the territory of other States, which had been carved out of her territory by grants of the crown, and which had occasioned colonial disputes, especially with Maryland. This article reads as follows: “The territories contained within the charters erecting the colonies Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, are hereby ceded, released and forever confirmed to the people of those colonies respectively, with all the rights of property, jurisdiction and government, and all other rights whatsoever which might at any time heretofore have been claimed by Virginia, except the free navigation and use of the rivers Potowmack and Pohomoke, with the property of the Virginia shores or strands bordering on either of the said rivers, and all improvements which have been made or shall be made thereon. The western and northern extent of Virginia shall in all other respects stand as fixed by the charter of King James the First, in the year one thousand six hundred and nine, and by the publick treaty of peace between the courts of Great Britain and France in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-three; unless, by act of legislature, one or more territories shall hereafter be laid off, and governments established westward of the Allegheny mountains. And no purchase of lands shall be made of the Indian natives but on behalf of the publick, by authority of the general assembly.“ (Henning’s Statutes of Virginia.)
Judge Haywood remarks on this action: “Here was magnanimously cut off and surrendered all the territory which had been taken from Virginia to satisfy the grants to the Lords Proprietors." (Haywood's Hist. of Tenn., p. 6.)[1]
Haywood is just in calling this action magnanimous. While Virginia could not, perhaps, have maintained a
- ↑ Revised extracts from a series of articles written by the author and published by the Tennessee Historical Society. and in current magazines, are used in this chapter without quotation marks or references.
