THE TREATY OF PARIS. epoch, than to consolidate and strengthen in the most lasting manner, so salutary and so important a work, by a solemn and definitive treaty between Us and the said powers. For these causes, and other good considerations, Us thereunto moving, We, trusting entirely in the capacity and experience, zeal and fidelity for our service, of our most dear and well-beloved Cousin, Caesar Gabriel de Choiseul, Duke of Praslin, Peer of France, Knight of our Orders Lieutenant General of our Forces and of the province of Brittany, Counsellor in all our Councils, Minister and Secretary of State, and of our Commands and Finances, We have named, appointed, and deputed him, and by these presents, signed with our hand, do name, appoint, and depute him our Minister Plenipotentiary, giving him full and absolute power to act in that quality, and to confer, negociate, treat and agree jointly with the Minister Plenipotentiary of our most dear and most beloved good Brother the King of Great Britain, the Minister Plenipotentiary of our most dear and most beloved good Brother and Cousin the King of Spain and the Minister Plenipotentiary of our most dear and most beloved good Brother and Cousin the King of Portugal, vested with full powers, in good form, to agree, conclude and 139 sign such articles, conditions, conventions, declarations, definite treaty, accessions, and other acts whatsoever, that he shall judge proper for securing and strengthening the great work of peace, the whole with the same latitude and authority that We ourselves might do, if We were there in person, even though there should be something which might require a more special order than what is contained in these presents, promising on the faith and word of a King, to approve, keep firm and stable for ever, to fulfil and execute punctually, all that our said Cousin, the Duke of Praslin, shall have stipulated, promised and signed, on virtue to the present full power, without ever acting contrary thereto, or permitting any thing contrary thereto, for any cause, or under any pretence whatsoever, as also to cause our letters of ratification to be expedited in good form, and to cause them to be delivered, in order to be exchanged within the time that shall be agreed upon. For such is our pleasure. In witness whereof, we have caused our Seal to be put to these presents. Given at Versailles the 7th day of the month of February, in the year of Grace, 1763, and of our reign the forty-eighth. Signed Lewis, and on the fold, by the King, the Duke of Choiseul. Sealed with the great Seal of yellow Wax. HIS CATHOLICK MAJESTY'S FULL POWER. DON CARLOS, by the grace of God, King of Castile, of Leon, of Arragon, of the two Sicilies, of Jerusalem, of Navarre, of Granada, of Toledo, of Valencia, of Galicia, of Majorca, of Seville, of Sardinia, of Cordova, of Corsica, of Murcia, of Jaen, of the Algarves, of Algecira, of Gibraltar, of the Canary Islands, of the East and West Indies, Islands and Continent, of the Ocean, Arch Duke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, of Brabant and Milan, Count of Hapsburg, of Flanders, of Tirol and Barcelona, Lord of Biscay and of Molino, &c. Whereas preliminaries of a solid and lasting peace between this Crown, and that of France on the one part, and that of England and Portugal on the other, were concluded and signed in the Royal Residence of Fontainbleau, the 3d of November of the present year, and the respective ratifications thereof exchanged on the 22d of the same month, by Ministers authorised for that purpose, wherein it is promised, that a definitive treaty should be forthwith entered upon, having established and regulated the chief points upon which it is to turn: and whereas in the same manner as I granted to you, Don Jerome Grimaldi, Marquis de Grimaldi, Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost, Gentleman of my Bed-chamber with employment, and my Ambassador Extraordinary to the Most Christian King, my full power to treat, adjust, and sign the before mentioned preliminaries, it is necessary to grant the same to you or to some other, to treat, adjust, and sign the promised definitive treat of peace as aforesaid: therefore, as you the said Don Jerome Grimaldi, Marquis de Grimaldi, are at the convenient place, and as I have every day fresh motives, from your approved fidelity and zeal, capacity and prudence, to entrust to you this, and otherlike concerns of my Crown, I have appointed you my Minister Plenipotentiary and granted to you by full power, to the end, that, in my name, and representing my person, you may treat, regulate, settle, and sign the said definitive treaty of peace between my Crown and that of France on the one part, that of England and that of Portugal on the other, with the Ministers who shall be equally and specially authorised by their respective Sovereigns for the same purpose; acknowledging, as I do from this time acknowledge, as accepted and ratified, whatever you shall so treat, conclude, and 140 DISPUTE BETWEEN MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA. sign; promising, on my Royal Word, that I will cbserve and fulfil the same, will cause it to be observed and fulfilled, as if it had been treated, concluded, and signed by myself. In witness whereof, I have caused these presents to be dispatched, signed by my hand, sealed with my privy seal, and countersigned by my under-written Counsellor of State, and first Secretary for the department of State and of War. Buen Retiro, the 10th of December, 1762. Richard Wall. Virginia and Maryland Clayborne CHAPTER XXIV. 1609-1789. INTER COLONIAL CONTROVERSIES. Maryland and Pennsylvania — Virginia and the Carolinas - The New Englanders and Dutch in Connecticut - Massachusetts and Plymouth - Massachusetts and Connecticut Massachusetts and Rhode Island - Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire - Vermont, New Hampshire and New York - New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania - Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania Controversies regarding lands in the northwest - Other controversies The cavalier fashion in which the monarchs of the Old World laid claim to and granted away the lands of the red men in the New, became a cause of vexatious and long drawn out disputes. The various charters granted to the company which founded Virginia purported to give to them the lands lying between a point 200 miles north of Point Comfort and another point the same distance south and extending "from sea to sea, west and northwest." The subsequent trimming of this vast domain and of that granted to the Plymouth Company in the north by grants made to others, by revocations and regrants, many of which were made in reckless ignorance or disregard of geographical conditions, was the cause of many controversies. The purpose of this study for the colonial period will best be conserved by dealing with Virginia and the colonies surrounding her and then with Massachusetts in a similar way. The knife was first applied to Virginia when Maryland was granted to Baltimore. The Virginians protested against this trimming off of "nere two-thirds parts of the better territory of Virginia," but without avail. One William Clayborne (or Claiborne), a councilor of Virginia, had previously secured from the council a grant of Kent Island and proceeded to settle it. He was supported in his claims by Virginia, but, after various conflicts, some of which were violent, he and Virginia had to yield. There were reasons for this conflict. Kent Island was an important trading point and naturally was desired by both. Single-handed and alone, Clayborne could not have accomplished much against a united colony in Maryland without more liberal support from Virginia. But, owing to a religious liberality in Baltimore in advance of his time, there was a Puritan party in Maryland always jealous of the Catholics. MARYLAND'S DISPUTES WITH VIRGINIA, ETC. It was by taking advantage of these dissensions that Clayborne was able to accomplish what he did.* Virginia now acquiesced in the Maryland grant and commissioners marked off the present boundary (1668) across the peninsula, but in so doing they ran so far north of east as to rob Maryland of 23 square miles of her territory.† The granting of the "northern neck," or the region between the Rappahannock and Potomac by Charles II. to Lord Hafton, who sold it to Arlington and Culpepper, was connected with, if it did not give rise to, other disputes. Lord Fairfax inherited this grant through his marriage with the only daughter of Culpepper. Now, this Fairfax did an extensive business in land, and disputes soon arose over determining the true southern boundary of Maryland. The charter granted to Baltimore described the southern boundary as marked by the farther, that is, southern, bank of the Potomac from the Chesapeake to the farthest source of the river, the western line to run from this point to the fortieth parallel. In 1736 commissioners were appointed by Fairfax and the crown. to ascertain the true sources of the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers. * Cooke's Virginia, pp. 180-182, 211-212; Doyle, English Colonies in America, vol. i., pp. 292–296; Tyler, England in America, pp. 134-139. Gannett, Boundaries of the United States and of the several States and Territories. Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey, no. xiii., p. 83. VOL. II - 10 141 Ten years later the line was run in accordance with their report, and the Fairfax stone was set up at the source of the north branch of the Potomac, but Maryland declined to accept this settlement and held that her lands extended to the source of the south branch, which lay slightly farther west, and considerably farther south. The Virginia constitution of 1776 surrendered all claim to territory within the charter limits of Maryland, but Virginia still claimed and exercised jurisdiction over all lands up to the northern branch.* Maryland was destined to have a neighbor on the north who was famous for his fair dealing with the Indians, but who had an eye to the main chance in every question of land ownership with his southern neighbor. When Penn secured a grant in America it was bounded by a geography which had no existence outside the imagination of the grantor. The southern boundary was to be drawn at a radius of 12 miles from Newcastle and continued westward from where the southern end of this segment cut the fortieth parallel. As Newcastle was some distance below this parallel, such a line was impossible. In spite of the fact that Baltimore's earlier grant was bounded by the fortieth parallel, Penn stood out for the line running west from the segment around Newcastle. He also got the Duke of York 142 BOUNDARY DISPUTES IN THE SOUTH. to make him a grant of the Delaware peninsula, which was outside the duke's possessions and inside Baltimore's, and then forced Baltimore to divide this land with him. In 1732 the sons of Penn secured from Baltimore a written agreement to their contentions for this northern boundary, but when he came over and discovered that he had been wheedled out of 2,000,000 acres, he refused to yield. Continual disputes and conflicts were the result, but the trouble. was finally ended in 1760 on the basis of the earlier agreement and seven years later Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were employed to mark off the line. This is the famous Mason and Dixon line.* The trimming of Virginia on the south began with the Carolina charter of 1663, amended and reissued in 1665 so as to include all lands between 36° 30′ and 29° extending westward to the south sea. The line between Virginia and Carolina was not established until 1728, when Colonel William Byrd and others, under authority of the two colonies and the home government, surveyed the line, starting at 36° 31'. In 1779 the survey was again taken up and carried beyond Bristol, Tennessee, by Walker and others.t The exact date of the separation into North and South Carolina is a matter of dispute, but it took place about the beginning of the second quarter of the Eighteenth century. The boundary line, as first established by a joint colonial commission (1735-1746), began at Goat Island (33° 56′), ran northwest to 35° and then west to the old Salisbury and Charleston road near the Catawba River, then along this road to the southwest corner of the Catawba Indian lands. This line was resurveyed in 1764, and later (1772) continued in its present location to a point near the Blue Ridge.* South Carolina, in turn, was cut down on the south by the charter of Georgia in 1732. Disputes having arisen in regard to the boundary (1762), the matter was finally settled in favor of Georgia by a convention at Beaufort, S. C., in 1787, when the present line between the two States was agreed upon. The same year South Carolina rounded out her western boundary by ceding to the United States her claim to a narrow strip 12 or 14 miles wide and extending to the Mississippi. The region between the Altamaha and St. Mary's rivers was annexed to Georgia by royal proclamation in 1763, thereby tacitly relinquishing claim to so much of Florida as lay below this. In the treaty of 1783 the southern boundary of Georgia was described substantially as at present, but its exact location was long a matter of dispute between Georgia and Florida, owing to * Gannett, p. 95 MASSACHUSETTS' DISPUTES WITH OTHER COLONIES. the difficulty of determining the true head of the St. Mary's, and was not finally settled until after the Civil War. The disputes in New England may be said to have radiated from Massachusetts as a center. This was due in part to the contentious and overbearing character of that colony, but more to her priority on the scene and to indefinite and conflicting grants. When Rufus Choate said that Rhode Island might as well have been described as "bounded on the north by a bramble bush, on the south by a bluejay, on the west by a hive of bees in swarming time, and on the east by five hundred foxes with firebrands tied to their tails," he made a statement which was applicable to a good many other grants. The first permanent settlement of consequence in the region was that made by the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620. In 1630 these colonists secured a patent from the New England Council to all the lands between the Cohasset River on the north, the Narrangansett on the south and the territory of Pokanoket on the west; also, for purposes of trade and fishing, a tract of land 15 miles wide on each side of the Kennebec River. They never, secured any charter from the crown conferring rights of government, but they maintained an independent existence until absorbed by Massachusetts in 1691. When, in 1629, a royal charter was secured by the Massachusetts Com 143 pany confirming the patent of the New England Council to all lands lying between a point three miles north of the Merrimac River and another point three miles south of the Charles River extending westward to the south sea and conferring rights. of self government on the company, the seeds of future disputes were sown, for it encroached on a grant previously made to Gorges and swallowed up one made to Mason. It will be sufficient for our purpose to follow the main outline of the disputes with Massachusetts as the centre. The Dutch were the first to enter the Connecticut River and were there when colonists from Plymouth entered and settled at Windsor over their protest. Then men came from Massachusetts (1635) and coolly took possession of the "Lord's Waste," as they called the lands which the Plymouth settlers had bought from the Indians. Bad feeling naturally arose. The Plymouth settlers finally secured from the intruders an acknowledgment of their rights and then ceded to them nearly all their lands.* A three cornered fight now raged for some years between the Dutch on the one hand and these two English colonies upon the other for the region about the Connecticut River and for Long Island. Soon the English had pushed up to Greenwich, within 30 * Osgood, American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, vol. i., p. 393. |