Among other trusts of this nature he was appointed by the King one of the commissioners to settle the disputed boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1741, and was an active member of the board. Neither province was satisfied with the result, and both appealed to the King in council. But the question remained an open one between the parties both as provinces and states, and was determined in 1846 or 1847, curiously enough, upon almost the very line marked out by the Royal Commissioners more than a century before.?

1 Smith's Hist. N. Y.; IT., 44. " 2 See original " Book of Minutes of the Com's" in Sec's offiee, Albany.

1046 4 MEMOIR OF THE

A notice to reconsider the subject has however been recently given in the Massachusetts legislature.

During the first few years of Gov. Clinton's administration harmony prevailed in the government. He reposed great confidence in the Chief Justice and the conservatives, which he manifested by presenting the former, of his own accord, as it appears, with a new commission as Chief Justice "during good behavior," or, in other words, for life, dated September 14', 1744, in placé of his former one, the tenure of which was only "during pleasure." Not long after, however, Mr. Clinton recommended certain measures, which did not meet the approbation of either the Council or the Assembly, the most objectionable of which was the demand of an independent support for a term of years, in place of the annual appropriation hitherto made. This produced a rupture between him and those bodies, and he consequently withdrew his confidence from the conservatives, who opposed his measures, so that from 1746 to the end of his administration, in 1753, they were in continual opposition to the dominant party in the colony and in the legislature.