the trustees for twenty-one years to frame laws and regulations for its government; after which all the rights of soil and jurisdiction were to vest in the crown.

Under this charter Oglethorpe took possession of the country for the trustees and made several settlements and in the year 1752, the trustees by deed duly executed, surrendered their charter to the crown.* Georgia from that time became a royal government.

By the treaty of Paris, in 1763, Spain ceded to GreatBritain, Florida, Pensacola, and, in general, all that she held in North-America east and south-east of the river Mississippi: and a line drawn down that river from its source to the sea, was established as the western boundary of the British dominions.t

Soon after this cession the British government, by a proclamation for the regulation of its colonies, bearing date October 7, 1763, erected Florida into two governments called East and West Florida. They were divided from each other by the Apalatchicola river; and the latter was bounded by the gulph of Mexico on the south, on the west by lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas, and the river Mississippi, and on the north by a line drawn from that part of the river Mississippi which is intersected by latitude 31, due east to the Apalatchicola. The northern boundary of East Florida was a line drawn from the confluence of. the Chatahocchee and Flint rivers, where they form the Apalatchicola, to the head of the St. Mary's, and down it to the sea.

Disputes in the mean time having arisen between the governments of South-Carolina and Georgia, about the lands, lying between the Alatamaha and St. Mary's, they were, by this proclamation, annexed to Georgia. whose southern boundary, stretching only to the Alatamaha by its original charter, was thus extended to the river St. Mary's.

The proclamation also contains a clause," Reserving under the sovereignty, protection and dominion of the crown, for the use of the Indians, all the land and territories not included within the limits of the

* Att. gen. report, 97. † See an extract from the treaty, appendix No. 1. See the proclamation, appendix No. 2.

governments thereby erected, or within the limits of the territory granted to the Hudsons Bay company; as also all the lands and territories lying to the westward of the sources of the rivers which fall into the sea from the west and northwest," and it forbids "the governors of all the colonies to grant warrants of survey, or pass patents, for any lands beyond the heads of these rivers, till the further pleasure of the crown should be known.

When the first British governor took possesion of West-Florida, he found its limits to the north so contracted, as to cut him off from the most fertile and healthy lands and even to exclude from his province some very considerable settlements, which had been formed under it, and made part of it, while subject to the Spanish government. He made a representation of these circumstances to the crown.* It was referred to the board of trade and plantations, and by their advice the province was extended to the north, "By a line drawn from the month of the Yazoo river, where it unites with the Mississippi, due east to the Apalatchicola. This extension, which took place before the year 1770, was not made by proclamation, but by instructions, to the governors of that province, and their commissions. They went on to exercise jurisdiction and grant lands in the country thus annexed to their government, till it was ceded to the United States by GreatBritain, at the peace of 1783.

When the British colonies, including South-Carolina and Georgia, dissolved their connection with the mother country in the year 1776, and erected themselves into independent states, they agreed that each should hold by its former limits; that each state should possess the same extent of territory that had belonged to it while a colony. This, indeed, was not readily consented to, for as the limits of several colonies, as Massachusetts, Connecticut, New-York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North-Carolina South-Carolina, and Georgia, included a great extent of unsettled country,

See proclamation, appendix No. 3. † See appendix No. 4. An extract from the instructions to governor Chester. It is not known that any copy of any other of these instructions or commission exist in America. See also Att. gen. report, 21.

while others, as New-Hampshire, Rhode-Island, Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, possessed little or none, the latter contended that these unsettled lands should be considered as a common property among all the states, and appropriated for their mutual benefit; and some of them, particularly Maryland, refused to accede to the union, until some of those states which possessed the most extensive limits, should relinquish a part of their claims for this purpose. This was at length done; Massachusetts, Connecticut, New-York, and Virginia, made relinquishments, retaining, however, very considerable portions of the land in question, The articles of confederation were then ratified, leaving all those states which had made no relinguishment, in the quiet possession of the whole territory comprised within their ancient limits. Of this number was Georgia; which was so far from relinquishing, that on February 7, 1783, she passed an act asserting that her jurisdiction and right of soil extended "over all the country between the Mississippi, the Atlantic, the sourthern boundary of the United States, as established by the treaty of peace, and the southern boundary of North-Carolina."

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By another act, passed February 7, 1785, she ceeded to exercise the rights which she had thus asserted. It was thereby enacted "That all the country contained within a line to be drawn down the Mississippi, from where it receives the Yazoo, till it intersects the 31st degree of North latitude; then due east as far as the lands might be found to reach, which had at any time been relinquished by the Indians then along the line of relinquishment to the river Yazoo, and down it to its mouth, should be erected into a county called Bourbon, and that when the landoffice should be opened, all persons previously settled there should have the right of preemption at one fourth of a dollar per acre."

Under this act, commonly called the Bourbon county act, no settlements were ever made. The relinquishment of land, which is spoken of in it, took place at Mobile, in May, 1777, by virtue of a treaty between the Choctaw nation, to whom that country then be

longed, and the British superintendant of Indian affairs, and was confirmed by the treaty between those Indians and the United States, held at Hopewell, on the 3d of January, 1786. It extended from the mouth of the Yazoo 110 miles down the Mississippi; at the upper end it was 15, at the lower 60 miles broad.

About the same time a dispute arose between the states of South-Carolina and Georgia, respecting their boundaries. South-Carolina contended, that as the original boundaries of Georgia were the rivers Savannah and Alatahama, and lines drawn due west from their sources to the Mississippi, all the land lying south of the Alatamaha and of a line drawn due west from its source to the Mississippi, as far as to the northern boundary of the Floridas, continued to be a part of the province of South-Carolina, out of which Georgia was taken: and that when the British crown, by its proclamation of October 7, 1763, annexed to Georgia, "all the lands lying between the rivers Alatamaha and St. Mary's," it meant only the lands actually between those rivers below their sources, and not such as lay above those sources; and between lines drawn from them respectively west to the Mississippi; which tract of country, of course, even after the proclamation, still continued a part of South-Carolina. Georgia, on the contrary, maintained that when the proclamation annexed to its government "all the lands lying between the rivers Alatamaha and St. Mary's, it meant to include not merely, the tract of country, which lay between those rivers, below their sources, but also the whole territory held by the British crown between the northern boundaries of the Floridas, as established by the same proclamation, and the ancient southern line of Georgia. This dispute was referred to congress under the articles of confederation by a petition from South-Carolina.* A court was appointed, and a day fixed for a hearing between the two states. But they afterwards agreed to withdraw the petition and settle the matter by negociation. Their commissioners met at Beaufort, in South-Carolina for this purpose;

Journals of Con. vol. x. p. 190.

Jour Con. Vol. xi. p. 218.

and, on the 24th of April, 1787, agreed on a convention by which that state relinquished the claim. On the 29th of February, 1788, this convention was ratified by an act of the legislature. It had previously been laid before congress and filed among the official papers of the United States.*

On the 21st of December, 1789, the legislature of Georgia passed an act for selling all this country, from the mouth of Coles creek, which is a little above the Natches, to latitude 35, and from the Mississippi to the Donbigby. Two companies were to be the purchasers, one called the South-Carolina, the other the Virginia Yazoo company; and they were allowed a pre-emption of two years, on their making the stipulated payments, within which periods they were to receive grants. But a dispute having arisen between them and the state about the mode of payment, the pre-emption expired without payments, having actually been made, and no grants were passed.†

On the 7th of December, 1793, a representation was presented to the court of Spain on the part of our government, in which the dispute between us and that power, respecting boundary, was stated, and our claim supported. This representation insists on the latitude 31, as the southern boundary of Georgia, and rests our title to the disputed territory which lay above that latitude, entirely on the right of state.‡ Indeed it is of importance to remark here, that in the whole progress of this dispute, which being definitively settled by the late treaty between the United States and Spain, need not now be discussed, our government held up the right of the state of Georgia to the territory above latitude 31, as altogether indisputable, and made that right the sole foundation of its own'pretensions.§

On the seventh of January, 1795, the legislature of Georgia passed an act for selling parts of the territory

See the act, appendix, No. 8. representation.

*Vol. xii p. 150. See also appendix, No. 7. See appendix No. 9-an extract from the See appendix No. 10-An extract from the report of the Secretary of State to the President, which was the basis of the instructions to the commissioners at Madrid.