r en Roture, nor for several of those in the List of the Seigneuries, besides those specified in Cramahe's Letter to your Excellency, nor is there a single petition sent or preferred by either of those

Claimants for a Confirmation under this Province of any of their Grants, which

is

the

more extraordinary as Your Excellency's Proclamation required a full exhibition of their Titles, and the Crown is greatly interested in the Question concerning the Validity of

the French Claims in the Articles both

of Quit Rents and Escheats, their pretentions extending not only to a vast Quantity of Land, but to

Lands the more valuable for their Contiguity to the Forts and Passes, and the Navigable Waters of the Lake and from the whole we conjecture that this Conduct is owing to their adopting an Opinion which deserves a serious attention to wit That the Lands they Claim are situated to the Northward of the Antient British Claim, and that :

consequently they can maintain a Title under the Surrender without the aid of the Crown, and free from the usual Reservations, Restrictions, Conditions, and Quit Rents.

With respect therefore to the Lands Southward of Crown Point, and to those to the Northward of that Fort, not within the Limits of the French Grants, we are of Opinion that your Excellency may issue Patents for

them as Lands to which the 50 th Article of the Royal Instructions has clearly no

relation.

Nor do we think that Article ought to be considered to prohibit the Grant of those Tracts to which no French Concessions or Ratifications appear to be transmitted from Quebec, nor any Excuse assigned them before this Government pursuant to the late Proclamation, it being very plain from the Instruction that it was intended to restrain only new Patents for Lands before claimed by