treat with your honor and the agent or agents of the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania on that subject; and further to consult and agree with you upon such measures as shall tend to preserve peace and good order among the inhabitants on such lands, and prevent mutual violence and contention during the time the boundaries between this Colony and your Province remain undetermined."

"We do not doubt the compliance of the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania to a legal and constitutional decision of the case in question, nor your willingness to agree on proper measures to preserve peace and good order in the mean time."

The Commissioners at the same time communicated the proceedings of the General Assembly of Connecticut relative to the controversy. The Council of Pennsylvania having taken these matters into consideration, on the 15th. of December, made a request in writing that the Connecticut Commissioners should state the limits of the Connecticut claim in a written declaration. This was complied with on the same day, in which declaration the Commissioners state that they were directed

To negociate rather a mode of obtaining an amicable settlement of the controversy between the Colony and the Proprietaries, than an actual and precise settlement of the boundaries between them. We therefore apprehend that the claim on the part of the Colony of Connecticut is to the purpose of the negociation with which we are charged, sufficiently designated in the Act of Assembly now before you; but as we bring with us the most sin

cere dispositions to effect if possible an amicable settlement of this controversy, that we may give every facility in our power towards the accomplishment of so desirable an object, we will further mention to you that the title to the lands in question on the part of the Colony of Connecticut is principally founded upon the royal Charter to the Governor and Company of that Colony from his late majesty King Charles the second, dated at Westminster, Anno. 1662, the boundaries of which are thus expressed, viz: [Here follows the des cription of the boundaries mentioned in the Charter as given in the second chapter.] Which limits and boundaries do include a considerable part of the lands afterwards granted by the crown to Sir William Penn in 1681, and which constitute a part of the Province of Pennsylvania, as now claimed by the Proprietaries; but what part in certain of those lands are so contained within the limits of the prior Patent to Connecticut can now be known only by actually running and ascertaining the lines of that Patent, which we conceive will be best done by Commissioners mutually appointed by the Colony and the honorable Proprietaries, and we on the part of the Colony are now ready to agree to such Commissioners who shall be authorised to execute the same in the most effectual manner as soon as possible."

Gov. Penn, in his answer to the letter of the Commissioners, dated Philadelphia, Dec. 17, 1773, after mentioning the uncertainty of the limits of the Connecticut Charter as well as many other

of the New England grants, and referring to the settlement of the line from the mouth of Mamavonak river to be the western bounds of Connecticut, says: "Being clearly of opinion for these and many other reasons that the present claim made by your Government of any lands westward of the Province of New York is without the least foundation, you cannot reasonably expect that I should accept of the proposal of settling and ascertaining the boundaries between the Colony of Connecticut and the Province,' or enter with you into a negociation on that subject, nor can I with any propriety agree to the alternative proposed in the Act of Assembly of your Colony which you have laid before me, namely: That if we cannot agree amicably to ascertain these boundaries, then to join in an application to his majesty to appoint commissioners for that purpose.""

Several communications afterwards passed between the Commissioners and Gov. Penn, calcu lated on their part to pursuade to a negociation and on the part of the Governor to prevent it. To Το give the whole of this correspondence would swell this chapter beyond its intended size, and would form perhaps, to many persons, an uninteresting detail; but as this was an early and sincere attempt on the part of the Colony and actual settlers, to adjust and settle all disputes amicably, an extract from it is given that the reader may see the manner and spirit with which the correspondence was conducted. The Commissioners, in a long letter to the Governor, dated Dec. 18, 1773, in which the

subject of the controversy is extensively embraced, say:

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"There is a clear distinction between a claim and a right, and however ill founded the claim of the Colony may by you be imagined to be, yet that it is an existing claim cannot be denied and how the admission of such claim, so far as to negociate upon it, to attempt to settle it, or to join in an application to his majesty for an adjudication upon it, can in any respect prejudice the right, we cannot comprehend.

"We apprehend that your honor is much mistaken in imagining that the settlement of the line between the Colony of Connecticut and the grant to the duke of York in 1664, was in any degree occasioned by the uncertainty of the bounds and extent of the Charter to Connecticut and the other New England grants. That determination had another and a very different foundation, viz: the possession on the part of the Dutch of that territcry which was afterwards granted to the duke of York; a possession which occasioned its being excepted out of the original grant to the Council of Plymouth, and in fact prevented its being ever vested in the crown until the conquest thereof by Col. Nichols in August 1664. As that territory therefore was not in 1662 in the crown to grant, no part of it could pass by the Patent to Connecticut, and it became absolutely necessary after the conquest and the grant to the duke of York, to ascertain what extent of territory had been so possessed by the Dutch and excepted out of the ancient grant

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of the crown. The settlement by that Court was therefore" only to determine what part of the country the duke of York was entitled to in virtue In the same letter the of the Dutch possessions." Commissioners go on to propose that a temporary line of jurisdiction shall be agreed upon, which shall leave the settlers at Wyoming under the Government of Connecticut, during the continuance of the war then subsisting with Great Britain; and the settlers on the West branch of the Susquehanna river, who were then under the Government of Pennsylvania, they proposed should remain so, until the termination of the war, when further measures might be adopted to effect a settlement of the controversy.

Gov. Penn, in his answer to this letter of the Commissioners dated Dec. 23, among other things, says: "As I cannot for reasons assigned accede to your proposal of a temporary line of jurisdiction, so neither can I foresee any means that appear to me likely to effectuate peace and order, and to prevent for the future such violent outrages as have been lately perpetrated in that part of the country where the people of Connecticut are now settled, but their entirely evacuating the lands in their possession until a legal decision of our controversy can be obtained."

He then in the same letter proposes that the Colony of Connecticut shall apply to the King, and assures them that the Proprietaries will meet the subject in presence of his majesty, but that if they do not think proper to do so, the Proprietaries of