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readers, that I venture to state the most material of them in 
some detail, though greatly abridged. 
Upon the accession of the Duke of York to the throne in 
1685, the Province of New York, granted to him by Charles 
II. in 1664, became like New Hampshire a Royal Province, 
and its lands an appanage of the Crown.* Its charter was 
merged and no longer operative. When the controversy 
between them arose, the boundaries and jurisdiction of both 
were alterable at the King’s pleasure ; the Provinces, as such, 
had no title in the soz/, and their Governors, in making grants 
of land, acted as mere agents of the Crown, with authority 
limited by its orders and subject to its restrictions. 
In June, 1741, Benning Wentworth was appointed Gov- 
ernor in Chief of *‘ Our Province of New Hampshire,” with 
jurisdiction extending westwards ‘till it meets our other Gov- 
ernments” (¢. e., New York) and ‘with authority to grant 
such lands, tenements and hereditaments as now are or here- 
after shall be zz our power to dispose of.” t 
Understanding the easterly boundary of New York to be a 
line 20 miles east from the Hudson river, the same as that 
dividing New York from Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
Gov. Wentworth in 1749 granted to intending settlers the 
township of Bennington, four miles easterly of that line. But, 
being informed by Governor George Clinton, of New York, 
that the east boundary of his province was, by the Duke of 
York’s charter, the Connecticut river, and that Massachusetts 
had extended further westward ‘* by intrusion, and the neglect 
of New York,” the dispute was referred (1750 to 1754) to the 
King.t On July 20, 1764, an order was issued by the Crown 
“* declaring the west bank of the Connecticut river fo de the 
boundary between the two provinces.” This order was usually 
referred to by the Crown Ministers as an order ‘‘ annexing” 
the disputed territory to New York; because the district was 
previously regarded as ee to New Hampshire. § 
* Broadhead’s Hist. N. Y., nee Colonial Doc., 3 : 332, 360. 
+H. Hall’s a » 43-46, 476; <5 ist. N. Y¥., 4: 532 
IN. Y. His Soe, Pub., 1869: ee -290, 496, aa ee: Hist., 4: 329. 
3 Doc. are N. Y., 4: 574; Colonial Doc., 4: 625-627; ibid., 7 : 224; ibid., 
