This marriage tended to give a direction to his studies and practice, and caused him to become actively engaged in all the lawsuits and discussions relative to the boundaries of our then colony.
As early as 1753, the Massachusetts people had intruded on and laid claim to the eastern part of both Livingston's and Rensselaer's Manors, and notwithstanding the efforts of our Governors, of Legislative commissioners, and even of the Home - Government, no satisfactory settlement of these intrusions
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had been made in 1759. The inroad of the New Hampshire men, upon the New York territory, now Vermont, stimulated by the avarice of Gov. Wentworth for patent fees had commenced at a still earlier period, and had already dotted it with what were called New Hampshire grants. Before his marriage, Mr. Duane had been to some extent employed in examining the rights of New York in reference to her eastern boundary line, and from that time to the final compromise with Massachusetts in 1786, he became the most active advocate and diligent and able expositor of her territorial rights and jurisdiction. In the private suits depending on these questions between owners of lands along the lines of Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey; in the discussions between these colonies and New York; in the controversies between New York and the claimants of lands along Lake Champlain under the French grants, and in the final settlement of these matters he was always employed as attorney, counsel, or commissioner, and always on behalf of the rights of his native State.
In the disputes relative to the New Hampshire grants, he was considered the life and soul of the New York claim and claimants, and at him was aimed most of * the coarse wit and abuse which the Vermonters showered so bountifully wpon all their opponents.