In obedience to your Excellency's Order in Council of the 3^ day of July last, Referring to a Committee thereof, the Petitions of Robert Livingston Juni" Esq^ and of the Owners of a certain Tract of Land called Westenhook, Complaining of new Claims and Encroachments made upon their Lauds, by the Inhabitants of the Massachusets Bay ; And also the Surveyor GeneraPs and the Attorney GeneraPs Reports on the said two Petitions. The Committe having maturely weighed and considered of the same, humbly beg leave to Report to your Excellency :

1st That they apprehend the Claims of the Massachusets-Bay to the Manor of Livingston, or the said Tract of Land called "Westenhook, cannot be well founded. Because they find, That the Dutch claimed the Colony of New Netherlandt, as extending from Cape Cod to Cape Cornelius, now called Cape Henlopen, Westward of Dele ware Bay, along the Sea Coast and as far back into the Country as any of tlie Rivers within tliose Limits extend ; and that they were actually possessed of Conecticut River, long before any other European People knew any thing of the Existence of such a River, and were not only possessed of the Mouth of it, Avhere they had a Fort and Garrison, but discovered the river above a hundred miles up ; had their People trading there ; and purchased of the Natives almost all the Lands on both sides of the said River.

2^ That Governour Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor of the said Province, by his letter dated the 2^ of September 1664 New Stile, In answer to a letter from Governour Richard Nicholls of the 1^ August preceeding, demanding the Surrender of all the Forts and Places of Strengtli possessed by the Dutch under his (Governor Stuyvesant's) Command, Writes as follows " Moreover " its without dispute, and acknowledged by all the World, that " our Predecessors by virtue of the Commission and Patent of " the said Lords the States General, have without Controul and " peaceably, (the contrary never coming to our knowledge) " enjoyed Fort Orange about 48 or 50 years ; and Manhatans