If this Order should invest the Indians with a Fee simple in these Lands in severalty, as fully as tlie other Inhabitants are by similar Orders, yet I am informed, that in Consequence of the verbal Exchange made in the year 1691 the Indians settled on Indian Neck, and that they never settled at South Harbour if so, the Statute of Limitations, I fear wiU bar their Right to the Lands at South Harbour, And I doubt whether it will be thought by the Judges, (allowing the utmost for the Ignorance of those Times) that a bare parole agreement can so operate as to give them a Right to the Lands at Indian Neck, if it has been possessed -against the Indians within Sixty Years.

I am also farther informed that there is some Instrument executed between the Indians and Inhabitants respecting one or other of these peices of Land, but I cannot find out the purport

394 PAPERS RELATING TO SUFFOLK COUNTY.

of it, nor where it is to be found, Tlie opei-ation of that is proper to be known before a Suit is commenced.

Tour Honor will permit me further to observe that this Tribe of Indians are the Kings natural born Subjects, and have a Right to be redressed by tJie Laws of the Land, and by the s&me Method of proceeding as any other of the Kings Subjects and that I may be guilty of Maintenance should I sustain the Suit of one Subject agaipst another, and that as a public Officer (if this is not a Governmental Affair as I conceive it is not) by maintaining the Cause of one Subject against another I am liable to very grievous Punishment, For by the first Rich. 2<i " It is " enacted that no Person whatsoever shall take or sustain any " Quarrel by maintenance in the Country or elsewhere on " grievous pain, that is to say the Kings Counsellors and great " Officers on a pain that shall be ordained by the King himself " by advice of the Lords of his Realm, and other officers of " the King on pain to lose their Offices and to be imprisoned " and ransomed and all other persons on pain of Imprisonment " and Ransom &c."