But now, when the West was his, the king of England did a wondrous thing. He issued a proclamation in the year 1763 which forbade anyone securing "patents for any lands beyond the heads or sources of any of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the West or Northwest!" Thus Lord Hillsborough, British Secretary for the Colonies, thought to checkmate what he called the "roving disposition" of the colonists, particularly the Virginians. The other colonies were restrained by definite boundaries; Virginia, too, should be restrained. Hillsborough might as well have adopted the plan of the ignoramus who, when methods for keeping the Indians from crossing the frontier were being discussed, suggested that a strip of land along the entire western frontier be cleared of trees and bushes, in the belief that the savages would not dare to cross the open! Yet the secretary's agent set to work to mark out a western boundary line which should connect the western lines of Georgia and New York and so accomplish the limitation of Virginia. But the Virginians also acted. They sent an agent of their own, Thomas Walker, to Fort Stanwix (Rome, New York) to treat with the Six Nations for some of this very western land that Hillsborough was contriving to keep them out of. For the king issued the proclamation in the interest of the western Indians (and the annuities he received when the fur trade was prosperous) who desired that the West should be preserved to them. But what could be said if Virginia purchased the Indian's claim? Could a king's proclamation keep the Virginians from a territory to which, for value received, the Indians had given a quit-claim deed?