The Claim that seems to us to deserve attention in the first place is that of those persons who possess Lands in this District under Grants legally and properly obtained from the Government of New York antecedent to any pretence' set up by the Government of New Hampshire to exercise the power of granting Lands to the westward of Connecticut River and before any such Grants weremade From the best information we have been able to collect relative to this Claim, it is confined to two or three Grants but a small part of which lies on the East of the Green Mountains the Country to the west of which was at all times before the unwarrantable Claims set up in consequence of the New Hampshire Grants admitted incontestably to be within the province of New York and therefore we cannot but be of opinion that the proprietors of those Grants should not be dis

NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS. 715

turbed in their possessions on the Ground of Claims derived from these subsequent Grants of the Government of New Hampshire.

The claim that in the second place seems to us to merit attention is that of those persons who in consequence of the Grants from the Governor of New Hampshire, have made actual Settlement and Improvement of any Lands not comprehended within the limits of the possessions above stated; for however disputable their titles may be upon the Ground of the Grants themselves yet there always has been & we think there always ought to be in the Plantations an attention to actual Settlement and Improvement, that in cases where the possession does not interfere with the Rights of others ought to have preference to any other consideration ; and therefore we think, that persons under this description ought to be left in entire possession of such Lands as they have actually cultivated andimproved subject to no other condition or reservation either of Quit-Rent or otherwise than what is contained in the Grants under which they claim.