oil? Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



let it be said that Virginia always, while yet a colony and after she be- 

 came a state, referred chiefly to this charter of 1609 as authorizing her 

 jurisdiction, not only over the Monongahela and Ohio valleys, but also 

 as giving her an ownership over the entire Northwestern Territory. 



This jurisdiction over the territory northwest of the Ohio River, 

 Virginia refused to cede to the Confederacy of the United States, 

 though her refusal endangered the confederation, until in 1781, when, 

 no longer able to resist the influence of the other states, especially that 

 of Maryland, she finally gave way so far as to abandon her claims over 

 lands north and west of the Ohio River, on condition, however, that 

 the United States would guarantee her rights to the south and east of 

 the Ohio. This guaranty the Congress of the United States refused, 

 and in 1784 the condition was withdrawn and the cession made abso- 

 lute. But it is interesting to note that no sister state or government, 

 nor the Congress of the Confederation, ever at any time recognized 

 the right of ^ irginia to such jurisdiction. Only for the sake of per- 

 fecting the Union, such as it then was, was there any respect at all 

 paid to her pretensions. 



But, assuming that Virginia's interpretation of her charter provisions 

 was the correct one, there was another fact which wholly ousted her 

 claim to any lands which might eventually be found to fall within the 

 boundaries of Penn's charter. In 1624, prior to the grant of Mary- 

 land to Lord Baltimore, as well as prior to the grant of Pennsylvania 

 to William Penn, the charter to the London Company was dissolved 

 in the English courts by a writ of ({uo warranto ; and from a jiroprie- 

 tary colony somewhat like that of Pennsylvania, Virginia from that 

 time on was a Crown colony. The distinction between a colony and 

 a ])rovince, such as was Pennsylvania, is well known. Whatever 

 rights are secured to the proprietor of a province cannot be infringed 

 or altered by the Crown, without the consent of the proprietor, nor 

 abrogated unless by judgment of law founded upon some act of com- 

 mission or omission working a forfeiture or dissolution. But a royal 

 or crown colony is a mere creature of the royal will ; its boundaries, 

 all its machinery of government, may be modified, altered, or annulled 

 at the royal pleasure and discretion. For this reason alone, therefore, 

 Virginia having become a crown colony prior to the passing of Penn's 

 charter, she could thereafter make no claim to any lands within the 

 limits of Penn's charter, whatever interpretation was to be put upon 

 the terms of her own charter provisions. 



