This Request was occasioned by the apprehensions they were under at that time, that these Shares would still be reserved, and appropriated to the use of the Governor and Council here, but we soon relieved them from any uneasiness on that head by declaring all those shares on which no Improvements had been made to be revested in the Crown and the greatest part of them have since been granted to the reduced officers of the Army who have petitioned for them under His Majesty's Proclamation.

In order to support what I have advanced in regard to the small expence these Petitioners have been at for their Charters, as Mr. Wentworth's Fees were provided for without their assistance, I beg leave to make a small extract of his Letter to me which was laid before the Council on the 17th Oct. 1766 and stands on the minutes of that day. It is as follows--That tt had been the practice on granting Lands in New Hampshire to reserve to the Governor a Farm of five hundred acres in each Township, which is the only Perquisite in the Government. Mr Wentworth afterwards desires that his claims in the Township of Brattlebororough and Rockingham might be secured to him in consideration of his improvements made there which was accordingly done but all the Reservations for him which were uncultivated were declared revested in the Crown. I can make no doubt but at present it sufficiently appears that there was as little Foundation for asserting so barefaced a Falsehood as that of having pay4 so large a sum for their Charters as there was for saying that I had made any demands on them. If there had been real claimants of the ninety six Townships and they had joined together in this Petition, the whole of their expence would not have amounted to 1600 pounds although it would appear they claimed more than two million of acres, but this is: very far from being the case, for 21 of these being indisputably