In obedience to your Honours orders in Council referring to this Committee, three several Petitions, exhibited by Thomas Chandler and others, in behalf of themselves and their associates, Inhabitants of the Northeastern part of this Province, praying that for the better administration of Justice, and the greater Convenience and Encouragement of the Setlers there, One or more Counties may be erected and Constituted in that part of the Province, with the Priviledges usually granted to other Counties within the same: The Committee have had this matter under their Consideration, and humbly conceive it to be of too much Importance, as the Informations they have been able to obtain, are very contradictory and unsatisfactory, to advise the Establishment of any New County on that side of the Province, more especially as the Inhabitants there, have as yet only an Equitable Title to the Lands they possess ; are utterly unacquainted with the Laws of the Province, and the Modes of dispensing Justice therein ; whence it must in our opinion be attended with greater Inconvenience to invest them with those Ample Powers, that will necessarily be lodged in their Hands on their being formed into a separate County ; than by the appointe

584. CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE

ment of proper and fit persons as Justices for the Conservation of the Peace: the Mode of Justice to which they have been accustomed, having had no other Jurisdiction among them since their first Settlement and being always obliged to travel to Portsmouth; where all the Courts of Justice in the Province of New Hampshire are held, a distance far more Considerable, than to the Courts in Albany. And should the Committee, to suit a present convenience advise the forming a part of the Province so little known. into a County, when it must shortly become expedient to new model it, private property would be greatly injured, by altering the seat of the Courts of Justice, and other Places of Public Resort.