The Upper House. 267

Subject matter given them in Charge and Do represent that
it appeareth to this Comittee upon Inspection into the several
papers laid before us that Captain John Rider and M^r Isaac
Nichols their Cases have been untruly and artfully Repre-
sented unto his Lordship the Lord Proprietary and thereby
Given this further occasion of trouble to the Legislature with
an Unnecessary Additional Charge to large Sums of Money
and Tobacco already Expended upon the frequent Com-
plaints of the Nanticoke and Choptank Indians in relation to
Injurys done them by the English and particularly with regard
to the before mentioned Cases.
This Comittee takes the Liberty of Observing that Captain
Rider hath Insinuated his case as if his Right to the Lands
in Question had been prior to the Indian title by Act of As-
sembly nor doth it indeed appear by the papers laid before us,

U. H. J.

whether the Indians had any right at all to the Lands at
Chicacoan before the time of his purchase and the Demise in
his Case menconed, whereas we find that the Indian titles
according to an Alottment of Lands made them were very
Early preserved either by the Act of the Lord Proprietary
himself or by publick Acts of the Country, but it appeareth
that Captain Riders purchases were made so late as Anno
1713 & 1720 and have reason to believe that the purchase of
Major Hicks under whom he holds by Demise (nothing being
Shewn by Captain Rider to the Contrary) was after the Year
of our Lord 1698 the time of Ascertaining the bounds of the
Indians Lands at Chicacoan according to the papers marked
C. C. and seems to this Committee to be a manifest proof that
Captain Riders purchase [was] under the Circumstance of an
Indian Title and Possession and ought therefore both in Law
and Equity to have waited until their right had Determined
and Devolved upon him according to the provisoe in the
aforesaid Act of Assembly.
We find alsoe the Indians manner of planting and habita-
tion in their Towns to be represented in the Case far Dif-
ferent from the Practice amongst the people who Instead
of being unsetled Ubiquitarians had by themselves together
with the Wicomisses their Subjects Claimed and Inhabited
about Chicacoan Creek anno 1668 as appears Liber H. H.
page 296 but how many years before that time we are not able
to Discover nor is it reasonable to believe that any Desire in
the proprietors of the Land in Question to have their Lands
Clear by the Indians (as it is alledged in the Case) nor there
being Eas'd of the Quit Rents nor much less any Expectation
of the desertion of those Towns, the fixed habitation of the
most potent nations of the Indians on the Eastern Shore

p. 98