(i.e. falling into) Chesapeake Bay, apparently to run the division for that basin. Baltimore and he parted, he refusing to surrender anything on the Delaware north of twelve miles above New Castle. Baltimore went to Marcus Hook, or Chichester, and warned the people not to pay quit rents to Penn, and announced the intention of returning and taking possession. This so disturbed the people there that Markham, who had packed up to go to the Chesapeake, thought it better not to leave, and so wrote to Lord Baltimore (letter without date printed in Penna. Archives, 1st Series, Vol. I, p. 39), who was waiting for him at New Castle on the 26th. It appears that, after receiving this letter, Lord Baltimore, perhaps at New Castle, or carrying the instrument to the Elk River, took another observation, for subsequently he mentions one taken on the 27th. About a month later, Markham's powers ceased, Penn arriving at some point twelve miles above New Castle, and therefore within the jurisdiction, probably on October 28, if he did not, before stopping at New Castle, pass on to Upland on the 24, the date which he gives for his arrival, but which is supposed to refer to his coming within the capes-but Penn was not very accurate about dates.

Markham had declared that he was accountable only to the King and the Duke of York, not knowing that the Duke's rights had been already transferred by him to Penn. In those days, it took nearly two months for a letter to go from England to Pennsylvania, unless the ship carrying it came directly to New York or the Delaware, and the opportunities for transmission, with or without much time being taken after the end of the ocean voyage, were not frequent.

By deed dated Aug. 21, 1682, the Duke relinquished to Penn and his heirs and assigns all estate, right, title, interest, rents, services, claims, duties, payments, property, claim, and demand in the lands, islands, tene

ments, hereditaments, and other things comprised in King Charles II's patent to Penn "within the bounds and limits therein mentioned."

The Duke, furthermore, by two deeds dated August 24, 1682, conveyed to Penn and his heirs and assigns the territory measured by a twelve miles radius around New Castle on the western side of the Delaware and the territory to the south of that circle not occupied by Maryland. Thus did William Penn acquire what is now the state of Delaware, which was spoken of from that time until the American Revolution as "the Territories," "the Counties thereunto [to Pennsylvania] annexed," "the Country of New Castle and tracts depending thereon," or "the Counties of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex on Delaware," or, more commonly, as they were popularly called, "the Lower Counties." One difference there was between the patent for Pennsylvania and the two deeds for the Lower Counties: by the former, Penn and his heirs and assigns were to hold the land directly of the King; by the latter, they were to hold of the Duke of York as intermediate, or mesne, lord, who was to receive an annual rent of five shillings for the land around New Castle, and of a red rose and half the year's profits for the land south.

Penn says that he gave up extent to Lake Ontario, being thought to be getting a front on the Chesapeake. In the summer of 1682, he appears to have learned either from reports from Pennsylvania, or from a dependable statement of the latitude of Watkin's Point and the length of the Bay, that the latter did not extend as far north as 40°; so that if he was confined to what was north of the fortieth parallel, he was shut off from the Bay. He therefore sought the aid of the friendly King. The view was not unreasonable that, as astronomers could not come to an exact conclusion, the King could fix what should be taken as

the parallel. Without some such control, Lord Baltimore seemed determined to run no line that would be a compromise. By adhering to the letter of his charter, he would, however, get more land than had been intended to be given to his father. In 1632, when two full degrees were calculated to amount to only one hundred and twenty miles, and Watkin's Point was deemed to be above north latitude 38°, the second Lord was supposed to be getting less than two full degrees, possibly one hundred and fifteen miles at most, yet by a degree being found to be seventy, instead of sixty, miles, and Watkin's Point being some miles below North latitude 38°, possession by his successor to the fortieth parallel would make an estate of no less than one hundred and fifty miles and perhaps more. The question whether the Calvert family could thus gain so much beyond the original idea, had been talked about in the Committee for Trade and Plantations when Penn's application for a grant was under consideration. Since then it was appearing that such gain by the Calverts would block Penn's colony from any front on Chesapeake Bay, which the promoter thought a necessity. To public officials, even without any desire to favor Penn, it was not hard in the circumstances, to take a view that would facilitate the planting of a new colony, and thereby the further development of England's American territory. Penn obtained in August, 1682, and took across the ocean, another royal letter to Lord Baltimore. This recommended him to fix his northern bounds by measuring at sixty miles a degree two degrees from Watkin's Point as settled upon by the Commissioners from Virginia and Maryland.

This royal letter did not mean, any more than the preceding one, to allow the Calverts any of what had been the Dutch possessions: but the third Lord Baltimore felt strongly that the land on Delaware Bay and

River to 40° north was rightfully his, and, while, in the reports in the Maryland Archives of his conferences with Penn, it appears as if Baltimore was contending as a preliminary for his extent on the Chesapeake and Susquehanna, yet ever and anon he and his heirs, until the final settlement, were recurring to this hopeless claim to the country of New Castle &ct.

When Baltimore and Penn first met after the latter's arrival, the former, according to his Narrative, was inclined to think reasonable, although he asked time to consider, Penn's request for an opening on the Chesapeake. When, however, in formal conference, in presence of attendants, Penn produced the royal missive, Baltimore, no doubt angered, did not flinch from insisting upon his right up to the 40th parallel, wherever it might actually be. Penn tried to induce him to be satisfied with two degrees measured at seventy miles each, or with two and a half measured at sixty. Baltimore mentions, but Penn does not, Penn's request, that, if Maryland must extend to the 40th parallel, that parallel be ascertained by accepting as true the latitude, viz: 37° 5', so long attributed to Cape Charles, but then thought far from correct, and by measuring from Cape Charles, perhaps at seventy miles a degree. Baltimore objected to any other basis than the surest contemporary astronomical observation. On Feb. 28, 1682-3, three persons employed by Lord Baltimore took an observation on Palmer's Island with a sextant of about ten feet radius, and found the latitude 39° 44′. This was disclosed to Penn by Lord Baltimore at New Castle, when, on May 29 and 30, they had further conference. Lord Baltimore retired from that conference announcing that he would himself make further observations for the boundary. Penn sent after him in writing an offer, which he had made verbally, to join in the observations, if Baltimore would fix a "gentleman's price" per mile, at which Penn could buy the land found to

belong to Baltimore north of the head of Chesapeake Bay. Had Baltimore brought himself to bargaining, he could have secured good terms from Penn, to whom some frontage on the Chesapeake and quiet possession east of the Susquehanna and along the Delaware were worth everything west of the Susquehanna. Baltimore did offer soon afterwards a Chesapeake frontage in exchange for all the Lower Counties, but this naturally was refused by Penn.

No further meeting between the two Proprietaries was held, and, in a letter of Aug. 14, 1683, to the Lords of the Committee for Trade and Plantations, Penn says that, instead of notice being sent of a day, expected to be in September, when Lord Baltimore would go to the head of the Bay, an observation had been taken, a line run, and trees marked without notice to Penn, and a demand had been made. This does not mean that the demand followed the actual marking of the line north or east of the ground demanded, and indeed the demand may have been that made by proclamation issued about the time of the conference, as to which his Lordship had prevaricated; first, on complaint made, denying the issuing of the proclamation, and afterwards, on its being proved, explaining that proclamation as but a matter of form to keep alive his claim. We learn from a proclamation made in 1722 by the LieutenantGovernor of Maryland that an observation was taken at the mouth of Octorara Creek on Sep. 15, 1683, the latitude of that place being found to be 39° 41′ 19′′, from which fact denial was made of the third Lord having ever caused an east line from that place to be run as the northern boundary. That Lord Baltimore was in that vicinity about that time, is clear from a note with his initials in the margin of the record in the Maryland Archives of the commission about to be mentioned, "given to my cousin Talbot when I was last up the Bay." Whether Baltimore then started a