Maryland's Influence Upon Land Cessions to the United States (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1885. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... The more favorable interpretation for Virginia and, perhaps, in view of the expression "from sea to sea," more natural interpretation, was to draw the northwestern line from the point on the sea-coast two hundred miles above Point Comfort and the western line from the southern limit below Point Comfort. This gave Virginia the greater part, at least, of the entire northwest, for the lines diverged continually, thus: In 1624, the London Company was dissolved, and Virginia became a royal province, the Governor being appointed by the King, but the people elected a House of Burgesses. No alteration appears to have been made at that time in the boundaries established by the charter of 1609, but the northern limits of Virginia were afterwards curtailed by grants to Lord Baltimore and William Penn, and the southern limits by a grant to the proprietors of Carolina.1 From a letter 1 The charter of Maryland was granted in 1632, and may be found in Bacon's Laws of Maryland at Large, or in Hazard, I., pp. 327-36. The charter of Pennsylvania bears the date of 1681, and is contained in Proud's History of Pennsylvania, I., pp. 171-87. The original charter of Carolina (1663), for which Locke's famous constitution was written, is said to have been copied from the charter of Edmund Burke to the General Assembly of New York, for which province he was employed as agent, it is clear that, in questions concerning the boundary of royal provinces, it was the uniform doctrine and practice of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, to regard " no rule but the king's will."1 A royal proclamation was issued in 1763, prohibiting colonial governors from granting patents for land beyond the sources of any of the rivers which flow into the Atlantic ocean from the west or nor...