This Reasoning is Justified also, from the Consideration that the Crown did not by any act Ratify or approve the opinion of the Commissioners, or of Governor Nicholls who was one of them, but on the contrary, after the Dutch had in 1673 reconquered this Province, and by the Treaty of Breda in 1674 yielded it to England, made a second. ° Grant to the Duke of York in the Same Terms with the first. And it appears by the Minutes of the Agreement with Connecticut in 1683 that Governor Nicholls and the other Commissioners had been deceived in the Line they established with that Colony in 1664, which instead of leaving to this Province twenty miles East of Hudson's River soon cross'd that River and left the far greatest part of that River out of New York Government. Massachusits 'Bay hath nothing I humbly conceive to urge in Support of their claim to a Twenty Mile Line, East of Hudson's River, but a possession gained in opposition to the Letter and Spirit of their Grants from the Crown, thro' the Inattention of' this Government. This argument may in Equity intitle Indivi-

566 CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE

duals to a confirmation from the Crown of the Lands they actually possess, rendering to His Majesty the usual Quit Rent reserved in this Province, but cannot be offered as conclusive on the part of the Crown in respect to its Interests arising either from its Revenue of Quit Rents, which by computation at 2|6 p 100 acres would amount to near £1200 sterling p annum, or from Escheats ; neither can it with Justice I think be extended to the case of those Inhabitants of New York, who hold Land Eastward of a Twenty Mile Line, the Lands being at the Time they obtained their Grants vested in the Crown, within the Express Limits of the Province of New York and not within the Grants on which the Massachusits Bay found their claim.