A significant, secretly conducted movement, of which historians have taken but little account, was now in progress under the manipulation of Virginia's royal governor. As early as 1770 Dr. John Connolly proposed the establishment of an extensive colony south of the Ohio; and the design of securing such territory from the Indians found lodgment in the mind of Lord Dunmore. But this design was for the moment thwarted when on October 28, 1773, an order was issued from the Privy Council chamber in Whitehall granting an immense territory, including all of the present West Virginia and the land alienated to Virginia by Donelson's agreement with the Cherokees (1772), to a company including Thomas Walpole, Samuel Wharton, Benjamin Franklin, and others. This new colony, to be named "Vandalia," seemed assured. A clash between Dunmore and the royal authorities was imminent; for Virginia under her sea-to-sea charter claimed the vast middle region of the continent, extending without known limit to west and northwest. Moreover, Dunmore was interested in great land speculations on his own account; and while overtly vindicating Virginia's claim to the trans-Alleghany by despatching parties of surveyors to the western wilderness to locate and survey lands covered by military grants, he with the collusion of certain members of the "Honourable Board," his council, as charged by Washington, was more than "lukewarm," secretly restricting as rigorously as he dared the extent and number of the soldiers' allotments. According to the famous Virginia Remonstrance, he was in league with "men of great influence in some of the neighboring states" to secure, under cover of purchases from the Indians, large tracts of country between the Ohio and the Mississippi. [139] In shaping his plans Dunmore had the shrewd legal counsel of Patrick Henry, who was equally intent upon making for himself a private purchase from the Cherokees. It was Henry's legal opinion that the Indiana purchase from the Six Nations by the Pennsylvania traders at Fort Stanwix (November 5, 1768) was valid; and that purchase by private individuals from the Indians gave full and ample title. [140] In consequence of these facts, William Murray, in behalf of himself and his associates of the Illinois Land Company, and on the strength of the Camden-Yorke decision, purchased two large tracts, on the Illinois and Ohio respectively, from the Illinois Indians (July 5, 1773); and in order to win the support of Dunmore, who was ambitious to make a fortune in land speculation, organized a second company, the Wabash (Ouabache) Land Company, with the governor as the chief share-holder. In response to Murray's petition on behalf of the Illinois Land Company, Dunmore (May, 1774) recommended it to Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and urged that it be granted; and in a later letter he disingenuously disclaimed any personal interest in the Illinois speculation.