Gov. Colden, of New York, on Dec. 28, 1763, issued a proclamation claiming the land thus held under the grants of Wentworth, basing his rights on the grants in 1664 and 1674 to the Duke of York of “all lands from the west side of the Connecticut River to the east side of the Delaware Bay.” On the 20th July, 1764, the king in council confirmed Colden’s view, and made the Connecticut River the boundary as far as 45° north latitude. When this decision reached Wentworth he had already granted 128 townships. New York began to make counter-grants of the same land, and though the king ordered the authorities of New York to desist, when word reached London of the rising conflict, it was the angry people of the grants rather than the royal will which induced the agents of New York to leave the territory. Gov. John Wentworth continued to make grants till the Revolution, on the New Hampshire side; but though Gov. Moore, of New York, had been restrained (1767), his successors had not the same fear of the royal displeasure. As the war approached, the dispute between New York and the grants grew warmer.[434] In 1773 James Duane, it is thought, was the champion of the New York cause in two pamphlets: _A State of the rights of the Colony of New York with respect to its eastern boundary on Connecticut River so far as concerns the late encroachments under the Government of New Hampshire_, published by the assembly (New York, 1773); and _A Narrative of the proceedings subsequent to the Royal Adjudication concerning the lands to the westward of Connecticut river, lately usurped by New Hampshire_ (New York, 1773).[435] The next year (1774) Ethan Allen answered the first of these tracts in his _Brief narrative of the proceedings of the government of New York_. Allen dated at Bennington, Sept. 23, 1774, and his book was published at Hartford.[436]