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

TO LORD DUNMORE. - 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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TO LORD DUNMORE.

Mount Vernon, 3d April 1775.

My Lord.

At second hand, I learnt from Captain Floyd, that the Surveys made by Mr. Crawford under the Proclamation of 1754 (expressly agreeable to an order of Council of the 15th of December, 1769), and for which your Lordships Patents under the Seal of the Colony, hath actually been obtained, are now declared null and void.—The information appearing altogether incredible, I gave little attention to it, ’till I saw Mr. Wilper on friday last, who, in confirmation of the report, added, that all the patentees (whom he had seen) under that Proclamation, were exceedingly distressed and at a loss, to know what to think of it, or how to act in a case so uncommon, this therefore has caused me to give your Lordship the trouble of a Letter on the occasion, convinced as I am, of your inclination to hear, and disposition to redress, any just cause of complaint, which may be submitted to your decision.—In pursuit of this enquiry, my Lord, which becomes highly interesting to me, as well as others, to make, I shall beg leave to lay a short state of our case before your Lordship in order to shew (if the information be true), for I confess I look’d upon it at first as a move only of the Surveyors to filtch a little more money from us, the peculiar hardship of our situation if we are to encounter fresh difficulties in search of Lands which in my humble opinion has already involved us in expence and trouble, which ought to have been avoided.

I shall not presume, my Lord, to ask a patient hearing of the reasons which induced Mr. Dinwiddie to issue the Proclamation of 1754;—the proclamation itself is sufficiently declaratory of them and, being an act of public notoriety, the utility of which was well known at the time of its promulgation, and as universally acknowledged to be just; I shall say nothing thereon; nor shall I undertake to prove how well men; at very small daily pay, were entitled to this testimony of his Majesty’s bounty; the experience your Lordship has lately had of a warfare in that country affords a recent instance of the hardship and difficulty which the first troops had in exploring a trackless way over those great ridges of mountains between Fort Cumberland and Pittsburgh, and making roads for the armies which afterwards followed, and in which they joined. But I will take the liberty humbly to represent, that instead of having extraordinary difficulties thrown in our way, we were in my opinion entitled, as well from the spirit, as the express words of the Proclamation, above mentioned, to the Lands free of all costs and trouble, for the truth of which, I should have no scruple in appealing to your Lordship’s candor, if you would take the trouble of reading the Proclamation, wherein (after setting forth the necessity of raising Troops) are these words;— “For an encouragement to all who shall voluntarily enter into the said service. I do hereby notify and promise, by and with the advice and consent of his Majesty’s Council of this Colony, that over & above their pay 200,000 acres of His Majesty, the King of Great Britain’s Lands, on the east side of the River Ohio, within this Dominion (100,000 acres to be contiguous to the said Fort, and the other 100,000 acres, to be on or near the River Ohio) shall be laid off, & granted to such persons who by their voluntary engagement and good behavior in the said service; shall deserve the same; and I further promise that the said Lands shall be divided amongst them immediately after the performance of the said service,” &c.—Is it not to be inferred, my Lord, from the natural import of these words, that the Lands were to be laid off for, and divided amongst the grantees, without involving them in either trouble or expence? Nothing, in my humble opinion, is more self-evident. But they finding that the most valuable part of their Grant, (respecting the location) was actually preoccupied—that Emigrants were spreading fast over that country,—and that the same difficulties might arise in other quarters and contests ensue; application was made for liberty to make our own surveys, and a District assigned for it, at least 200 miles from any settlement—unexplored by any County-Surveyor, unknown in whose districts it lay, if it lay in any, as the jurisdiction of no county had extended within the number of miles above mentioned;—and but few men at that early day, hardy enough to undertake a work, in a wilderness where none but savages & wild beasts inhabited.—I say, under these circumstances, application was made for a special surveyor, and an order of Council obtained in the following words:—

“The Council also advised that Colo. Washington should apply to the President & Masters of the College requesting them to nominate & appoint a person properly qualified to survey the said Land with all possible expedition, signifying to them that their compliance herein will be agreeable to this Board.”

In consequence of this order, & of Capt. Crawford’s qualification as a Surveyor, he was appointed to run out this 200,000 acres of Land; and having given Bond in the usual & accustomed form, to the College proceeded to the business, and making his returns to the Secretary’s office, Patents have been issued under your Lordships signature & the seal of the Colony, ever since the first of December 1773. Would it not be exceedingly hard then, my Lord, under these circumstances—at this late day—after we had proceeded in all respects agreeably to the orders of Government, and after many of us have been run to great & considerable expence, to declare that the Surveys are invalid? It appears in so uncommon a light to me, that I hardly know yet how to persuade myself into a belief of the reallity of it, nor should I have given your Lordship any trouble on the subject at this time, but for the importunity of others, and from a desire (as I shall leave home the first of May) of knowing if the account be true, what steps the grantees, under the afore-mentioned Proclamation, are further to take.

I beg your Lordships excuse for the length and freedom of this epistle. I am persuaded you possess too much candour yourself to be offended at it in others, in relating of facts, especially, as I profess myself to be, with the utmost respect, etc.1

[1 ]On March 21st Dunmore had issued a proclamation against the claims of some “disorderly persons” to lands in Virginia under pretence of a purchase from the Indians; but the occasion of Washington’s letter was a report that the surveyor who had made the surveys had not properly qualified, a matter that Lord Dunmore was examining. In October, Lord Dunmore and others, forming the Wabash Company, purchased an extensive tract of territory from the Indians of the Piankeshaw nation, but the revolution followed and the claims were never allowed.