FRENCH SEIGNIORIES ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN.

That Gov in his speech of the 30 th "I have the satisfaction to inform you, that your Agent has been very active in solliciting the affairs of this Prov ce & particularly that he has succeeded in obtaining, that pressing instances might be made at the Court of France, against the Stone House built at Niagara," ettc. This shows that the Govern at home so early as that period viewed this measure

in the Plantation Office, on the subject of those encroachments.

Sept r 1727, has these remarkable words

:

,

of the French as an encroachment on the limits of this Colony. I assure your Lordp that I had no idea that the decision of this controversy could affect the ancient

possessions of any of his Mat* 8 new subjects.

Unacquainted with their settlements on, and near the south side of the River St. Lawrence, I carried my views no further than the Province over which I

preside

:

and which, as it is now limited does not include the whole of Lake Champlain.

have

frequently been informed, by those on whom I thought I could depend, that when the French, on the

approach of Sir Jeffry Amherst in 1759, abandoned Crown Point, there were found no ancient possessions,

nor any improvements, worthy of consideration on either side of the Lake.

The Chief

were in the environs of the Fort, and seemed intended meerly for the accommodation of the Garrisons, and I have reason to believe, that even at this day, there are very few, if any, to the Southward of the latitude forty five, except what have been made since the peace, by British subjects under the grants of this Colony.