His Excellency laid before the Board a Letter from Gloucester County of the 22¢ August last, giving Information of the Concertion of Measures both in the Massachusets Bay and New Hampshire for exciting petitions to his Majesty for extending the Jurisdiction of New Hampshire to the Westward of Connecticut River, for confirming the Grants of that Colony within this Government, and for vacating the Patents under the Great Seal -- of this Province in the District adjudged to belong to it by the Royal Decision of July 1764: And his Excellency requiring the Opinion of the Council as to that Intelligence, and on the Letter communicated to and Read at this Board on the 8th Instant from the Inhabitants of Bennington and its Vicinity, justifying their late Conduct in dispossessing sundry persons setled near Otter Creek on Lands granted and held under this Province--The Council observed that these riotous and disorderly people at first confined their Claims to the Lands they then possessed by the Grants of New Hampshire and were but few in Number, at the Time his Majesty's Order was published declaring the Western Banks of Connecticut River as the Limits between his two provinces. That their present Claims include not only all those.

1 For this letter see Slade, 30

796 CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE

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who have since seated themselves in that part of the Country, but that their Conduct plainly Evinces their Intention to suffer no person quietly to enjoy by Titles from this province any. Lands