412
Controversy respecting the new Hampshire grants.
Robinson is now a prisoner in his custody, where he shall keep him until he receives his Excellency’sfarther Instructions.
Whereupon it is ordered by his Excellency the Governor with the advice of the Council, that acopy of the said Proclamation with the Original Affidavits touching the Riots therein mentioned, bedelivered to his Majesty’s Attorney General of this Province, and that he do prosecute the saidSilas Robinson for the Matters with which he so stands charged.
TO THE KING’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
In Council.
The Humble Petition of Your Majesty’s loyal, faithful obedient subjects, whose only hope of Relieffrom immediate poverty distress and ruin, with there helpless Wives and Children, depends entirelyon your Majesty’s lenient and paternal Interposition, which unless your Majesty shall be graciouslypleased to vouchsafe, they must suffer an inevitable ruin, Therefore they Humbly pray, torepresent their unhappy state Hopeing your Majesty will be pleased to lend an Ear while theybriefly relate some few of the distressful circumstances of their present situation—That they areInhabitants of a Tract of your Majesty’s Land now by your Majestys order within the jurisdiction ofyour Majesty’s Government of New York which at the time of the removal of the line of jurisdictionwas unanimously esteemed to be in your Majestys Province of New Hampshire , except only bysome Interested Persons in New York , who have made large Fortunes out of those Lands & whosepretences were Totally unknown, which said Tract is Situate between the Western Banks ofConnecticut River and North line drawn at Twenty miles Eastern distance from Hudsons River ’tillit intersects the Wood Creek Lake Champlain & c That by virtue of Patents issued by BenningWentworth Esq r late Governor of your Majestys said Province of New Hampshire , under the Sealthereof and granted to your Petitioners whose Names are Enter’d in a Schedule annexed to eachrespective Grant, and in full Faith of the said Governors authority to grant the said Lands, Theyhave setled cultivated inhabited & improved and expended their whole Fortunes and all their labourto this day on the premises aforesaid, that it having pleased your Majesty to remove the line ofJurisdiction between the two provinces aforesaid your Petitioners were therefore included in theprovince of New York , which in due rightful obedience to your Majesty’s Commands your Petitionersdutifully and unexceptionably obeyd—although their lying in the province of New York was & isand for ever will and must be highly detrimental & disagreeable to them both in their property andgood government, of all which they judged your Majesty and ministers of State had been egrigiouslymisinformed—and also that those circumstances had been erroneously Represented to your Majestythat since your Majesty’s said order to annex the said District to New York their possessions havebeen unexceptionably granted to other people under the great Seal of New York —that writs ofejectments have been brought, their property wrested from them, their persons Imprisoned andtheir whole substance wasted in fruitless Law Suits merely to the enrichment of a few Men in saidProvince of New York , whose great Influence is the distraction of our hard, honestly earnedproperty, that we were greatly and industriously cultivating the wilderness, orderly obeying everyLaw, rejoieing in our safety and your Majestys auspicious government untill by this invasion of our