residuo ejusdem per rectam lineam a promontorio sive Capite terre vocato Watkins' Point juxta sinum predictum, prope Fluvium de Wighco situatum ab occidente, usque ad magnum Oceanum in plaga orientali ductam, divisam, Et inter metam illam a meridie usque ad partam illam estuarii de De La Ware ab Aquilone que subjacet quadrigesimo gradui latitudinis Septentrionalis ab æquinoctiali ubi terminatur Nova Anglia: Totum que illum terre tractum, infra metas subscriptas videlicit transeundo a dicto Estuario vocato Delaware Baye recta linea per gradum predictum usque ad verum meridianum primi fontis fluminis de Pattowmack deinde vergendo versus meridiem ad ulteriorem dicti fluminis ripam et eam sequendo qua plaga occidentalis et meridionalis spectat usque ad locum quendam appellatum Cinquack prope ejusdem Fluminis ostium scituatum ubi in prefatum Sinum de Chessopeak evolvitur ac inde per lineam brevissimam usque ad predictum Promontorium sive locum vocatum Watkins' Point."

As this makes the northern boundary "ubi terminatur Nova Anglia," it seems unnecessary to give any further reason why the only fair construction is that the words "quadrigesimo gradui latitudinis" mean the fortieth parallel, marking the completion of forty degrees, not the beginning of the fortieth space from the equator, and that the word "estuarii" covers river as well as bay. Thus this charter, under which the Lords Baltimore were Proprietors of Maryland until the American Revolution, relates to all land beginning at Watkin's Point on the Chesapeake, then along a line drawn to the Atlantic as the southern boundary line, then up the Atlantic coast and the shore of Delaware Bay and River to where it is crossed by the fortieth parallel, where New England terminated, and westward along said parallel-"per gradum predictum' to the meridian of the furthest source of the Potomac,

then due south to the Potomac, and along its southern bank to Cinquack near the mouth, and thence by the shortest line to Watkin's Point. We are confident that, had the original grantee soon put a town on the Delaware River anywhere not supposed to be above the fortieth parallel, say at League Island or the mouth of Dock Creek, all England would have thought him acting within his rights. When his heirs, notwithstanding matters to be hereafter mentioned, had persisted in claiming what is now the state of Delaware and Delaware County and a great part of other counties in Pennsylvania, the Penns found lawyers to argue for various interpretations of the charter. The Penns finally insisted that "subjacet quadragesimo gradui” means "lies south of the beginning of the fortieth degree," i.e. south of the thirty-ninth parallel. Were there no other reasons against this, it could scarcely have been Charles I's actual intention to give such a small part of the wilderness to the heir of an old public servant like George Calvert, who had spent large sums in colonial enterprises, and had asked for this grant to reimburse him. At the time the description was written, Capt. John Smith's map was the authority as to the country around the Chesapeake, and that map made Watkin's Point, the starting-place, about 38° 10' north. To put the northern boundary at the parallel 39°, was to give only about fifty miles of width, degrees being then computed at sixty statute miles. The general notion of the English government when William Penn asked for a grant of land was that Lord Baltimore had two degrees of latitude, and it was to such dimensions that Penn desired to hold him. Watkin's Point being 38° 10′, made the traditional northern boundary at least forty degrees north. William Penn, instead of claiming that the "fortieth degree" or "the beginning" meant the parallel 39°, argued to the third Lord Baltimore that when the

patent of 1632 was granted, Watkin's Point was supposed to be "in the thirty-eighth degree," Penn thus using the popular language, by which the degree is beyond the parallel marking that many degrees. Of the two lines, that at the beginning, and that at the completion of the true fortieth degree, only by using that at the completion can the figure be drawn according to Smith's map, which delineates the Potomac as having its first source about as near the fortieth parallel as the bend of that river at Hancock actually is; so that a line running south to reach the source could never start from the thirty-ninth parallel. In fact, Smith had gone up the Potomac to 39° 30′, and reported the river as extending further many miles northwestwardly; so it would have appeared nonsense to talk about land at the sources of the river in a grant reaching no further north than 39°. The suggestion, once made, that Baltimore's land could not extend further north than the head of Delaware Bay would have made the description contradictory, as an east and west line therefrom would shut out the upper Potomac. In the charter for Connecticut, about thirty years later, a certain body of water is called a river, and described as being commonly called a bay. The truth seems to be that, as Argall, the English discoverer of Delaware Bay, who visited it the year after Hudson, described it as extending inwards thirty leagues, the English thought that the head of the bay might be further north than forty degrees, twenty marine leagues being a degree. To be sure, Argall said "lying in westwardly," and made the latitude of the southern cape 38° 20′ north, but Hudson had more accurately made that of the northern cape 38° 54'. The Penns' final contention, from the use of the word subjacet, even excluded from this grant the northern part of the shore along the salt water, as not lying "under the fortieth degree." Lord Chancellor Hard

wicke, in enforcing the compromise agreed upon by the Penns and Lord Baltimore, said that there was an ambiguity as to whether the grant extended to or through the degree. It would seem that any such ambiguity should have been solved according to the provision which the charter itself contained, that, in case of doubt as to the true meaning of any word, clause, or sentence, the interpretation should always be "benignior, utilior, et favorabiliter" for Lord Baltimore and his heirs and assigns.

There are publicists who would have settled all conflicting claims upon the broad principle that grants of political power are revocable by the supreme authority of the State, and that the latest grantee-in this case William Penn-is to supersede those prior to him. This principle, however just, and how much soever followed in reality by Councils of State and courts of law, was too dangerous to the heirs of the latest one favored to be urged by them. A solution similarly dangerous to them could be found also in treating the grants of the American wilderness, when greatly exceeding the needs or services of the recipients, as mere licenses to occupy with colonists, and as lapsing with non-user. No attempt to send colonists to the Delaware River under this charter of 1632 was made until the shores had passed under another flag, and had been afterwards freshly acquired by conquest. The main assertion of the Penns in opposition to the Lords Baltimore was that the charter of 1632 was, as to what the Penns wanted, invalid or inoperative, or had become so. Original invalidity would be recognized if some other civilized power, instead of the king who made the grant, had the rightful title. As excepted from the operation of the charter would be all land as to which the recital of its being occupied only by savages was untrue; for that recital amounted to a condition annexed to the gift, as it expressed the informa

tion on which it was based, and a royal gift based on untrue information was void. The Crown of England had claimed title by discovery to the whole region granted to the Virginia and New England companies, but James I rather appealed to early possession or a right to occupy what was vacant, and neither he nor Charles I was interfering with actual colonies of other civilized powers. Of course there was a limit to the possessions of such colonies. Unless the whole of North America was to be included in Mexico, or the northern part of the present United States was to be included in Canada, one European nation could not be deemed owner of territory beyond its effective control. Therefore the force of the charter to Lord Baltimore on the Susquehanna and Delaware respectively is to be distinguished. No European outpost had been established in that part of the region described in the charter which lay west of the watershed between the two rivers: and it was the merest pretence of Dutch influence or the boundaries of deeds to the Dutch from certain Indians which could impeach the Calverts' right in that part. Moreover, as will be shown further on, the claim had been duly prosecuted there.

As to the land drained by Delaware River and Bay, however, while it is not clear that such settlements as the Dutch had made by 1632 amounted to an occupation, the English did not really acquire the region until more than thirty years after that date. Not only did the Estates General of the United Belgic or Netherland Provinces-Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, etc.,soon take additional points under their sovereignty, but, moreover, pursuant to the design of Gustavus Adolphus, his successors on the throne of Sweden, being also Princes of Finland, etc., sent over their subjects to both the eastern and the western shores of the Delaware. In the course of years, various Englishmen independent of Lord Baltimore, made unsuccess