We further beg leave to submit to your Lordships, whether it may not be proper in order to prevent disputes & for effectually securing the settlers under New Hampshire Grants in the possession of what they have already settled and improved conformable to what is before proposed that the actual state of such seating and improvement should be ascertained by a Jury of disinterested persons, to be summoned for that purpose by the Sheriff of the County in which the lands lye, whose return thereof with a plot & description thereunto annexed of the Lands so seated and improved, being registred in the County Court will be a full evidence upon Record of the title in case any Question should hereafter arise thereupon.

With regard to the lands proposed to be granted to other persons claiming under the New Hampshire Grants, but who have made no settlement or improvement whatever the execution of what is submitted in their case as well as in the case of the Residue of the Lands which will remain for his Majesty's disposal, within this district, must be suspended until the country has been surveyed with a view to proper Reservations of Woodlands for the supply of masting & timber for the Royal Navy according to the directions already given for that purpose; and we are of opinion that the Instructions to be given to the _ Governor of New York in the latter case cannot be too explicit and precise in order to guard against those irregularities & abuses which we are concerned to say have but too much prevailed in the exercise of the powers given to his Majestys [governors] in America, for the granting of lands to the great prejudice of his Majestys interest to the discouragement of