544 CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE

Better acquainted with at that day, than I can possibly be supposed to be at this time and Indeed it is very Improbable That the duke of York should at that day when the Lands were of so Little value, take a Grant of these lands in the manner he did, which he must have been very Sensible must Interfere with the Former Grant made to the. Grantees of the Council of Devon; upon any other Supposition than that it was well known at that time that these lands being in the possession of and Claimed by the Dutch were Expressly within the provinces of the said Former Grants, and therefore could not pass by the patent to the Council of Devon &¢, nor by the future Grant to their Grantees. from these observations I think it follows that these lands Granted to the Duke were never granted to the Council of Devon or their Grantees being within the Express words of the Provisoes in those Grants; but that they became afterwards well vested in the Crown by the Conquest made of them from the Dutch; by Sir Robert Carr in the year 1660. and by their final Surrender of them to King Charles the Second by the Treaty of Breda after the dutch Conquest in 1673. and then the Grant to the Duke of York in the year 1674. above men-_ tioned must have vested the ffee of these lands in the Duke of York. The Consequence of which, must be that as the Crown after this Government Came into its hands, never Granted any part of it away (for the reason I have shown above) that the Government of Massachusetts Bay by their Grantin 1693, Can have no Legal Right to the Lands Entred upon by them Northward of the bounds of Connecticut Government, and westward of Connecticutt river; and Therefore their Entring into & taking possession of them, without Right, Cannot be a reason why the Government of New Hampshire should do the like.