The history of the town of Litchfield illustrates the increasing importance of the economic factor. At a time when Connecticut feared that Andros might dispose of the public lands to the disadvantage of the colony, the legislature granted a large part of Western Connecticut to the towns of Hartford and Windsor, _pro forma_, as a means of withdrawing the lands from his hands. But these towns refused to give up the lands after the danger had passed, and proceeded to sell part of them.[76:2] Riots occurred when the colonial authorities attempted to assert possession, and the matter was at length compromised in 1719 by allowing Litchfield to be settled in accordance with the town grants, while the colony reserved the larger part of northwestern Connecticut. In 1737 the colony disposed of its last unlocated lands by sale in lots. In 1762 Massachusetts sold a group of entire townships in the Berkshires to the highest bidders.[77:1] But the most striking illustration of the tendency, is afforded by the "New Hampshire grants" of Governor Wentworth, who, chiefly in the years about 1760, made grants of a hundred and thirty towns west of the Connecticut, in what is now the State of Vermont, but which was then in dispute between New Hampshire and New York. These grants, while in form much like other town grants, were disposed of for cash, chiefly to speculators who hastened to sell their rights to the throngs of land-seekers who, after the peace, began to pour into the Green Mountain region. It is needless to point out how this would affect the movement of Western settlement in respect to individualistic speculation in public lands; how it would open a career to the land jobbers, as well as to the natural leaders in the competitive movement for acquiring the best lands, for laying out town sites and building up new communities under "boom" conditions. The migratory tendency of New Englanders was increased by this gradual change in its land policy; the attachment to a locality was diminished. The later years showed increasing emphasis by New England upon individual success, greater respect for the self-made man who, in the midst of opportunities under competitive conditions, achieved superiority. The old dominance of town settlement, village moral police, and traditional class control gave way slowly. Settlement in communities and rooted Puritan habits and ideals had enduring influences in the regions settled by New Englanders; but it was in this Old West, in the years just before the Revolution, that individualism began to play an important role, along with the traditional habit of expanding in organized communities.