Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1877-08-22

taining from the King in Council an
order declaring the west bank Of the
Connecticut river to be the boundary
line between the two Provinces of
New Hampshire and New York, thus
placing the settlers upon those grants
and their lands under the jurisdiction
of New York. Since the title to these
lands was originally in the King, and
the King had granted them, and the
purchase price may be said to have
gone into the Kings treasury, the
question of rightful colonial jurisdic'
ton hardly seems to touch the ques'
ton of legal right to the lands and
certainly, since the lands had been
purchased and paid for in good faith,
it was plain violation OF equity on
the part OF the Colonial Government
Of New York to treat those grants as
void and the settlers as trespassers
and to regrant the lands to strangers,
and thus turn out from their new
made homes whole people to beg
gary and vagabondage. Nor does
any effect of the order establishing the
boundary, such as to impair by retro
action the Royal grants already made,
seem to have been mended by the
House Government. But the New
York Government gave the order this
Interpretation, treating it as the sane
ton Of their previous claim Of juris.
diction and right; and SO successive
Royal Governors of that Colony set
20 work granting these lands in large
tracts, upon careful selection and sur
vey Of the best, to Their retainers and
tavorites, regardless wholly Of the
rights Of the settlers under the New
Hampshire charters. This injustice
had its incentive in the greed OF those
Governors to acquire fortunes tor
themselves by the extravagant fees
demanded and paid for such grants,
or by themselves and their favorjtes
becoming partners with other specu-
lators and jobbers in the lands grant
ed. The injustice Of thus disregard
ING the claims of the settlers was so
manifest and gross as to receive the
rebukc of the Home Government and
repeated prohibitions but the loyalty
Of those Tory Governors gave way ut
the point where the Ruyal oiuet
touched their own emoluments, and
the bad work went on as before; and
so the honest settler became accustom-
ed to see surveying parties OF Y orkers
crossing his out-telds and circling bis
homestead in their deliLeatons OF
manors and baronies, and to receive
their salutalion Of notice to quit.
Strange Sheriffs appeared for service
OF process of ejectment, calling him to
Albany to answer 10 the plant OF
some speculator, disguised under the
name of John Doe, who pretended to
have bought from under him the lands
he had bought, paid for, cleared and
titled, and the house which sheltered
his wife and babes. If he made ap'
pearance in answer to such summons,
he found the Court in suspicious ac-
cord with the rapacious Governors
and spectators in treating his grant,
under the Royal seal OF New Hamp
shire, as a nullity. Such decision OF
one case was precedent for all others,
numbering thousands, and so the al
ternatlve was presented to every
grantee and settler under 4 New
Hampshire charter, TO give up his
lands and home, or buy his peace on
impossible terms of an unsynapathIz
jig stranger who had schemed to de.
spoil him, or yet forcibly to resist such
monstrous injustice. We are wont to
applaud the torcible resistance made
to til, Stamp act and the destruction
of the tea in Boston harbor, as p@trl-
olic exhibitions of rightful resistance
TO authority arbitrarily unjust. What
shall we say, then, Of the resistance OF
these settlers of "the grants" to that
scheme of plunder which would take
from people not merely a petty tax,
but their all, the fruits Of life OF toll
and hardship, and make of them a
community of paupers, to become the
vassals of foreign landlords, or to beg
their way back to their old homes.
Resistance to injustice so gross, tho
sought to be covered by the hypocrisy
of legal forms, and none the less gall
ing on this account, was the instinct
OF common manliness, hardly requir-
ing for Its impulse that exaltatlon OF
soul and character which we call hero
ism. And so it happened, that when