a great proportion of the country was in possession of the Indians. In 1663 the Crown granted to Lord Clarendon and others the country lying between the 36th degree of North latitude and the River St. Mary's ; in 1666 the proprietors obtained a new charter granting to them that province in the King's dominions in North America from the Atlantic to the South Sea. Thus our whole country, the soil as well as the right of dominion, was granted while occupied by the Indians. However extravagant the pretension may appear, of converting the discovery of an inhabited country into conquest, if the principle has been asserted in the first instance, and afterwards juaintained ; if a country has been acquired and held under it ; if the jjroperty of the great mass of the community originates in it, it becomes the law of the land and

cannot be questioned The law of conquest,

founded in force, but limited by that humanity or policy which incorjiorates the conquered with the victorious, spares all wanton oppression, and protects title to property, whether the vanquished became incorporated, or were governed as a distinct society, was incapable of application to the aborigines of this country. The tribes of Indians were fierce savages, whose occupation was war, and whose subsistence was chiefly from the forest.