In 1783 the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in America was recognized. Fifteen years later on April 7, 1798, Congress passed an act a part of which was as follows: "All that country bounded on the west by the Mississippi river; on the north by a line to be drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo river to the Chattahoochee river; on the east by the river Chattahoochee; and on the south by the thirty-first degree of north latitude, shall be, and hereby is constituted one district, to be called the Mississippi Territory." More than half of this territory is now embraced in the state of Alabama, and the portion that remains to Mississippi constitutes something like one-third of the area of the state. Very little of the boundary of the original territory remains intact, and in so far as Mississippi is concerned all that remains of this original boundary is that around its south west corner, extending from Pearl river along the thirty-first degree of north latitude to the Mississippi river and up that stream to the mouth of the Yazoo river. The lands that have been added to the original territory lie to the north and to the south of it--that added on the north comprises the South Carolina and Georgia cessions, and that on the south a portion of the Louisiana Purchase, or Spanish cession. Before going farther into this subject it is necessary that we examine briefly some of the old grants made by Great Britain for the purpose of stimulating the formation of Colonies in the New World. By such an examination we hope to get a clearer idea of the subject, and how it is that some of the boundaries of our state are where they are. The first of these grants to embrace the territory now in Mississippi was that made by Charles I. to his Attorney General, Sir Robert Heath, in 1629. This grant known as Carolina was possibly the largest ever made to any one individual, covering as it did almost all that part of the United States south of the present southern boundary of Virginia and of Missouri. Mississippi was completely swallowed up in this princely domain. Thirty years later (1659) soon after the death of Oliver Cromwell and about the time of the restoration of the Stuart kings to power in England, this charter for non-user was voided, and in 1663 Charles II. gave to eight of his royal favorites, the Lords Proprietors, a charter to Carolina, and by a supplemental charter two years later (June 30, 1665) granted on the petition of the Lords Proprietors, he extended the territory of Carolina so that its northern boundary was 36 degrees thirty minutes north latitude and its southern 29 degrees north latitude.[81] All of Mississippi was in like manner embraced in this grant. This charter was surrendered to the King by seven of the proprietors, act of Parliament July 25, 1729.[82] It had been one hundred years since the grant to Robert Heath. (The eighth proprietor gave up his claim Sept. 17, 1744.) It was at this time that