FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 51 



from the colony after its assertion of a claim thereunder to 

 latitude 43° 43' 12" and to 43° 49' 12" in 1652 and 1673. 



The Political Sovereignity and Authority of Government in 

 Maine is derived of course, directly from the act of Congress 

 admitting Maine into the Union, passed March 3, 1820, and the 

 consent of ^lassachusetts expressed in the act of its General 

 Court passed June 19, 1819. 



The Independence of Massachusetts itself rests upon the 

 Declaration of the Continental Congress, adopted July 4, 1776. 



But the Province of Massachusetts Bay which sent its dele- 

 gates to the Congress was chartered by William and Mary, 

 October 7, 1691, which charter is, strictly speaking, the basis 

 of the government of the states of Massachusetts and Maine. 



Yet the germs of the State of Maine are to be found in King 

 James' grant to the North Virginia of Plymouth Colony, issued 

 November 3, 1620, and to the Pilgrim Colony of Massachusetts, 

 dated June i, 162 1, and what is known as the Warwick Patent 

 to the Pilgrims issued in 1629-30; — in the two grants of his son 

 Charles I, one to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, dated April 3, 1639, 

 and purchased by Massachusetts Bay in 1677, and the other to 

 the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, March 4, 1628-9; in the 

 extinction by conquest of the claim maintained by France to the 

 eastern part of Maine until the capture of Canada by the British 

 government in 1759; and in the terms of the Treaty of Inde- 

 pendence of September 3, 1783, by which Great Britain con- 

 ceded to the United States a boundary which included within the 

 limits of the District of Maine a portion of territory in the 

 northwest extending beyond^the terms of any prior grant from 

 the British Crown, but which was curtailed on the northeast by 

 releasing to Great Britain its territory northerly of the river St". 

 John, in the settlement of the northeastern boundary in 1842. 



(Note — Those who are interested in the subject of these 

 ancient grants and titles will find of value a report written by 

 Oliver Frost in pursuance of a resolve of the legislature of 

 1838. This article will be found in the Public Documents of 

 that year, and also in connection with the report of the land 

 agent for that date. 



