The new Patent of 1674, on its face was an original grant, but in fact it simply revested the Duke with all the rights, powers, jurisdiction and territory he possessed under the Patent of 1664.
These facts are distinctly stated, because the validity of the confirmations of all Dutch groundbriefs, transports, and other grants, and all subsequent English grants during the Proprietorship of the Duke of York, and the later Royal Government, as well as those originally made by Connecticut authorities on Long Island, and subsequently confirmed by the Duke, rests upon them.
The tenure by which the Duke of York held his Province in New York was allodial in its nature.
In this respect it was the same ;is that under which, as has previously been shown, the Dutch West India Company held New Netherland under their charter, and the Patroons held their Patroonships under the different " Freedoms and Exemptions." But it was not to follow a good Dutch example, that this tenure was granted by the King and accepted by the Duke, but because the law of England had then been recently changed, and neither King nor Duke could do otherwise, even if they wished, of which there is no evidence. Four years before New York was given by the King to the Duke, and its surrender by the Dutch, the Parliament of England had passed that Great Act, second only to Magna Charta itself, -- if it was second, -- in its effect on English liberty, and