The circumstance that more particularly makes this an object of consideration is the proposition' we have submitted for the sale of these Lands for a valuable consideration and the necessity that there is therefore that the Grant or Conveyance should be burthen'd with as little expence as possible because the facility of selling then» upon the plan and for the price we have submitted will be greater or less in proportion to that expence and because we conceive it will be utterly impossible to dispose of that all upon any such plan if the Grants [are] to pass through all the forms now adopted in New York upon Grants of Lands and are to be subject to the payment of the Fees at present taken by the Governor and other officers of that Colony.

NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS. 813

We have upon former occasions found it necessary to take notice of the Complaints which have been made of the injustice and extortion of the Servants of the Crown in New York in this respect and we have at all times considered the liberty they have assumed to theiselves of taking greater and other fees upon Grants of Land, than what were established by the ordinance of the Governor and Council of the year 1710, as most unwarrantable and unjust.

By that Ordinance the fees allowed to be taken upon Grants of Land by the Governor the Secretary and the Surveyor are considerably larger than what are at this day received for the same service in any other of the Colonies nor are fees allowed as we conceive to any other officers than those we have mentioned.