It being late in the season for a conference with the Sachems of the Long House and the New York Assembly being in the "height of its business and like to make a larger session than ordinary," Spotswood arranged, through the Governor of New York, preliminary negotiations with the Indians and returned to his Virginia. The discussions thus begun dragged along during the ensuing five years. At length, in 1721, the Iroquois sent their representatives to Williamsburg with more definite proposals and in May, 1722, the General Assembly passed an act reciting in detail the terms on which the treaty would be made.[8] Later in the summer Spotswood, with certain of his Council, went to New York on a man-of-war and thence proceeding to Albany (where he was joined by the Governor of Pennsylvania) the new treaty was closed after the usual endless speech making and other ceremony. By its terms the Iroquois were prohibited from ever again crossing the Potomac or the Blue Ridge "without the license or passport of the Governor or commander-in-chief of the province of New York, for the time being"; and the Virginia tributary Indians were similarly prohibited from crossing the same boundaries. Moreover, there were provisions that should any Indians--Iroquois or tributary--ignore the prohibition, they were, upon capture and conviction, to be punishable by death or transportation to the West Indies, there to be sold as slaves. There was added a clause rewarding him who captured an Indian found in Virginia without permission, with 1,000 pounds of tobacco when the latter should be condemned to death; or, if he should be condemned to transportation, the captor should "have the benefit of selling and disposing of the said Indian, and have and receive to his own use, the money arising from such sale." [8] Hening IV, 103. There was nothing ambiguous in this treaty's terms; the Iroquois in signing it realized that their Piedmont hunting grounds were lost to them and that the sportive raids of their war parties below the Potomac were ended.