A Brief History of the United StatesMcMaster, John Bach
History
A Brief History of the United States
McMaster, John Bach
United States -- History
[11] Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 505-
519. All the land bought by the Ohio Company was not for its use. A large
part was for another, known as the Scioto Company, which sent an agent to
Paris and sold the land to a French company. This, in turn, sold in small
pieces to Frenchmen eager to leave a country then in a state of
revolution. In 1790, accordingly, several hundred emigrants reached
Alexandria, Virginia, and came on to the little square of log huts, with a
blockhouse at each corner, which the company had built for them and named
Gallipolis. Most of them were city-bred artisans, unfit for frontier life,
who suffered greatly in the wilderness.
[12] The land was included in the limits laid down in the charter of
Massachusetts; but that charter was granted after the Dutch were in actual
possession of the upper Hudson. In 1786 a north and south line was drawn
82 miles west of the Delaware. Ownership of the land west of that line
went to Massachusetts; but jurisdiction over the land, the right to
govern, was given to New York.
[13] Connecticut, under her sea-to-sea grant from the crown, claimed a
strip across northern Pennsylvania, bought some land there from the
Indians (1754), and some of her people settled on the Susquehanna in what
was known as the Wyoming Valley (1762 and 1769). The dispute which
followed, first with the Penns and then with the state of Pennsylvania,
dragged on till a court of arbitration appointed by the Continental
Congress decided in favor of Pennsylvania.
[14] Because of Champlain's discovery of the lake which now bears his name
(p. 115), the French claimed most of Vermont; on their early maps it
appears as part of New France, and as late as 1739 they made settlements
in it. About 1750 the governor of New Hampshire granted land in Vermont to
settlers, and the country began to be known as "New Hampshire Grants"; but
in 1763 New York claimed it as part of the region given to the Duke of
York in 1664. This brought on a bitter dispute which was still raging
when, in 1777, the settlers declared New Hampshire Grants "a free and
independent state to be called New Connecticut." Later the name was
changed to Vermont. But the Continental Congress, for fear of displeasing
New York, never recognized Vermont as a state.
[15] Each state was bound to pay its share of the annual expenses; but
they failed or were unable to do so.
[16] Why would not Great Britain make a trade treaty with us? Read Fiske's
_Critical Period_, pp. 136-142; also pp. 142-147, about difficulties
between the states.
[17] Congress asked for authority to do three things: (1) to levy taxes on
imported goods, and use the money so obtained to discharge the debts due
to France, Holland, and Spain; (2) to lay and collect a special tax, and
use the money to meet the annual expenses of government; and (3) to
regulate trade with foreign countries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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