504
CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS
GOV. TRYON TO LORD DARTMOUTH.
[Lond. Doe. XLIII.]
My Lord. The confidence with which your LordP is pleased to honor me in your dispatch N° 8,us it is a proof of your favourable opinion calls for my gratitude. However difficult and delicate thetask, I should be wanting in duty to my Sovereign, and respect to your Lordp if I did notreadily obey your commands by communicating without reserve, my candid and undisguised senti-ments on so interesting a subject. This appears to me the more necessary, as your Lordp seems tobe apprehensive, with good reason, that there are facts and circumstances unstated, the knowledgeof which may be found essential to any plan for reestablishing the public tranquility to a provinceunfortunately involved in disputes with several of the neighbouring govern 43 .
Your Lordp is already apprised that the measures recommended by the Lords of Trade cannot becarried into execution without the authority of the Legislature, and you will permit me frankly todeclare that I think, I cannot flatter myself with the slightest hope of procuring the concurrenceof the Assembly of this Prov ce in a scheme so repugnant to the claims of persons who fromtheir numbers and connections have a very powerful influence in the Colony.
With respect to that part of it, which concerns the Land in controversy between this Provinceand the Massachusetts Bay , I foresee no great difficulties; for the late agreement at Hartford Ibelieve will, if it receives the Royal approbation, happily terminate these disputes, whether theyregard private property or public Jurisdiction.
There are four Tracts of Land affected by that Partition, the Manor of Renselaerwyck grantedin 1685, the Manor of Livingston in 1686, the Patent of Hosiclc in 1688, and the Patent ofWestenhook in 1708, and I do not learn there are any possessions under either of them to the East-ward of the line agreed upon by Commissaries.
As these Grants are very extensive and valuable on the western side of the Line and charged withtrifling rents and reservations, I have no reason to imagine the New York Patentees will either set uptheir claim in the Massachusetts Courts, or seek for a compensation out of any other of the wastelands that belong to the Crown.
It is also very improbable on the other hand, that these N. York proprietors will meet withany further trouble from the Massachusetts Claimants, whose titles and possessiops on the Westside of the line are modern, and whose losses can be abundantly recompensed by the Govern 4 underwhich they settled, out of the vacant lands of Sagadahock which are comprehended within theCharter.
In the list of claimants under the Massachusetts Bay , I do not reckon those whose lands werediscovered to be on the North side, which was adjudged on the settlement of the controversybetween that Prov ce & New Hampshire in 1739, to be the Northboundary of the Massachusetts Bay .These compose the Townships of Brattleborough and Putney, and that part of Hinsdale, which wasgranted to Coll: Howard, the first settlers of which, upon that determination all acquired newPatents under New Hampshire, esteeming the Massachusetts title a meer nullity, and those Patents tohave issued through mistake. Besides, My Lord, as to Brattleborough and Putney, they are bothconfirmed under New York , and so Hinsdale might have been, if the occupants, either from anunwillingness to pay the quit rent, or a slight of their Interest, had not neglected to make them-selves and their case known to this Govern 4 , until a part of their Township was granted to Coll :