You may be pleased to know that the very principle & best of the land; the best for soile; the best for situation; as lying in y{e} centre & midle of the town: & as to quantity, nere half, belongs unto eight or 9 proprietors each and every of which, are never like to come to a settlement amongst us, which we have formerly found grievous & doe Judge for the future will be found intollerable if not altered. O{r} minister, Mr. Mather . . . & we ourselves are much discouraged as judging the Plantation will be spoiled if thes proprietors may not be begged, or will not be bought up on very easy terms outt of their Right . . . Butt as long as the maine of the plantation Lies in men's hands that can't improve it themselves, neither are ever like to putt such tenants on to it as shall be likely to advance the good of y{e} place in Civill or sacred Respects; he, ourselves, and all others that think of going to it, are much discouraged.[59:1] Woodstock, later a Connecticut town, was settled under a grant in the Nipmuc country made to the town of Roxbury. The settlers, who located their farms near the trading post about which the Indians still collected, were called the "go-ers," while the "stayers" were those who remained in Roxbury, and retained half of the new grant; but it should be added that they paid the go-ers a sum of money to facilitate the settlement. This absentee proprietorship and the commercial attitude toward the lands of new towns became more evident in succeeding years of the eighteenth century. Leicester, for example, was confirmed by the General Court in 1713. The twenty shares were divided among twenty-two proprietors, including Jeremiah Dummer, Paul Dudley (Attorney-General), William Dudley (like Paul a son of the Governor, Joseph Dudley), Thomas Hutchinson (father of the later Governor), John Clark (the political leader), and Samuel Sewall (son of the Chief Justice). These were all men of influence, and none of the proprietors became inhabitants of Leicester. The proprietors tried to induce the fifty families, whose settlement was one of the conditions on which the grant was made, to occupy the eastern half of the township reserving the rest as their absolute property.[59:2]