At the time when Englishmen made this important movement, Spain and France had already laid claim to extensive tracts of country lying upon the great rivers debouching into the Gulf of Mexico in a southern latitude, and into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in a northern latitude, which ultimately became possessions of the United States, either by purchase or treaty, after our war of independence. Between these two indefinite boundaries the English colonies were located. Wherever the Englishman went he carried his loyalty to his King and his country's laws. His presence on the soil of Virginia made it English soil, conveying to it the sovereignty of England, and the King's right to confirm to him whatever he had already taken, provided both of them together could hold it against the native occupants. [2]The grants from James and Charles I were described in terms more imaginative than accurate, the "South Sea," or Pacific Ocean, being the western limit of some of the earliest charters. But when the thirteen commonwealths on the Atlantic Coast asserted their right and ability to govern themselves, proving it by the arbitrament of the sword, and securing a treaty of peace with the mother country, such discoveries had been made, and so many remained to be made, that it was thought expedient to adopt the apparently natural boundaries of the United States, namely, the Saint Lawrence and Great Lakes on the north, the Mississippi on the west, the Spanish possessions in Florida on the south, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. In 1779, three years after the declaration of independence, and four years before the treaty of peace, the American Congress recommended to the several states in the union to make liberal cessions of their respective claims for the common benefit of the union, including the state making the cession. Thus early did our government assert the principle that the lands not held by occupancy belonged to the people for their use. The people on their side were quite willing to assist the union, burdened as it was with the debt of the revolutionary war, and other claims. But the unsettled boundaries of the several states made it a matter of some difficulty to convey land to the government in definite measure, some of the older grants, like Massachusetts and Connecticut, extending "from sea to sea." Disputes had arisen between the colonies over their boundaries, as when the Dutch had established New Netherlands on the Hudson River, cutting in two the grant of Connecticut. It was not until 1733 that the boundary of New York (formerly New Netherlands), was settled, and Connecticut still claimed the lands west of New York. From Maine to Georgia there were boundaries to be settled.