After the death of Uncas, his eldest son, Oneko, became King of Mohegan, who refused to grant any deeds of land to the colony; whereupon, vexed at his wisdom and honor, they declared him an incestuous son, deposed him, and proclaimed his natural brother, Abimeleck, to be sachem of the Mohegans. Oneko gave a deed of all his lands to Mason and Harrison, who were his friends; as did Abimeleck, of the same lands, to the colony who had made him sachem. This laid a foundation for a suit at law, which was first tried before the judges of the colony, where Mason, of course, lost his suit. He appealed to the King in Council, who ordered a special court to sit at Norwich, in Connecticut: Mr. Dudley, a learned man, and Governor of Massachusetts Bay, was president of it. The court met, and, having heard the evidence and pleadings of both parties, gave a verdict in favor of Mason’s claim. The colony appealed home to England, but never prosecuted their suit to an issue. Mason died. The colony kept possession under Abimeleck, their created King of Mohegan. About ten years ago the heirs of Mason and Harrison petitioned the government to decree that Dudley’s verdict should be enforced; but the colonists found means to confound the claims of those competitors without establishing their own. The truth is, neither the colonists nor Mason and Harrison ever had any deed or title to those lands from Sassacus or his heirs; their deeds spring from Uncas, already mentioned, a rebel subject of Sassacus, without any royal blood in his veins. Nevertheless, Mr. Neal, and others, who have written histories of New England, have taken especial care to vindicate the justice of the settlers, who always, they say, conscientiously purchased their lands of the sachems. I have given the reader some idea of the purchases of the first colonizers in Connecticut, who by their iniquitous act of making Sachems have entailed lawsuits without end on their posterity; for there is not one foot of land in the whole province which is not covered by ten deeds granted by ten different nominal sachems to ten different persons; and, what aggravates the misfortune, the courts of justice differ every session concerning the true sachem, so that what a plaintiff recovers at a hearing before one jury, he loses upon a rehearing before another. Enough, surely, has been said to nullify the colonists’ plea for having bought their lands from the Indians.