48 FOREST commissioner's report. 



Maine's principal divisions. 



The present State of Maine at the time of this consolidation^ 

 consisted of three principal divisions : 



I. — The original "Province of Maine" granted by Charles I 

 to Sir Ferdinando Gorges in 1639, extending from the New 

 Hampshire line to the Sagadahock or Kennebeck and one hun- 

 dred and twenty miles into the interior, which his grandson. 

 Ferdinando Gorges sold to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 

 1677. 



II. — The Province of Sagadahock between the Kennebeck 

 river and Nova Scotia, and extending "Northward to the river 

 of Canada," or latitude 48°, embracing not only the second 

 principality in the eight great divisions of 1635, lying between 

 the Kennebeck river and Pemaquid, but the ducal province of 

 James II, (as Duke of York) being the rest of the whole terri- 

 tory between Pemaquid and the St. Croix, which had reverted 

 to the crown on his abdication in 1688. 



III. — The territory north of the original grant to Gorges,, 

 between the northern limit of his patent and the Canada 

 line.* 



As the Palatine Province of Maine was limited to one hun- 

 dred and twenty miles from the sea, it may be asked how the 

 Colony of Massachusetts Bay could, either by its purchase from 

 Gorges or under the charter of William and Mary, acquire title 

 to that considerable territory in the northwestern corner of the 

 present State of Maine, between the northerly line of Gorges' 

 Province and the Canadian boundary, as conceded by the treaty 

 of independence. 



Perhaps no better answer can be readily given than that of 

 the learned attorney general of Massachusetts, in the first year 

 of this century; the question "is not of much consequence." t 



The Province Charter of Massachusetts Bay continued to be 

 the foundation and ordinance of civil government in Massa- 

 chusetts and Maine for eighty-eight years, until the adoption 

 of a Republican Constitution by the parent Commonwealth, 

 October 25, 1780. (N. S.) 



With the consolidation of 1692 disappeared^ the ephemeral 

 counties of Somerset, Cornwall and Devonshire, and the county 



* Ibid., pp. 590-603. t Sullivan, p. 48. 



