After having spent eleven consecutive months in fruitless expenses and proceedings I finally sucattach myself and

ceeded in appearing four weeks ago before a meeting of the Lords Commissioners of Plantations,

when Milord Hillsborough, President of that department, put divers questions and objections to me. That on which he appeared to me most to dwell was that the two Seigniories in question being Lake Champlain, to which His Britannic Majesty had formed pretensions, he did not

situated on

consider that the Title I derived from His Most Christian Majesty ought to insure me their property.

My answer was, that without seeking to discover whether these pretensions were founded or not (a me to agitate,) I presumed to assure him, at least, that they were recent, much more so than the titles which insured me the property of these estates that, moreover, question which it did not become

;

I did

not imagine that His Most Christian Majesty, who has had uninterrupted possession of the

Country up to the moment of the conquest in 1759, ought at any time allow himself to be stopped by a single pretension, in the desire he had to grant a part of it, as long as it was in his power, to those of his subjects whom he desired to reward.

In fine, supposing everything in the position pre-

FRENCH SEIGNIORIES ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN. dicated, 'twas certain that I was possessor of these Estates in good faith ; that they cost

me much

money and trouble; that no individual could come forward of right, to question my property in them; that the King alone opposes to me pretensions which can tend only to establish his right of Sovereignty over that portion before the entire cession of the Country, and not to despoil one of His subjects in whose favour every tiling speaks at this moment, and to whom justice cannot be refused.