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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO — COLSTON. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. II (1758-1775) [1889]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889). Vol. II (1758-1775).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO — COLSTON.

Fairfax Coty.Virginia, 24 June, 1771.

Sir;

Your letters of the 15th December from Georgia, and 20th of April, from Charlestown, came duely to hand. In answer to them, I have only to inform you, that my advertisements which you refer to, were issued in consequence of instructions from our late Governor and Council; and that I have nothing more to do in the affair, than to receive, & deliver in to them the several claims of the respective Officers & Soldiers who embarked in the service of this Colony in the year 1754 (under a Proclamation of the then Governor, offering a reward of 200,000 acres of Land to all those who shou’d voluntarily engage in an Expedition against the French, who were at that time encroaching on his majesty’s lands, on the Ohio;) among those who embarked under this encouragement was your son, and well entitled, not only by proclamation, but by his merit and bravery, to a Lieutenant’s share of the Lands, which no doubt he (if any of us do) will obtain, as I have exhibited your claim for that purpose.—Nothing final, however, is determined on with respect to this matter—you will stand upon the same footing with the rest of the claimants, provided you contribute in the same proportion towards the incidental charges attending the Surveys &c which are now set about & for which each subaltern Officer has already been call’d upon for the respective sums of £6- and £4.—10—0—current money of this government in order to prosecute the work; it will behoove you therefore to give some person a power of attorney to act on your behalf, who must be furnished with the means of contributing your quota past, and to come, for furthering of this business, which must, from the nature of it, be attended with trouble and expense. I know of no person better qualified to serve you in this matter, than the one who first exhibited your claim; I mean Mr. Alexr. Craig, who is a resident of Williamsburg, a man of very fair character, and lays more in the way of receiving your instructions and communicating such information as may be proper for you to receive, than I should be, or any one else I am acquainted with.

It may not be amiss to add for your further satisfaction, that all the claims are not yet given in, consequently the proportion and value of the land which may fall to each officer’s share is not fully ascertained; and that we have many difficulties, & some uncertainties to struggle through, before our right to these lands will be fully recognized. Such powerful sollicitation is there at the Court of Great Britain for the lands to the westward of us, where our grant was located; and such the opposition we meet with; tho’ it is hoped that the Equity of our claim will at length prevail.1

In which case, the Land will be well worth the trouble and expence we may bestow to obtain it, notwithstanding the remote distance it is from navigation.

I am much obliged to you for the favorable opinion you are pleas’d to entertain of me, and wish I may continue to deserve it, and approve myself Sir, &c.

[1 ]When Pontiac, the king of the Ottawa confederacy, rose against the English in 1762, Sir William Johnson, to secure the friendship of the Six Nations, invited them to send delegates to a general council at the German Flats in the middle of July, 1763. The Indians then offered to cede all their lands east of the Ohio to the English for a fair consideration, and Croghan, Johnson’s agent, believed at the time that nothing but an acceptance of the offer could prevent a war. The matter was not determined and the establishment of English settlements on the Alleghanies and in the Illinois country (then largely held by French colonists) tended to make the trade with the Indians less profitable. To prevent a further diminution of the profits a scheme was formed by Govr. Franklin of New Jersey for purchasing a large tract of territory on the Ohio and forming permanent settlements upon it. General Gage, Governor Moore, and Sir Wm. Johnson were also interested in the scheme, which was urged upon the British ministry by Benj. Franklin in 1766-’68. The original idea comprehended a colony in the Illinois, but on submitting the plan to Lord Shelburne it was found that “it did not quadrate with the sentiments of people here, that their objections to it were, the distance, which would make it of little use to this country, as the expense on the carriage of goods would oblige the people to manufacture for themselves; that it would for the same reason be difficult both to defend it and to govern it; that it might lay the foundation of a power in the heart of America, which in time might be troublesome to the other colonies, and prejudicial to our government over them; and that people were wanted both here and in the already settled colonies, so that none could be spared for a new colony.” Franklin to Wm. Franklin, 27 September, 1766. General Phineas Lyman of Conn., who had served with bravery and distinction in the late war, was in England urging the claims of the “military adventures,” which were designed to cover the same territory as those of the Franklin company, and an effort was made to make the two schemes one. In October, 1767, Franklin could report that the plan had been approved in Cabinet Council, and had been referred to the Board of Trade, where it appears to have slept for some years without being acted upon. “There is little doubt,” wrote Johnson to Gov. Franklin, in May, 1768, “but that the intended settlement may be productive of a regular civil government in that valuable country, and this, too, without doing violence or overreaching the Indians, which from sentiments of policy as well as justice should be always cautiously avoided.”

The treaty of Fort Stanwix (September, 1768) established the bounds of English territory essentially as they had been proposed at the German Flats. “Beginning at the mouth of the Tennessee river, it followed the Ohio and Alleghany rivers to Kittaning; thence in a direct line to the nearest fork of the west branch of the Susquehannah; and thence following that stream through the Alleghames, it passed by way of Burnett’s Hills and the eastern branch of the Susquehannah and the Delaware, into New York, having its northern terminus at the confluence of Canada and Wood creeks. The line, thus proposed, was not in accordance with the instructions of the Board of Trade. Hillsborough, who had succeeded the liberal Shelburne as colonial secretary, and was bitterly opposed to any settlements in the interior, wished to have the line extended no farther than the mouth of the great Kenawha, where it would then meet the line which Stuart, at a council in South Carolina, had recently established with the Cherokees as the western boundary of Virginia. The temper, however, of the Confederate deputies at this time rendered it impossible for the Baronet to follow strictly his instructions, without defeating the very object of the congress.” Stone, Life of Sir Wm. Johnson, ii., 307. Johnson claimed that the effect of this treaty, which was ratified in 1770, was to vest the claim of the northern Indians to the country south of the Ohio in the crown, leaving the southern Indians only to be dealt with concerning it; “and should they refuse to give it up, it is in his majesty’s power to prevent the colonies from availing themselves of the late cession in that quarter, till it can be done with safety and the common consent of all who have just pretensions to it.” Johnson to Gage, 16 December, 1768.

This plan reappears in London in 1770. “A society of us, in which some of the first people in England are engaged, and in which you and Colonel Croghan are made original partakers, have concluded a bargain with the Treasury for a large tract of land lying and fronting on the Ohio (part of the lands lately ceded by the Indians to Great Britain), large enough for a government. Having it suggested to us by Lord Hillsborough that it would be right that we should have a charter of government, in consequence of this bargain so concluded, we are next to apply to the Council Board, that the grant may issue. We expect to meet with opposition, and some objections arising from the impressions made by such opposition, yet have no doubt of carrying this point, as we have settled the main point. As soon as the grant has issued we are to apply to the Lords of Trade on the subject of the charter.” Thomas Pownall to Sir William Johnson, April, 1770. The application for the grant was made in behalf of the company by Thomas Walpole, a London banker, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, but was opposed by Lord Hillsborough in a report that gave Franklin an opportunity to make such a crushing reply as to lead to Hills-borough’s resignation from the cabinet. (Franklin, Works, Bigelow’s Edition, IV., 137, 495, V., 1). This company known as the Grand Company or Walpole’s grant received its grant in 1772.

In September 1768 Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkins took command of Fort Pitt armed with wide powers of administration, and bringing “orders for the establishment of a court of justice in Illinois for the administration of the laws and the adjustment and trial of all controversies existing between the people relating to debts or property, either real or personal.” In defiance of the king’s proclamation of 1763, Colonel Wilkins began to make large grants of domain, and among others was one said to contain 13,986 acres, but in reality covered some 30,000 acres, made to John Baynton, Samuel Wharton, and George Morgan, merchants of Philadelphia, who “trading in this country, have greatly contributed to his majesty’s service.” This grant lay between the villages of Kaskaskia and Prairie du Rocher, in the present county of Randolph. In 1809 the Commissioners rejected a claim based upon this grant on the ground that Wilkin had no authority to make it.