19, 1631, Robert, Earl of Warwick, president of the Council of the Plymouth Company, granted unto Lord Say and Seal and sixteen others, and to their heirs and assigns and associates forever, " All that part of New England which lies west from Narragansett River a hundred and twenty miles on the sea coast and from thence in latitude and breadth aforesaid to the South Sea." This grant extends from Point Judith to New York, and from thence in a west line to the South Sea (Pacific Ocean) ; and if we take Narragansett River in its whole length, this tract will extend a.s far north as Worcester.'

The patents to Connecticut, Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia have the same westerly extension, and were so regarded by the English Kings, and acted upon in treaties between Great Britain and France and Spain. It was by this construction of the patents and charters of the American colonies that tjae Western Territories, as far as the Mississippi, wore ceded to the United States by the peace with Great Britain ; and it was by virtue of tlie same construction of the patents tliat Congress, in 1788, procured a formal surrender of the unappropriated Western lands from the States above named, -- Connecticut, however, reserving a tract in Ohio, bounded on the south by the forty-first degree of north latitude and on the north by the Connecticut line, containing three million six hundred and sixty-seven thousand acres.^

In March, 16.32, a Dutch ship was forced, by stress of weather, into the port of Plymouth, and was seized on a charge of having traded and obtained her cargo in countries subject to His Britannic Majesty. Out of this seizure grew the first sharp controversy between the English King and the States-General regarding their respective rights and claims in America -- a controversy meriting special attention.