virtuous officers, and executed by undaunted troops, patient and persevering under accumulated hardships and distress.

"Accept, Sir, the sincerest thanks of the legislature on behalf of this state for your eminent services; with warm and grateful hearts they entertain the highest sense of the great obligations you have laid upon them, obligations which cannot cease, and can only be attempted to be discharged by endeavoring to preserve the memory of those actions by which they were created. While we pay this just tribute to your Excellency's distinguished merit, we feel a peculiar pleasure in acknowledging the powerful assistance afforded us by our generous ally, the signal proofs of skill and bravery exhibited by his officers and soldiers, and their strict discipline and exemplary behaviour in their march through this state. We have the greatest satisfaction in congratulating you on the late most glorious success of the allied army under your immediate command; an event which reflects the highest honor upon your Excellency, adds lustre to the allied arms, and affords a rational ground of belief that under the favor of Divine Providence, the freedom, independence and happiness of America will shortly be established upon the surest foundation.

"THOMAS COCKEY DEYE, Speaker House Delegates. “GEORGE PLATER, President Senate.

To this Washington replied:

"GENTLEMEN:-I very sensibly feel the honor which has this day been conferred upon me by the vote of thanks of so respectable a body as that of the General Assembly of the State of Maryland.

66

The regard which they have been pleased to express for me personally-the delicate manner in which they have recalled to view those distant events which, in some degree, led to our present happy situation-and the general approbation which they have generously bestowed upon the whole of my conduct, must ever secure them my warmest esteem, and must at the same time operate as fresh incentives to merit their future good opinion.

"It is with the highest degree of pleasure I observe that a proper allowance has been made for the capital share which the land and sea forces of our great and good ally had in the reduction of the common enemy at York, in Virginia.—I should deem myself unpardonable, were I not upon every occasion, more especially upon such an one as the present, to declare, that to the sound counsels and vigorous exertions of their Excellencies the Counts de Rochambeau and de Grasse, much, very much, of our success was owing. While I agree in sentiment with the honorable body over whom you preside, that we may entertain a rational ground of belief, that under the favor of Divine Providence the freedom, independence, and happiness of America will shortly be established upon the surest foundation, I think it a duty incumbent upon me to observe, that those most desirable objects are not to be fully attained but by a continuance of those exertions which have already so greatly humbled the power of our inveterate enemies. Relaxation upon our part will give them time to recollect and recover themselves; whereas a vigorous prosecution of the war must inevitably crush their remaining force in these States or put them to the shameful necessity of entirely withdrawing themselves. I cannot conclude without expressing my warmest wishes for the prosperity of a State which has ever stood among the foremost in her support of the common cause. I confess myself under a particular obligation for the ready attention which I have experienced to those requisitions which, in the course of my duty, I have occasionally been under the necessity of making.

"I have the honor to be, with the most profound respect,

"Gentlemen, your most obedient and humble servant,

"G. WASHINGTON.

"Hon. George Plater, President of the Senate. Hon. Tho. Cockey Deye, Speaker of the House of Delegates, of the State of Maryland."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN the beginning of this year (1781), the great plan of a confederation which had held a prominent part in the discussions of congress since the beginning of the Revolution, was settled. A confederation and perpetual union among the colonies had been suggested as early as the summer of 1775, by Dr. Franklin, who then submitted to congress a plan that the colonies enter "into a firm league of friendship with each other, binding on themselves and their posterity, for the common defence against their enemies, for the security of their liberties and properties, the safety of their persons and families, and their mutual and general welfare." The consideration of this subject was postponed until the 11th of June, 1776, when, the Declaration of Independence being under discussion, congress resolved to apppoint a committee to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between the colonies. On the next day the following persons were selected for this important object: Thomas Stone, Maryland; Samuel Adams, Massachusetts; Edward Rutledge, South Carolina; Robert Livingston, New York; Josiah Bartlett, New Hampshire; Stephen Hopkins, Rhode Island; Roger Sherman, Connecticut; John Dickinson, Pennsylvania; Thomas McKean, Delaware; Thomas Nelson, Jr., Virginia; Joseph Hewes, North Carolina; Button Gwinnett, Georgia. The committee reported a plan of confederacy, consisting of twelve articles, on the 12th of July, which were discussed from time to time, until the 20th of August, when an amended draft was reported to congress. Owing to various causes, the subject was not resumed until April, 1777, when they resolved that two days in each week should be employed "until it shall be wholly discussed."

In the meanwhile, the subject of the western lands entered into the debates and became a leading and distinctive feature in the formation of a confederacy. To understand the position of Maryland upon this question, it is necessary to take a cursory view of the manner in which the public lands were acquired.

The title of Virginia to the lands west of the Alleghanies and northwest of the Ohio, was claimed (as we have shown in the earlier pages of this work) under a charter granted by James I., in 1609, to a corporation called the London Company, the members of which resided in England. The territory granted by this charter embraced about one-half of North America, and included the whole of the present States of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, nearly all of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin,

30-v. ii

Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and a considerable portion of South Carolina. In 1624, by a judgment in the Court of King's Bench, the corporation was dissolved, the charter vacated and declared null and void, and ordered to be resumed by the crown. Virginia then became a royal government, and her boundaries, like all other royal provinces, were subject to the pleasure of the crown.1

The charters of Maryland, Carolina and Pennsylvania were all granted out of Virginia, without any rights of Virginia being infringed. Up to the period of the Revolution, the Alleghanies were always deemed the western boundaries of Virginia; the territory beyond those mountains being described in public documents as "lands lying in the back of Virginia." When, by the peace of 1763, England had acquired an undisputed title to the territory west and northwest of the Alleghanies, the king, under an order in council, issued his proclamation, forbidding any grants of lands by the Governor of Virginia, beyond the sources of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic, reserving to the crown the sovereignty and dominion of all territory not included within such limits of the colony. Thus the matter rested until the constitution of Virginia was formed, in June, 1776, when a claim was set up to the western country. This constitution contained an Article declaring what should be the boundaries of Virginia. And in this Article, Virginia "cedes" to Pennsylvania, Maryland and to North and South Carolina, all the territory within their respective limits, and then declares her boundaries to be those described in the charter of 1609-a charter which had been vacated for a hundred and fifty years, during all which time not an act had been done, either by the crown or Virginia, recognizing its existence.

In the War of Independence, the colonies made common cause, and from its very beginning were desirous of forming a confederated government. The anxiety of the large States to have their claims recognized to all the western domain, at once awakened the small States to the true state of the question of right and justice in this enlarged pretension. The small States were all willing to make common cause against the common enemy, and regarded it but reasonable and just, and as politic as just, that what was rescued from the common enemy should be the common property of all.

Maryland, ever alive to all subjects that affected her welfare, took a leading and active interest in the question.

"There is the best evidence that the dissolution of the charter was satisfactory to the colonists. In 1642, George Sandys, who was the agent for the colonists in England, but who had been a member of the London Company, without authority from his principals, petitioned parliament for a restoration of the charter. When the colonists were informed of his conduct, the House of Burgesses remonstrated against it, disavowing his proceedings, and assigned, at length, and in strong language, their reasons for preferring the royal to the charter government. The old charter boundaries were

The experience of the past made

ever disregarded and held for naught by the crown."- Speech of Mr. Hall, of Vermont House of Representatives, June 25, 1842.

2 In the 21st Article of the Virginia Constitution of 1776, after making certain reservations as to the navigation and use of the Potomac and Pocomoke, etc., Virginia expressly cedes and confirms to the State of Maryland "all the territory contained within its charter, with all the rights of property, jurisdiction and government, and all other rights whatsoever which may, at any time heretofore, have been claimed by Virginia."

THE NORTHWESTERN TERRITORY.

467

her sagacious as to the future. She had found that, although her charter had been the most liberal of all, and her limits better defined than those of the other colonies, still, by the adroit management of William Penn, she had lost much of her northern and eastern territory, while Virginia was urging claim to a portion of her southern, east of the Chesapeake Bay, as well as to a large portion of her western and southwestern territory.

The large States, and especially Virginia, persisting in their pretensions, induced Maryland to urge the strongest arguments against their justice; nor was she willing to join the confederacy until those arguments were listened to and their force admitted.

We have seen that Maryland, as early as October, 1776, first raised the question whether these lands should belong to the United States, or to the individual States within whose nominal limits they were situated. She maintained that the property and jurisdiction of the soil were acquired by the common sword, purse and blood, of all the States, united in a common effort; and justice, therefore, demanded that, considered in the light of property, the vacant land should be sold to defray the expenses incurred in the contest by which they were obtained; and the future harmony of the States required that the extent and ultimate population of the several States should not be so disproportionate as they would be if their nominal limits. should be retained. As before stated, Maryland, as early as the 30th of October, 1776, expressed decided opinion in relation to the vacant lands, by an unanimous resolution of the convention which formed the constitution and frame of government of the State, in the following words:

"Resolved, unanimously, That it is the opinion of this convention, that the very extensive claim of the State of Virginia to the back lands hath no foundation in justice; and that if the same or any like claim is admitted, the freedom of the smaller States and the liberties of America may be thereby greatly endangered; this convention being firmly persuaded, that if the dominion over those lands should be established by the blood and treasure of the United States, such lands ought to be considered as a common stock, to be parcelled out at proper times into convenient, free and independent governments."

As a matter of justice, the ground Maryland took was right, and as a measure of political wisdom, it was sagacious. She foresaw that to give these large States all they desired, would be worse than political folly-it would be political suicide. At the adoption of the Constitution, she stood equal in political power with New York, each being allowed, under the Constitution, six representatives in congress. New York has now (1878) thirty-three members in the Lower House of Congress, while Maryland has but six.

The amended draft of confederation was considered and debated by congress from April (1777) until the 26th of June, when it was again postponed to the 2d of October. In the meanwhile, on the 18th of April, of the same year, the Maryland Legislature gave their delegates in congress the following instructions:

"We have long and impatiently expected that a Confederacy would have been founded between the United States; nothing we apprehend but the urgency of affairs more

immediately pressing and necessary, would have protracted to this time that essential measure. Without it, there will be no bond of unity among these States, no general superintending and controlling power, whenever the object of the subsisting Union ceases by a happy conclusion of the present war; you, gentlemen, must be fully sensible of the importance of a permanent confederacy, and that its permanency depends on its being founded in justice and good policy. On a subject in which we feel ourselves, and our posterity will be so deeply interested, it becomes our duty thus publicly to deliver our sentiments for the better regulation of your conduct. We do, therefore, instruct you to move for a stricter union and confederacy of the thirteen United States, reserving expressly to the General Assembly of this State, the power of confirming and ratifying the said confederacy, without which ratification we shall not consider it as binding upon this State; and should any other colony solicit to be admitted into that Confederacy, you are to oppose such admission until the General Assembly can be informed thereof and their consent obtained thereto.

"Without an economical management of our revenues it will be extremely difficult to support this expensive war; nothing can contribute more to such management than a liquidation of the public debt, and the laying down in the confederacy some equitable rule for the ascertaining the quotas of that debt, which the several confederating States are to pay. We know no rule liable to so few exceptions as the number of white inhabitants in each of the States; negroes rather weaken than strengthen the Southern States; yet, as they are accounted property, though often of a precarious, and the very young and aged, always of an expensive nature, we consent that the negro taxables in this State be deemed and taken as part of our people for the purpose of taxation.

"Representatives ought always to be accountable for their conduct to their constituents; yet, when their proceedings remains secret, and their votes on the most important subjects are unknown, their conduct, though ever so censurable, will go unpunished for want of proper information.

"We therefore instruct you to move for and endeavor to obtain that all the journals of Congress be regularly and expeditiously published, except such parts thereof as relate to military operations and secret correspondence; that all proceedings of Congress and all questions agitated and determined in that body, be entered on their journal; and that the yeas and nays of each member, if required by any State, be taken on every question, as stated and determined by the House."

These instructions were transmitted by Governor Johnson to the Maryland delegates in congress, and they acted accordingly. On the 2d of October, the question was again taken up and debated until the 15th of November, 1777, when it was finally adopted. By this plan the thirteen States proposed to form a confederacy under the name and style of "the United States of America." They also proposed to enter "into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare; binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever." The Articles of Confederation directed that the form of government should be submitted to the legislatures of the several States for adoption, and if adopted, they were requested to authorize their delegates in congress to subscribe to the same, which subscription was to be binding and conclusive. On the 13th of December, 1777, the Articles of Confederation were read by the Maryland House of