The former State putin a claim to all the territory ]ying between her western boundary and the Pacific ocean. On the 12th November, 1784, James Duane, John Jay, Robert R. Livingston, Egbert Benson, and Walter Livingston, were appointed agents uf the State in that controversy which was then expected to be tried by a federal

court under the articles of confederation.. In December the agents proceeded to Trenton, where Congress then sat to meet che Massachusetts agents to form the court. Several weeks were

1080. MEMOIR OF THE

spent in vain attempts to obtain unobjectionable judges, and when such were found, some of them would not serve, so that the business had to be done over again. The conferences were extended into 1785, and New York selected as the place of meeting. In this matter Mr. Duane drew the brief on the part of New York! (subsequently indeed handed to Samuel Jones and Alexander Hamilton, as counsel to complete) and drew most of the notes and communcations to the other agents, the petitions to Congress, and the letters to the selected judges. The difficulty of procuring a court in which both parties had confidence and a conviction among all the agents, that an amicable arrangement might be made by themselves, advantageous to both parties, induced them to request their respective Legislatures to allow them to settle the dispute as each should think most for the interest of their own State. Such acts were passed both by New-York and Massachusetts, the former State at the same time substituting Melancthon Smith, Robert Yates and John Lansing, Junr., as agents, in place of John Jay and Walter Livingston, resigned. The agents on both sides met at Hartford, in November, 1786, and after about three weeks negotiation made the final arrangement by which Massachusetts was allowed the ownership of most of the western part. of our State, beyond the military tract, while the jurisdiction _ over it» was to be retained by New-York.