414 Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1722/3.

            Lib. x.    that the Surveys and Settlements made thereon in right of

                 Pennsylvania by purchases in England above forty years old

                 were made innocently without the least Suspicion that any

                 persons right was invaded by that Settlement and if it prove

                 true that the Local Bounds of it are so uncertain that (as is

              p. 83 alledged) the Lines now Claimed Err by half a mile in their

                 prescribed Distance from Elk River it appears Consonant to

                 reason that those Boundaries when the General Title of the

                 Proprietors to the Lands is setled if they fall to Maryland

                 should be adjusted by disinterested persons and that in the

                 mean time the possessors on pennsylvania rights while they

                 deprive no Marylander of theirs should hold them peacably

                 and be left to make their Terms if the proprietors should fail

                 to make them for them upon the Grand Decision

                   That as it appears that Isaac Taylor was taken by the

                 Officers of Maryland only for Surveying to the Northward of

                 the Line to which this Province (as has been said always

                 Claimed) some certain Lands at the Request of their posses

                 sors that had never been Granted or Surveyed by Maryland

                 and Elisha Gatchell upon an Action Grounded on a Falshood

                 with a design to try them for their Supposed Crimes by a

                 Court of Maryland it is evident that as the whole Controversy

                 turns upon the Boundaries in which neither province can be

                 impartial and therefore are not to be allowed Judges in the

                 Case to press these men to such a tryal is no better than

                 determining it by Force which is inconsistent with all that can

                 be accounted Legal

                   That the Case being the same in General in all these dis

                 putes it is inconsistent with the duty of all those Concern'd

                 in Government to give way to any measures so incompatible

                 with the maintainance of the peace of his Majestys Subjects

                 committed to their care as these proceedings in their nature

                 appear to be that to allow of them wou'd throw both

              p. 84    provinces into a State of Warr the promoters of which must

                 deservedly feel the heavy censures of his Majesty for that the

                 Aggressors must Account for all the ensuing mischief

                   That it is no new thing in America that the Boundaries of

                 two Provinces should lye for many years undetermined those

                 of New York and New Iersey being so to this day yet this

                 Board never heard that Hostilities or what Amounts to them

                 were Committed in such Cases or that Officers were employed

                 to raise Levies by Force on the Settlements of each other

                   Upon these Considerations it is the advice of this Board

                 that the Governor would be pleased to state these matters

                 fully to the Governor of Maryland whose good understand

                 ing and humanity can never approve of such unfriendly (not

                 to say Hostile) proceedings, that the Governor would also be