And as the River Connecticut on the other side, tends so far to the Eastward of the North as at the 45th degree of latitude to be ninety one miles from Lake Champlain, your Lord? will perceive, that the Report of the Board of Trade must effect a great number of Patents Grauted under this Goverat, and give a preference to lie New Hampshire Claims home to the. waters of Lake Champlain, and to lands three times as far west as the Curve line would leave to the Massachusett's Bay, where the intermediate distance between such curved line and the Connecticut River, does not exceed thirty miles ; the Rivers Hudson and Connecticut being there not more than fifty miles apart, and were probably thought. to keep that distance when the Lords of Trade first conceived the idea of countenancing an extent of the N. England VoL. Iv. 33

834 CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE

claims to a line so far west as to twenty miles from Hudson's River.

The Patents under N. York within the district distinguished by the Report are very numerouse, and contain many hundred thousand acres. And as they now belong to an infinity of persons, in and out of the Provee, & valuable considerations have been paid by the original proprietors, never to be recovered back on account of the changes which time has made in their circumstances & situations, how is it possible, My Lord, to frame any Law for the distribution of justice to the present claimants " or what prospect is there that such a number of persons, of all Ranks, Civil and Military, can be brought to submit to any project to diminish Estates that are held under the Royal Grants-- that were bought for large sums, and some of which have been improved & maintained at a still greater expence 2?