Whereas, in Pursuance of an Act of the Legislature of this Province, entitled, "An Act for the more effectual collecting his Majesty's Quit-Rents in the Colony of New York, and for Partition of Lands in order thereto," Commissioners and a Surveyor were lately appointed to make Partition of certain Lots, Parcel of a larger Tract of Land, situate on the East Side of Hudson's River, in the County of Albany, called Wallumschack, granted to James De Lancey, Gerardus Stuyvesandt, Esquires, and others, by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the said Province, bearing Date the fifteenth Day of July, One thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine ; and the said Comiissioners, in the Execution of their Duty, being employed in surveying the said Lots of Land, were, on the nineteenth Day of October last past, interrupted and opposed by a Number of armed Men, tumultuously and riotously assembled, for the declared Purpose of preventing the said Partition, who, by open Force, compelled the Commissioners Surveyor, to desist from the said Survey, and by Insults and Menaees, so intimidated the said Commissioners, that apprehensive for the Safety of their Persons, they found it necessary to relinquish any further Attempt to perform the Trust so reposed in them, by which violent and disorderly Proceedings, the said Rioters, in Contempt of the Law, and in Defiance of the Authority of this Government, have not only

616 CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE

broken the King's Peace, and set a dangerous Example to others, ° but have defeated the Operation of the said Act, in the Division