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Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. IV

O'Callaghan, E.B., ed. The Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. IV. Albany: Weed, Parsons and Co., 1851. 309 words

The numerous Grants of Townships by New Hampshire on the West side of Connecticut River, in so short a time as since the last Peace, cannot be with any view, in the persons who have recd those grants, to settle and improve those lands, but with a sinistrous view in a few persons to put large sums of money in their pockets, by jobbing and selling of Rights thro' all the neighbouring colonies, as appeared to the Council of this Province, by several persons going abt this Province, New Jersey and Connecticut, hawking and selling

NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS. 573

their pretended rights, to great numbers of ignorant people, at low rates and defrauding them of large sums of money. That the grantees had no view of settling and improving the land by themselves, appears likewise by several advertizements in the News paper in which Govt Wentworth's Proclamation is published and inclosed with this.

How low it is to give New Jersey as an instance that the Patent tothe Duke of York is obsolete! This can only be designed for ignorant People, who know not that the proprieters of New Jersey hold under the patent to the Duke of York. If the Patent to the Duke of York be obsolete, and the lands granted by that Patent not now vested in the Crown, as part of its Demesnes, New York has no bounds.

I ain perswaded that upon your Lordpps mature consideration of this matter, it will evidently appear on the principles of Justice, policy and public utility, that the Jurisdiction of New York ought to extend to Connecticut River, as the Duke of York's Patent does. The Commerce of the whole Country on the West side of Connecticut River is by Hudson's River, and the produce of the Northern part of that Country must be transported by that River.